Circular grating coupler for creating focused azimuthally and radially polarized beams

We show a planar optical circuit design that takes light from an input waveguide and creates a focused azimuthally or radially polarized beam emanating from the surface of the substrate. It is implemented in silicon-on-insulator waveguides and does not require any external components to focus the beam. The focal spot size can be subwavelength and is potentially useful for lithography, imaging, optical data storage, optical trapping, optical excitation of molecules, or coupling to optical fibers.     

Nematicon waveguides: self-confined beams and their electric control

We investigate the excitation and propagation of self-confined beams and the electric steering of soliton-based optical waveguides in nematic liquid crystalline planar cells. Controlled addressing of a signal is achieved in space by exploiting the electro-optic response of the uniaxial material, employing either uniform or patterned electrodes to alter either the Poynting vector or the wavevector, respectively.     

Liquid-core/liquid-cladding integrated silicon ARROW waveguides

The fabrication and characterization of a liquid-core/liquid-cladding integrated antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide (L²-ARROW) is presented. In this waveguide, the light is confined vertically by the ARROW mechanism, whereas the lateral confinement is obtained by using liquid-core/liquid-cladding (L² waveguides) with different refractive indexes. This approach permits to realize L² waveguides with very low refractive index core (n ≈ 1.333) and represents a new solution to solve the difficulty to reduce the optical losses in 2D-ARROWs due to the TM polarization in lateral direction. The device has been fabricated with standard silicon technology. The results show that the optical properties can be tuned by changing the type and the flow velocity of the core and the cladding liquids.     

Fluorescence monitoring of microchip capillary electrophoresis separation with monolithically integrated waveguides

Using femtosecond laser writing, optical waveguides were monolithically integrated into a commercial microfluidic lab-on-a-chip device, with the waveguides intersecting a microfluidic channel. Continuous-wave laser excitation through these optical waveguides confines the excitation window to a width of 12 microm, enabling high-resolution monitoring of the passage of different types of fluorescent analytes when migrating and being separated in the microfluidic channel by microchip capillary electrophoresis. Furthermore, we demonstrate on-chip-integrated waveguide excitation and detection of a biologically relevant species, fluorescently labeled DNA molecules, during microchip capillary electrophoresis. Well-controlled plug formation as required for on-chip integrated capillary electrophoresis separation of DNA molecules, and the combination of waveguide excitation and a low limit of detection, will enable monitoring of extremely small quantities with high spatial resolution.     

Sensitivity of prismatic integrated optical sensors under nearly critical conditions

The sensitivity of integrated optical sensors based on prismatic excitation of planar waveguides is analyzed. It is shown that the sensitivity peak is attained when the waveguide modes are excited under nearly critical conditions.     

Integrated optical biosensor for detection of multivalent proteins

We have developed a simple, highly sensitive and specific optical waveguide sensor for the detection of multivalent proteins. The optical biosensor is based on optically tagged glycolipid receptors embedded within a fluid phospholipid bilayer membrane formed upon the surface of a planar optical waveguide. Binding of multivalent cholera toxin triggers a fluorescence resonance energy transfer that results in a two-color optical change that is monitored by measurement of emitted luminescence above the waveguide surface. The sensor approach is highly sensitive and specific and requires no additional reagents and washing steps. Demonstration of protein-receptor recognition by use of planar optical waveguides provides a path forward for the development of fieldable miniaturized biosensor arrays.     

New method for calculating the spectra and radiation losses of leaky waves in multilayer optical waveguides

The efficiency of a new method for calculating the spectrum and attenuation coefficient of leaky electromagnetic modes is demonstrated with multilayer planar optical waveguides the guiding properties of which are determined by antiresonant reflection from the multilayer cladding (antiresonant reflecting optical waveguides) rather than by total internal reflection from the core-cladding interface as in standard optical waveguides. The new method applies to calculation of both electromagnetic modes in dielectric waveguides and electron quantum states in multibarrier semiconductor heterostructures. The characteristics of multilayer waveguides calculated by the new method are compared with published data obtained from a complex dispersion relation by the transfer matrix method. As an example, the wavelength dependence of the radiation losses for the first TE mode of a planar optical waveguide containing 52 pairs of layers is calculated.     

Fabrication and study of a metal-clad planar waveguide based biosensor

A metal-clad planar optical waveguide biosensor having five layer structure has been fabricated to study the detection of Pseudomonas and Pseudomonas-like bacteria. This waveguide is designed to increase the overlap of the evanescent field extension from the sensor face with the micro-scale biological objects in the bulk solution, to place most of the entire volume of the bacteria within the evanescent field. The results presented here leads to a significant optimization of the important design parameters to sense micro-scale biological objects. We have compared our computed results with the results obtained by similar non-metallic clad biosensor. The effect of affinity-layer refractive index on the sensitivity of these planar waveguides is also studied. We have shown this for some special cases by obtaining reflection dips at the particular angle of incidence. Our observations show that the metal-clad planar optical waveguide biosensor having higher affinity refractive index will give better sensitivity than other similar non-metallic clad biosensor. The validation of metal-clad planar optical waveguide sensor for the detection of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium is also made.     

Control of birefringence using polymer as cladding layer in optical planar waveguides

We demonstrate theoretically that a polymer layer, when used as cladding layer for silica-based planar optical waveguides on a silicon substrate, can substantially reduce birefringence. Multilayer planar optical waveguides usually exhibit stresses that are caused by thermal-induced strains that originate from the bonding of the layers, in addition to intrinsic strains. Effect of various intrinsic properties on thermal stress as a function of thickness of the guiding layer is studied. It is shown that it is possible to achieve the thermal stress free and, hence, the stress-induced birefringence free waveguide devices by proper waveguide designs.     

Modes in buried planar optical waveguides with graded-index profiles

The refractive index profile of buried graded-index planar optical waveguides fabricated by ion migration can be described by a buried secant hyperbolic function. Using such a profile, we have obtained the exact propagation characteristics for such buried optical waveguides. We have also shown that profiles which deviate slightly from the above profile can be treated as perturbations and a first-order perturbation correction gives very accurate results.     

Interference effect in scattering loss of high-index-contrast planar waveguides caused by boundary reflections

We present theoretical and experimental results on an interference effect caused by boundary reflections on the optical scattering loss in high-index-contrast planar waveguides. Analytical expressions for the polarization-dependent scattering loss are derived using a surface Green's function. For high-index-contrast waveguides of submicrometer dimensions a significant deviation from accepted theory arises, including scattering loss suppression owing to a thin-film interference effect. Our theoretical predictions are confirmed by loss measurements on silicon-on-insulator channel waveguides.     

溶胶-凝胶法制备SiO2-TiO2平板光波导工艺研究

采用溶胶-凝胶法制备了SiO₂-TiO₂平板光波导,计算了平板光波导通光条件,分析了硅/钛溶胶-凝胶材料的热性能,观测了平板光波导的结构形貌,并测试了其通光损耗。结果表明：经过200℃,30 min干燥处理的凝胶薄膜呈疏松多孔状态,对于非对称平板波导,存在芯层通光截止厚度,而且当SiO₂-TiO₂芯层厚度为0.5 μm时,SiO₂下包层厚度至少有6 μm才能防止1550 nm波长光泄露入单晶硅衬底中。制备的光波导对于1550 nm波长光传输损耗最小值为0.34 dB/cm。     

Design for broadband high-efficiency grating couplers

In this Letter, we propose general optimization methods to design broadband high-efficiency grating couplers for planar waveguides. We attribute the coupling bandwidth to the mismatch of effective indices between the diffracted beam and the actual grating structure around the operation wavelength for fiber to waveguide excitation. The coupling bandwidth formula is deduced. A simple parameter-separate optimization procedure is proposed for general layered grating couplers for high coupling efficiency. Using our principle, we optimized a grating coupler for a horizontal slot waveguide operating at wavelength 1.55 μm for TM polarization. The grating coupler has 1 dB bandwidth of 60 nm and coupling efficiency of 65% with incident light from single-mode optical fiber (SMF) at 8°.     

Spatial Optical Solitons in Planar Waveguides Based on Electrooptical Crystals

The characteristics of spatial optical solitons in planar waveguides based on electrooptical crystals can differ essentially from the corresponding characteristics for a three-dimensional medium. The main experimental findings relating to the effects of the formation of spatial optical solitons and their interaction in optical waveguides in lithium niobite and strontium – barium niobite crystals at very low light intensities are discussed.     

Two-component spatial optical solitons in a four-state ladder system via electromagnetically induced transparency

We propose a scheme to generate two-component spatial optical solitons in a lifetime broadened four state atomic system with a ladder configuration via electromagnetically induced transparency. We show that, different from the schemes using passive optical media such as photorefractives and planar waveguides, the two-component spatial optical solitons in the present coherent resonant system can be produced with very low light intensity. The stability of the two-component spatial optical solitons and their interaction are also investigated by numerical simulations.     

On determination of refractive index profile in optical waveguides formed by ion implantation

We report a refinement of the Fermi function approximation to compute the Refractive Index Profile of optical waveguides formed by ion implantation. The computation is carried out at an exact value of the phase step at the upper boundary of a planar optical waveguide with allowances for the perturbative influence of the prism coupling element. It is shown that under real experimental conditions the method can be simplified and is applicable to the low-mode waveguides.     

液芯光纤共振拉曼光谱法检测水中生物分子研究

拉曼光谱是研究水中生物分子重要的有效方法之一,然而由于拉曼散射截面小,特别是水分子的电子激发态能级高,因此水中生物分子的拉曼光谱测量甚为困难。将液芯光纤技术和共振拉曼技术结合起来,可大幅度提高拉曼光谱强度。实验中用可以获得最大的共振拉曼光谱强度的514.5 nm Ar+离子激光激发,分别用石英和Teflon液芯光纤对水中β-胡萝卜素生物分子进行了痕量检测研究。结果表明应用石英液芯光纤和Teflon液芯光纤可分别检测浓度为10-7～10-9mol·L-1和10-9～10-10mol·L-1的β-胡萝卜素。     

Silicon nanocrystals in silica—Novel active waveguides for nanophotonics

Nanophotonic structures combining electronic confinement in nanocrystals with photon confinement in photonic structures are potential building blocks of future Si-based photonic devices. Here, we present a detailed optical investigation of active planar waveguides fabricated by Si⁺-ion implantation (400 keV, fluences from 3 to 6×10¹⁷ cm⁻²) of fused silica and thermally oxidized Si wafers. Si nanocrystals formed after annealing emit red-IR photoluminescence (PL) (under UV-blue excitation) and define a layer of high refractive index that guides part of the PL emission. Light from external sources can also be coupled into the waveguides (directly to the polished edge facet or from the surface by applying a quartz prism coupler). In both cases the optical emission from the sample facet exhibits narrow polarization-resolved transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes instead of the usual broad spectra characteristic of Si nanocrystals. This effect is explained by a theoretical model which identifies the microcavity-like peaks as leaking modes propagating below the waveguide/substrate boundary. We present also permanent changes induced by intense femtosecond laser exposure, which can be applied to write structures like gratings into the Si-nanocrystalline waveguides. Finally, we discuss the potential for application of these unconventional and relatively simple all-silicon nanostructures in future photonic devices.     

Prism-based multicolor fluorescence correlation spectrometer

We report the design and application of a prism-based detection system for fluorescence (cross) correlation spectroscopy. The system utilizes a single laser wavelength for the simultaneous excitation of several dyes of different emission spectra. Fluorescence light is spectrally separated with a prismatic setup, and wavelengths are selected by scanning a fiber-coupled avalanche photodiode across the image spots. Multicolor autocorrelations are demonstrated with standard and tandem dyes, and fluorescence cross-correlation measurements of biotinylated nanocontainers and streptavidin are presented. This spectrometer offers high optical stability and no focal volume mismatch for the multicolor detection of molecular dynamics and interactions, with single-molecule sensitivity.     

基于等效衰减矢方法的非均匀光波导色散方程

利用转换矩阵理论和等效衰减矢的概念，以此为根据分析了任意折射率分布平板波导的模式传输特性，导出了意义明确的非均匀平板波导的色散方程的严格的解析解，并指出了ＷＫＢ法的局限性，数值计算的结果表明本文所得公式的结果和严格的数值解非常接近，表明本文所得的公式是严格的。