High Index Contrast Optical Waveguides Research Articles

Erratum to: Multi-moded high-index contrast optical waveguide for super-contrast high-resolution label-free microscopy

Article Erratum to: Multi-moded high-index contrast optical waveguide for super-contrast high-resolution label-free microscopy was published on September 5, 2022 in the journal Nanophotonics (volume 11, issue 20).

Multi-moded high-index contrast optical waveguide for super-contrast high-resolution label-free microscopy.

The article elucidates the physical mechanism behind the generation of superior-contrast and high-resolution label-free images using an optical waveguide. Imaging is realized by employing a high index contrast multi-moded waveguide as a partially coherent light source. The modes provide near-field illumination of unlabeled samples, thereby repositioning the higher spatial frequencies of the sample into the far-field. These modes coherently scatter off the sample with different phases and are engineered to have random spatial distributions within the integration time of the camera. This mitigates the coherent speckle noise and enhances the contrast (2-10) × as opposed to other imaging techniques. Besides, the coherent scattering of the different modes gives rise to fluctuations in intensity. The technique demonstrated here is named chip-based Evanescent Light Scattering (cELS). The concepts introduced through this work are described mathematically and the high-contrast image generation process using a multi-moded waveguide as the light source is explained. The article then explores the feasibility of utilizing fluctuations in the captured images along with fluorescence-based techniques, like intensity-fluctuation algorithms, to mitigate poor-contrast and diffraction-limited resolution in the coherent imaging regime. Furthermore, a straight waveguide is demonstrated to have limited angular diversity between its multiple modes and therefore, for isotropic sample illumination, a multiple-arms waveguide geometry is used. The concepts introduced are validated experimentally via high-contrast label-free imaging of weakly scattering nanosized specimens such as extra-cellular vesicles (EVs), liposomes, nanobeads and biological cells such as fixed and live HeLa cells.

Characterization of silicon nanowire by use of full-vectorial finite element method

We have carried out a rigorous H-field-based full-vectorial modal analysis and used it to characterize, more accurately, the abrupt dielectric discontinuity of a high index contrast optical waveguide. The full-vectorial H and E fields and the Poynting vector profiles are described in detail. It has been shown through this work that the mode profile of a circular silicon nanowire is not circular and also contains a strong axial field component. The single-mode operation, vector field profiles, modal hybridness, modal ellipticity, and group velocity dispersion of this silicon nanowire are also presented.

Compact Microracetrack Resonator Devices Based on Small SU-8 Polymer Strip Waveguides

Compact microracetrack resonator (MRR) devices are presented with small SU-8 polymer strip waveguides. The SU-8 strip waveguide has an SU-8 polymer core (n~1.573) , a SiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> buffer (n~1.445), and an air cladding. The fabricated straight waveguide has a low propagation loss of about 0.1 dB/mm. With such a high index-contrast optical waveguide, a compact MRR with a small bending radius (~150 mum) are designed and fabricated. The measured spectral responses of the through/drop ports show a Q-factor of 8000.

High Index Contrast Optical Waveguides and Their Applications to Microring Filter Circuit and Wavelength Selective Switch

Utilizing the small bending radius of high index contrast optical waveguides, ultra-compact optical devices such as waveguide branch, Mach-Zehnder interferometer, arrayed waveguide grating filter, microring resonator filter, and so on can be realized. We have proposed and demonstrated a vertically coupled microring resonator as an Add/Drop filter, and recently realized a hitless wavelength channel selective switch (hitless tunable Add/Drop filter) using Thermo-Optic (TO) effect of double series coupled dielectric microring resonator. Using a high-index dielectric material as the core, the response time was reduced to 105 μs (rise time) and 15 μs (fall time), which are fifteen-fold and hundred-fold faster than that of polymer material, and the reproducibility by the heat cycle test was also improved to less than 0.01 nm. The tuning range of wavelength selective switch was expanded to 13.3 nm using the Vernier effect, and a large extinction ratio of more than 20 dB was realized. In this review, the principle and recent progress of microring resonator based wavelength selective switch will be introduced and some basic switching circuits required to optical cross connect will be discussed.

3-D Full-Vectorial Analysis of Strong Optical Waveguide Discontinuities Using Pade Approximants

A full-vectorial 3-D numerical method applicable to high-index contrast optical waveguide discontinuities is presented. Rigorous treatment of the longitudinal boundary condition is incorporated in the formulation. The square root of the characteristic matrix is approximated using Padeacute approximants which results in an efficient implementation. The biconjugate gradient stabilized method is utilized to iteratively calculate the reflected and transmitted fields. A preconditioner is proposed which results in reduced number of iterations. The proposed method is applied to various optical waveguide facets exhibiting strong transverse and longitudinal refractive index discontinuities. In all cases, the modal reflectivities of the fundamental TE-Like and TM-Like modes are calculated for both the full-vectorial and the semi-vectorial formulations. Significant difference in the calculated modal reflectivity is seen between the full and semi-vectorial models. The error in the power balance remains low in the full-vectorial case irrespective of the waveguide dimensions. However, in the semi-vectorial case, the error in the power balance is found to increase when the waveguide width is reduced