We report on the fabrication of a chirped, phase mask that was used to create a fiber Bragg grating(FBG)device for the compensation of chromatic dispersion in longhaul optical transmission networks.Electron beamlithography was used to expose the grating onto a resist-coated quartz plate. After etching, this phase mask was used to holographically expose an index grating into the fiber core [K. O. Hill, F. Bilodeau, D. C. Johnson, and J. Albert, Appl. Phys. Lett.62, 1035 (1993)]. The linear increase in the grating period, “chirp,” is only 0.55 nm over the 10 cm grating. This is too small to be defined by computer aided design and a digital deflection system. Instead, the chirp was incorporated by repeatedly rescaling the analog electronics used for field size calibration. Special attention must be paid to minimize any field stitching and exposure artifacts. This was done by using overlapping fields in a “voting” method. As a result, each grating line is exposed by the accumulation of three overlapping exposures at 1/3 dose. This translates any abrupt stitching error into a small but uniform change in the line-to-space ratio of the grating. The phase mask was used with the double-exposure photoprinting technique [K. O. Hill, F. Bilodeau, B. Malo, T. Kitagawa, S. Thériault, D. C. Johnson, J. Albert, and K. Takiguchi, Opt. Lett. 19, 1314 (1994)]: a KrF excimer laser holographically imprints an apodized chirped Bragg grating in a hydrogen loaded SMF-28 optical fiber. Our experiments have demonstrated a spectral delay of −1311 ps/nm with a linearity of +/−10 ps over the 3 dB bandwidth of the resonant wavelength of the FBG. The reflectance, centered on 1550 nm, shows a side-lobe suppression of −25 dB. Fabrication processes and optical characterization will be discussed.
The effective indices of the cladding modes of optical fibers depend on the refractive index of the medium surrounding the fiber. We show experimentally and theoretically that while cladding modes with similar effective indices normally have similar refractometric sensitivities, the addition of a 50 nm thick gold sheath enhances the sensitivity of some EH modes by more than one order of magnitude while nearly completely suppressing the sensitivity of neighbouring HE modes (by three orders of magnitude, down to insignificant levels). A differential sensitivity of ∼1000 nm/(refractive index unit) is experimentally reported between adjacent EH and HE grating resonances.
The observation of four-wave mixing (FWM) in single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) deposited around a tilted fiber Bragg grating (TFBG) has been demonstrated. A thin, floating SWCNT film is manually wrapped around the outer cladding of the fiber and FWM occurs between two core-guided laser signals by TFBG-induced interaction of the core mode and cladding modes. The effective nonlinear coefficient is calculated to be 1.8 10 3W -1Km -1. The wavelength of generated idlers is tunable with a range of 7.8 nm.
A photolithographic method is described for fabricating refractive index Bragg gratings in photosensitive optical fiber by using a special phase mask grating made of silica glass. A KrF excimer laser beam (249 nm) at normal incidence is modulated spatially by the phase mask grating. The diffracted light, which forms a periodic, high-contrast intensity pattern with half the phase mask grating pitch, photoimprints a refractive index modulation into the core of photosensitive fiber placed behind, in proximity, and parallel, to the mask; the phase mask grating striations are oriented normal to the fiber axis. This method of fabricating in-fiber Bragg gratings is flexible, simple to use, results in reduced mechanical sensitivity of the grating writing apparatus and is functional even with low spatial and temporal coherence laser sources.
Silica-based thin-film multilayers are investigated as a means to enhance the effective second-order nonlinearity induced in silica glass structures by corona poling. Structures consisting of phosphorus-doped and undoped silica glass layers exhibit second harmonic generation (SHG) that is higher by an order of magnitude compared to the SHG in bulk silica glass poled under the same conditions. When the poled structure consists of two multilayered stacks separated in space, the stacks exhibit comparable poling-induced nonlinearities. This result suggests that the poling voltage is divided between the two stacks such that simultaneous poling of multiple regions within the sample is realized.
Photobleaching of optical absorption bands in the 5 eV region and the creation of others at higher and lower energy have been examined in the case of ArF (6.4 eV) and KrF (5 eV) excimer laserirradiation of 3GeO2:97SiO2glasses. We report a difference in the transformation process of the neutral oxygen monovacancy and also of the germanium lone pair center (GLPC) into electron trap centers associated with fourfold coordinated Ge ions and Ge-E′ centers when we use one or the other laser. Correlations between absorption bands and electron spin resonance signals were made after different steps of laser irradiation. It was found that the KrF laser generates twice as many Ge-E′ centers as the ArF laser for the same dose of energy delivered. The main reason for this difference is found to be the more efficient bleaching of the GLPC (5.14 eV) by the KrF laser compared to that by the ArF laser.
Samples of synthetic fused silica have been implanted at room temperature with silicon ions of energy 1.5 MeV. Fluences ranged from 1011 to 1013 cm−2. Samples were probed using variable‐energy positron annihilation spectroscopy. The Doppler‐broadening S parameter corresponding to the implanted region decreased with increasing fluence and saturated at a fluence of 1013 cm−2. It is shown that the decrease in the S parameter is due to the suppression of positronium (Ps) which is formed in the preimplanted material, due to the competing process of implantation‐induced trapping of positrons. In order to satisfactorily model the positron data it was necessary to account for positron trapping due to defects created by both electronic and nuclear stopping of the implanted ions. Annealing of the 1013 cm−2 sample resulted in measurable recovery of the preimplanted S parameter spectrum at 350 °C and complete recovery to the preimplanted condition at 600 °C. Volume compaction was also observed afterimplantation. Upon annealing, the compaction was seen to decrease by 75%.
We show that the tilted-grating-assisted excitation of surface plasmon polaritons on gold coated single-mode optical fibers depends strongly on the state of polarization of the core-guided light, even in fibers with cylindrical symmetry. Rotating the linear polarization of the guided light by 90° relative to the grating tilt plane is sufficient to turn the plasmon resonances on and off with more than 17 dB of extinction ratio. By monitoring the amplitude changes of selected individual cladding mode resonances we identify what we believe to be a new refractive index measurement method that is shown to be accurate to better than 5 × 10-5.
The conformal coating of a 50 nm-thick layer of copper nanoparticles deposited with pulse chemical vapor deposition of a copper (I) guanidinate precursor on the cladding of a single mode optical fiber was monitored by using a tilted fiber Bragg grating (TFBG) photo-inscribed in the fiber core. The pulse-per-pulse growth of the copper nanoparticles is readily obtained from the position and amplitudes of resonances in the reflection spectrum of the grating. In particular, we confirm that the real part of the effective complex permittivity of the deposited nano-structured copper layer is an order of magnitude larger than that of a bulk copper film at an optical wavelength of 1550 nm. We further observe a transition in the growth behavior from granular to continuous film (as determined from the complex material permittivity) after approximately 20 pulses (corresponding to an effective thickness of 25 nm). Finally, despite the remaining granularity of the film, the final copper-coated optical fiber is shown to support plasmon waves suitable for sensing, even after the growth of a thin oxide layer on the copper surface.
A novel technique for increasing the sensitivity of tilted fibre Bragg grating (TFBG) based refractometers is presented. The TFBG sensor was coated with chemically synthesized silver nanowires 100nm in diameter and several micrometres in length. A 3.5-fold increase in sensor sensitivity was obtained relative to the uncoated TFBG sensor. This increase is associated with the excitation of surface plasmons by orthogonally polarized fibre cladding modes at wavelengths near 1.5μm. Refractometric information is extracted from the sensor via the strong polarization dependence of the grating resonances using a Jones matrix analysis of the transmission spectrum of the fibre.
Single-longitudinal-mode operation of Er3+-P2O5-codoped silica planar waveguide lasers which are equipped with integrated Bragg grating reflectors is demonstrated, with a polarized output of 340 μW at 1546 nm. The gratings are photo-imprinted using 193 nm light exposure through a phase mask in GeO2-free optical waveguides that have been sensitized by H2 loading.
The core refractive index of Corning SMF-28 optical fibre exposed to ArF laser pulses increases with the square of the fluence per pulse. Bragg gratings with a refractive index modulation amplitude higher than 10
-3 have been obtained. This is an order of magnitude improvement over previously reported values for this type of fibre in the absence of treatment to enhance the photosensitivity.
When hydrogen loading is used to enhance the photosensitivity of silica-based optical waveguides and fibres, the presence of molecular hydrogen dissolved in the glass matrix changes the effective index of propagation of guided optical modes by as much as 0.05%. Real-time monitoring of the reflectivity spectrum of Bragg gratings written in such conditions shows that the centre wavelength follows the changes in hydrogen concentration due to diffusion and reaction with glass defects.
An apodized chirped in-fibre Bragg grating that has a linear dispersion characteristic is reported. The frequency components of an optical pulse (centre wavelength 1551 nm; 10 GHz bandwidth) incident on the grating are reflected with a relative delay that varies linearly from 0 to 130 ps across the spectral width of the pulse. The dispersion compensator is used to correct for the dispersion in a 100 km link (nondispersion shifted fibre) operating at a 10 Gbit/s transmission rate and a wavelength of 1551 nm.
An apodized in-fibre Bragg grating reflector is fabricated using the phase mask photoimprinting technique. The reflector has a centre wavelength of 1550 nm, a bandwidth of 0.22 nm and a peak reflectivity of 90%. At 0.4 nm (50 GHz) from the centre wavelength the reflectivity is 40 dB lower than the peak reflectivity; this is an improvement of more than 20 dB over an unapodized Bragg grating reflector with similar bandwidth and peak reflectivity.