We propose a ring shaped sulfide based-chalcogenide photonic crystal fiber (PCF) that supports mono-radial pure vector modes (m=1). It consists of an As2S3 ring PCF composed from an annular core within a central air-hole and a ring of six missing air-holes. The proposed design is found to enforce wavelength independent “doughnut-shaped” mono-annular guided modes. This property is prominent since it opens the possibility to achieve the broadest and purest fiber SC vortex light supported by fiber eigenmodes of the fundamental radial order. By pumping the designed structure at 2.5 μm with 50 fs-5 nJ pulses, the generation of broadband coherent optical vortex supercontinuum in the mid-IR region extending from 1120 to 3650 nm at -20 dB level is obtained. This structure with such mid-IR transmission window provides large nonlinearities and shows to be very promising for SC generation and mode division multiplexing applications by means of OAM modes.
A highly sensitive refractive index sensor based on a fiber in-line Mach–Zehnder interferometer sensor based on single-mode–tapered thin-core–single-mode fiber is proposed. We developed a theoretical model using wide-angle beam propagation method in cylindrical coordinates to simulate light propagation performance of such fiber devices. Tapered structures using different taper geometries (linear, exponential, and parabolic taper) with waist diameters as low as 30 μm are presented. The proposed sensor has an ultrahigh sensitivity of 996.4 nm/refractive index unit in glycerin solution with different concentrations in water using the linear taper geometry. The designed structure presents the merits of high sensitivity, which is 6 times higher than that of the thin-core fiber modal interferometer and makes it an excellent candidate for biochemical sensing applications.
In this paper, we propose the design of fiber optic refractive index sensor based on a thin core fiber, sandwiched between an input and output single mode fibers. This structure is characterized by a refractive index sensitivity about 187.98 nm/RIU (refractive index unit). In order to enhance the sensitivity, we designed a tapered single mode-thin core-single mode fiber structure where the sensitivity with different waist-diameters (90, 60 and 30 μm) is investigated. As a result, we obtained an ultra-high sensitivity of the tapered sensor about 783.19 nm/RIU in the refractive index range of 1.3346-1.3899, using sucrose and water mixture solution, achieved for a waist diameter equal to 30 μm and a taper length of 675μm.The designed structure presents the merits of high sensitivity which is 4 times higher than that of the thin core fiber modal interferometer which makes it an excellent candidate for biochemical sensing applications.
Current optical communication technologies are predicted to face a bandwidth capacity limit in the near future. The nature of the limitation is fundamental rather than technological and is set by nonlinearities in optical fibers. One solution, suggested over 30 years ago, comprises the use of spatial modes of light as information carriers. Along this direction, light beams endowed with orbital angular momentum (OAM) have been demonstrated as potential information carriers in both, free space and fibres. However, recent studies suggest that purely OAM modes does not increase the bandwidth of optical communication systems. In fact, in all work to date, only the azimuthal component of transverse spatial modes has been used. Crucially, all transverse spatial modes require two degrees of freedom to be described; in the context of Laguerre-Gaussian (LGp`) beams these are azimuthal (l) and radial (p), the former responsible for OAM. Here, we demonstrate a technique where both degrees of freedom of LG modes are used as information carrier over free space. We transfer images encoded using 100 spatial modes in three wavelengths as our basis, and employ a spatial demultiplexing scheme that detects all 100 modes simultaneously. Our scheme is a hybrid of MIMO and SMM, and serves as a proof-of-principle demonstration. The cross-talk between the modes is small and independent of whether OAM modes are used or not.
We numerically study the supercontinuum (SC) generation in a six modes photonic crystal fiber (PCF). By solving the multimode generalised Schrdinger equation, we demonstrate the generation of SC by initially exciting the fundamental mode or one of the higher order modes and then observe the energy transfer to the other high order modes. We analyze the energy transfer between degenerate modes during propagation through the few mode PCF. A detailed investigation of the nonlinear effects on the SC process through linear and nonlinear coupling is provided which confirms the energy transfer between optical degenerate modes during propagation inside the few- mode fiber.
In this paper, we propose a design of a high numerical aperture multimode hybrid step-index fiber for mid-infrared (mid-
IR) supercontinuum generation (SCG) where two chalcogenide glass compositions As40Se60 and Ge10As23.4Se66.6 for the
core and the cladding are selected, respectively. Aiming to get accurate modeling of the SCG by the fundamental mode,
we solve the multimode generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equations and demonstrate nonlinear coupling and energy
transfer between high order modes. The proposed study points out the impact of nonlinear mode coupling that should be
taken into account in order to successfully predict the mid-infrared supercontinuum generation in highly nonlinear
multimode fibers.
We report more than two octave spanning mid-IR flat-top supercontinuum (SC) generation using all normal As2S5-borosilicate hybrid photonic crystal fiber. Our design is based on a chalcogenide As2S5 photonic crystal fiber (PCF), where the first ring composed of six air holes is made by borosilicate glass. By injecting 50-fs pulses with 1.6 nJ energy at 2.5 μm in the all normal dispersion (ANDi) regime, a flat-top broadband SC extending from 1 to 5 μm with high-spectral flatness of 8 dB is obtained in only 4-mm fiber length. To the best of our knowledge, we present the broadest flat mid-IR spectrum generated in the ANDi regime of an optical fiber. The self-phase modulation and the optical wave breaking are identified as the main broadening mechanisms. The obtained broadband light source can be potentially used in the field of spectroscopy and in high-resolution optical coherent tomography owing to the high-spectral SC flatness generated by our designed fiber.
In this paper, we propose a design of a multimode step index fiber where the first six modes can propagate simultaneously. We investigate the propagation of six strongly coupled groups of modes which are very important for spatial division multiplexing (SDM) optical communications. We solve numerically the six coupled Manakov equations and we find that fundamental solitons propagating in different groups of modes travelling with the same speed due to spectral shifts for each soliton. This phenomenon is known as soliton trapping and is a consequence of the intermodal nonlinear coupling based on cross phase modulation. This fiber is very promising to increase the capacity of SDM systems by more than a tenfold factor compared to single mode systems.
In this paper, we have calculated the highly efficient generation of the slow light based on the Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in a small core As2Se3 chalcogenide PCF. A Brillouin gain coefficient, gB. of 9.05 10-9 m.W-1 is found around the acoustic frequency of 8.08 GHz in small core diameter of 1.69 μm with 1.5 μm2 effective mode area at 1550 nm. A Brillouin gain of 77.3 dB was achieved with only 10 mW pump power in a 10-m fiber length, which leads to the optical time delay of 94 ns. In terms of the proposed figure of merit, it shows 2.77 dB/mW/m which is about 110 times more efficient than conventional single-mode fibers. These fibers are expected to have potential applications in realization of compact slow light devices.
We numerically demonstrate the supercontinuum (SC) generation in a novel chalcogenide As2S5 nanowire embeddedcore into Tellurite photonic crystal fiber (PCF). This hybrid As2S5-tellurite small core PCF has a pitch of 0.7 μm and air hole diameter of 0.2 μm. It exhibits a zero dispersion wavelength (ZDW) of 3.25 μm with an overall highly engineered group velocity dispersion (GVD) shifted to the mid-IR wavelengths region. By injecting 100 fs hyperbolic-secant input pulses delivered by available tunable optical parametric oscillator (OPO) system at the pump wavelength of 3.389 μm, we obtain a broadband coherent mid-IR SC generated in only 1 mm-long PCF with a peak power of 8.8 kW. An ultralarge mid-IR bandwidth extending from 1000 to 7200 nm is generated with more than 60% of the total power which is available beyond 3 μm. The proposed hybrid PCF structure shows to be very promising for designing new compact, stable and powerful SC fiber laser sources in the long mid-IR wavelength region.
We experimentally demonstrate an information encoding protocol using the two degrees of freedom of Laguerre Gaussian modes having different radial and azimuthal components. A novel method, based on digital holography, for information encoding and decoding using different data transmission scenarios is presented. The effects of the atmospheric turbulence introduced in free space communication is discussed as well.
Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) performances of small core tellurite photonic crystal fibers (PCF) are rigorously studied. We propose a design of tellurite PCF that is used for slow-light-based applications. We developed a two-dimensional finite element mode solver to numerically study the acoustic and optical properties of complex refractive index profiles including tellurite PCF. Our results include the calculation of Brillouin gain spectrum, Brillouin gain coefficient (gB) and Brillouin frequency shift by taking into account the contribution of the higher-order acoustic modes. Several simulations were run by varying the air-filling ratio of various PCF structures to enhance the SBS. The real scanning electron microscope image of a small core of highly nonlinear tellurite fiber is considered. Optimized results show a frequency shift of 8.43 GHz and a Brillouin gain of 9.48×10−11 m/W with a time delay between 21 and 140 ns. Such fibers have drawn much interest because of their capacity for increasing and tailoring the SBS gain.
A novel design of single polarization single mode (SPSM) photonic nanowire is proposed. Using a cladding structure
with circular air holes, a new design of a photonic nanowire with ultra-wideband range of 740 nm for SPSM operation is
obtained. The numerical results show that the SPSM-nanowire is low-loss within the wavelengths ranging from 1.17 μm
to 1.91 μm, the confinement loss of the slow-axis mode is less than 0.15 dB/km and the fast-axis mode is unguided. This
fiber has greater advantages in polarization sensitive applications, such as fiber optic gyroscopes, fiber optic current
sensors, high-power fiber lasers, and coherent optical communications.
Optics and photonics research in Africa has gradually grown in the past ten years with a very active optical community involved in state-of-the-art research. Despite relatively low resources, optics research in the continent is competitive with many international benchmarks and has had a significant impact within the African continent. In the past five years, a group of dynamic students have developed the student chapter network from Tunisia to South Africa. The first student chapters of the optical society of America (OSA) and the international society for optics and photonics (SPIE) were established in South Africa (in the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and in the University of Stellenbosch), followed by a chapter in Tunisia (Engineering school of communications of Tunis, Sup’Com). In this paper, we will present the major activities of the student chapters of Tunisia and South Africa, and how they are promoting optics and photonics in Africa.
We propose a new and versatile design of a directional coupler able to generate and multiplex high order modes in few mode fibers. The designed device can selectively generate five high order modes and multiplex them in a few mode fiber with an overall insertion loss not exceeding 3dB at the telecommunication wavelength λ = 1550 nm. The mode dependent loss is found to be weakly dependent to the wavelength. The proposed device is very promising for high order mode multiplexing and suitable for high bit-rate optical communication systems.
We design tellurite and As2S3-based chalcogenide tapered photonic crystal fibers (TPCF) for broadband mid-infrared coherent supercontinuum (SC) generation in the few optical-cycle-regime. By injecting pre-chirped femtosecond pulses, the soliton self-compression is optimized and then, we show the generation of more than one octave-spanning SC spectra with low input pulse energies in both TPCF having 8 mm-length.
We propose a new design of Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZI) structure assembled with two arms composed of 400nm-diameter-hole-modified silica photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) and immersed in solvent solution. The proposed design is found to enhance considerably the sensitivity. A highly-sensitive versatile interferometry technique is used to determine the phase shift from both arms and consequently the specimen’s information can be retrieved. The proposed sensor was first tested when considering the specimen to be analyzed with different concentrations for a probing light of 325 nm. The sensitivity of detecting the benzene solutions in water reaches 9 rad/μm which is much higher compared to what was achieved in photonic nanowires. Then, the detection of corn oil into olive oil is achieved with high sensitivity of 14.7 rad/μm demonstrating that the sensor is capable of detecting a RI variation of 4×10-7 in only 1-mm sensitive area- length. Thus, the proposed MZI-based PCF-sensor shows to be very attractive for compact, flexible and high sensitive biochemical sensing.
A modified Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) design based on elliptical silica photonic nanowires is proposed and demonstrated numerically. The MZI is used as a highly sensitive evanescent field based refractive index sensor. By applying a full vectorial finite element method, single-mode operation, polarization maintaining and very high sensitivity are achieved by simply using 800 nm-elliptical silica nanowires. Using the highly-sensitive versatile interferometry technique, the phase shift from both arms is determined and consequently the specimen’s information can be retrieved. The proposed sensor is used to determine the refractive index (RI) of NaCl solutions with different concentrations. The sensor is capable of detecting a refractive index variation of the order of 10-6 RI unit with a high sensitivity of 4.2 rad/μm.
We propose a design of tellurite and As2S3-based chalcogenide tapered photonic crystal fibers (TPCF) for broadband coherent mid-infrared supercontinuum (SC) generation in the few-optical-cycle regime. We optimize the soliton self-compression by injecting pre-chirped femtosecond pulses. More than one octave-spanning SC spectra were generated in 8 mm-long in both tellurite and chalcogenide TPCF with low input pulse energies of 1 nJ and 100 pJ at pump wavelengths of 2.9 and 4.7 μm, respectively.
We design tellurite tapered photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) for broadband mid-infrared supercontinuum (SC) generation in
the few-optical-cycle regime. We show that we can move the zero dispersion wavelength (ZDW) beyond 2 μm toward
mid-IR wavelength region by tapering tellurite PCFs. We demonstrate the generation of sub-two-cycle soliton selfcompressed
pulses from 200 fs to 19.1 fs and show more than one octave-spanning coherent SC, extending from 1675 to
3950 nm, generated in 8 mm-long tapered tellurite PCF with low input pulse energy of 1 nJ at 2.9 μm.
Waveguides with sub-wavelength dimensions known as photonic nanowires are among the most attractive optical
structures for ultrafast nonlinear optics. They provide high nonlinearities and allow the generation of cyclical temporal
compression and broadband supercontinuum in few millimeters length. In this work, we numerically investigate the
soliton self-compression in photonic nanowires fabricated by tapering standard single mode fibers. We demonstrate, the
generation of 1.53 fs compressed pulse (ca. 0.57 single optical cycle) from 100 fs input pulse by pumping at low input
pulse energy of 2.5 nJ, a 1.15 mm-long nanowire with a diameter of 800 nm. Thus, broadband supercontinuum spanning
from 260 nm to 1800 nm is generated. Air-silica nanowires present very promising coherent white-light sources and
ideal waveguides for nonlinear applications such as single-cycle pulses generation and optical processing.
Air-silica nanowires present suitable waveguides to enhance nonlinearities and generate cyclical temporal compression
and broadband supercontinuum (SC) in only few millimeters length. We report on the generation of few optical cycles in
air-silica nanowires with core diameters ranging from 400 nm to 900 nm. We show that it is possible to shift the zero
dispersion wavelengths toward a wavelength of about 470 nm. We demonstrate that soliton self-compression of lowenergy
100 fs input pulse down to 1.94 fs is possible by pumping in the anomalous dispersion regime a 570 μm-long 700
nm-core diameter air-silica nanowire. We achieve a very high temporal compression ratio of 51.55 from 100 fs to less
than single optical cycle. We obtain broadband supercontinuum spanning from 260 nm to 1500 nm. By adding one
photon per mode noise with a random phase, a very high degree of coherence over the entire generated supercontinuum
bandwidth is shown.
We report a detailed implementation of a 2-D finite element method that is applied to calculate the stimulated Brillouin
scattering (SBS) characteristics in As2Se3-based chalcogenide photonic crystal fibers (PCF). The full modal analysis of SBS is performed in both real and ideal As2Se3-based PCF structures taking into account the contribution of the higher order acoustic modes. Our results include the calculations of the Brillouin gain spectrum (BGS), Brillouin gain
coefficient (gB), Brillouin frequency shift (BFS), and the Brillouin threshold (Pth). The Pth in the real As2Se3-based chalcogenide PCF is evaluated to be around 36 mW for only 1-m length compared to hundreds of milliwatts found in the
long silica PCF. We calculate, in both structures, a Brillouin gain coefficient of the fundamental acoustic mode of ~5.59
10-9 mW-1 at λ=1.55 μm, around the acoustic frequency of 8.08 GHz, which is more than 600 times higher than that of
fused silica fiber.
We investigated and optimized the process of soliton self-compression in few millimeters-long air-silica nanowires. A 100 fs prechirped input pulse was compressed to a 1.4 fs pulse by pumping at very low energy of 2.5 nJ an air-silica nanowire. More than one octave spanning coherent broadband supercontinuum extending from 260 to 1800 nm was generated.
We propose a real, highly nonlinear, As2Se3-based chalcogenide photonic crystal fiber in which a supercontinuum (SC) spanning more than 2 octaves is generated at =2.8 µm in the femtosecond regime. The designed PCF is characterized for ultrabroadband mid-infrared SC generation in only few millimetres of fiber length. A full modal analysis of the optical properties of the fiber is presented in terms of the effective area, the nonlinearity coefficient, and the chromatic dispersion. A second-order Sellmeier approximation is proposed to estimate the variation of the refractive index of the As2Se3 material as a function of wavelength. The numerical study shows that a SC spanning from 1.9 to 4 µm can be generated in the chalcogenide PCF with an air-hole diameter of 1.26 µm and a pitch of 1.77 µm. We examine the interplay of the nonlinear effects that lead to the construction of the SC as a function of the input power and the fiber length. We find that the dynamics behind the SC generation is mainly ruled by the effects of self phase modulation and stimulated Raman scattering. The intrinsic properties of the chalcogenide glasses and the microstructure provide enhanced optical properties and offer numerous applications in the infrared field.
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