High Thermo-optic Coefficient Research Articles

Ultrahigh-sensitive temperature sensor based on modal interference in a metal-under-clad ridge waveguide with a polymer upper cladding.

We propose a highly sensitive temperature sensor based on modal interference in a metal-under-clad ridge waveguide (MUCRW) with polydimethylsiloxane as the upper cladding. The proposed sensor exploits the interference between the fundamental and the first higher order TE modes of the MUCRW. The increased fractional modal power in the ambient medium due to the metal under-cladding along with the high thermo-optic coefficient of the upper cladding results in a very significant change in the modal characteristics of the two interfering modes with temperature variation. Moreover, the effect of temperature change is more pronounced for the higher order mode compared with the fundamental mode, resulting in an ultrahigh sensitivity of the modal interference to the ambient temperature. The sensitivity of the proposed sensor structure is found to be as high as 8.35 nm/°C, which, to the best of our knowledge, is the highest reported sensitivity in any integrated optic waveguide-based temperature sensor.

Surface Plasmon Resonance-Based Optical Fiber Embedded in PDMS for Temperature Sensing

A compact, simple-to-fabricate, low-cost, and highly sensitive optical fiber temperature sensor based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is reported. The sensor consists of a core mismatch fiber structure fabricated by splicing a small piece of single-mode fiber (SMF) between two multimode fibers (MMF). SPR is generated when evanescent field interacts with the gold layer deposited over the SMF cladding. Then, the sensor was embedded in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), which acts as a temperature to refractive index transducer. Due to PDMS high thermooptic coefficient, the SPR dip underwent a noticeable wavelength shift when a variation of temperature occurred. The device was tested in the 20–60 °C range showing a linear response and a sensitivity of 2.60 nm/°C. This sensor is appealing for temperature monitoring in microfluidic devices made of PDMS due to its high performance and simply fabrication process.

High sensitivity D-shaped hole fiber temperature sensor based on surface plasmon resonance with liquid filling

A high sensitivity D-shaped hole double-cladding fiber temperature sensor based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is designed and investigated by a full-vector finite element method. Within the D-shaped hole double-cladding fiber, the hollow D-section is coated with gold film and then injected in a high thermo-optic coefficient liquid to realize the high temperature sensitivity for the fiber SPR temperature sensor. The numerical simulation results show that the peaking loss of the D-shaped hole double-cladding fiber SPR is hugely influenced by the distance between the D-shaped hole and fiber core and by the thickness of the gold film, but the temperature sensitivity is almost insensitive to the above parameters. When the thermo-optic coefficient is −2.8×10−4/°C, the thickness of the gold film is 47 nm, and the distance between the D-shaped hole and fiber core is 5 μm, the temperature sensitivity of the D-shaped hole fiber SPR sensor can reach to −3.635 nm/°C.

Simple Nanoimprinted Polymer Nanostructures for Uncooled Thermal Detection by Direct Surface Plasmon Resonance Imaging.

We experimentally demonstrate the uncooled detection of long wavelength infrared (IR) radiation by thermal surface plasmon sensing using an all optical readout format. Thermal infrared radiation absorbed by an IR-sensitive material with high thermo-optic coefficient coated on a metal grating creates a refractive index change detectable by the shift of the supported surface plasmon resonance (SPR) measured optically in the visible spectrum. The interface localization of SPR modes and optical readout allow for submicrometer thin film transducers and eliminate complex readout integrated circuits, respectively, reducing form factor, leveraging robust visible detectors, and enabling low-cost imaging cameras. We experimentally present the radiative heat induced thermo-optic action detectable by SPR shift through imaging of a thermal source onto a bulk metal grating substrate with IR-absorptive silicon nitride coating. Toward focal plane array integration, a route to facile fabrication of pixelated metal grating structures by nanoimprint lithography is developed, where a stable polymer, parylene-C, serves as an IR-absorptive layer with a high thermo-optic coefficient. Experimental detection of IR radiation from real thermal sources imaged at infinity is demonstrated by our nanoimprinted polymer-SPR pixels with an estimated noise equivalent temperature difference of 21.9 K.

Silicone rubber-coated highly sensitive optical fiber sensor for temperature measurement

A silicone rubber-coated Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is proposed and applied to temperature measurement. The MZI is fabricated by splicing single mode fiber between a short section of no-core fiber (NCF) and the ultra-abrupt taper region. The sensing length of MZI is coated with liquid silicone rubber to enhance the temperature sensitivity. Here, NCF is used to excite the higher order cladding mode, the ultra-abrupt taper region acts as a optical fiber coupler, and the silicone rubber coating on sensing length is used as solid cladding material instead of liquid. The enhancement of the sensitivity of a device is due to the high refractive index (1.42) and thermo-optic coefficient (−1.4×10−4/°C) of silicone rubber as compared to liquid cladding temperature sensors. The experiment was performed for both coated and uncoated MZI and the results were compared. The MZI exhibits a high temperature sensitivity of 253.75 and 121.26 pm/°C for coated and uncoated sensing probes, respectively, in the temperature range from 30°C to 75°C.

Highly sensitive temperature sensor based on an isopropanol-filled photonic crystal fiber long period grating

Abstract A high sensitivity measurement method for temperature has been proposed and investigated based on an isopropanol-filled photonic crystal fiber long period grating (PCF-LPG). Due to the high thermo-optic coefficient (TOC) of isopropanol, the sensitivity of the proposed temperature sensor could be effectively improved by filling isopropanol in the air waveguides of PCF. It can be found that the resonant dip will be split in two dips after filling isopropanol and the two dips have different sensitivities to surrounding temperature. Because of PCF-LPG is sensitive to the refractive index (RI) of internal filled liquid, the isopropanol-filled PCF-LPG temperature sensor has a high sensitivities of 1.356 nm/°C in the range of 20–50 °C. The simplicity and the excellent performance of our proposed device make it potential for the applications of high-precision temperature measurement is required.

Programmable long-period grating in a liquid core optical fiber.

A programmable fiber long-period grating (LPG) is experimentally demonstrated in a liquid core optical fiber with a low insertion loss. The LPG is dynamically formed by a temperature gradient in real time through a micro-heater array. The transmission spectrum of the LPG can be completely reconfigured by digitally changing the grating period, index contrast, length, and design. The phase shift inside the LPG can also be readily defined to enable advanced spectrum shaping. Owing to the high thermo-optic coefficient of the liquid core, it is possible to achieve high coupling efficiencies with driving powers as low as a few tens of milliwatts. The proposed thermo-programmable device provides a potential design solution for dynamic all-fiber optics components.

Thermo-tunable hybrid photonic crystal fiber based on solution-processed chalcogenide glass nanolayers.

The possibility to combine silica photonic crystal fiber (PCF) as low-loss platform with advanced functional materials, offers an enormous range of choices for the development of fiber-based tunable devices. Here, we report a tunable hybrid silica PCF with integrated As2S3 glass nanolayers inside the air-capillaries of the fiber based on a solution-processed glass approach. The deposited high-index layers revealed antiresonant transmission windows from ~500 nm up to ~1300 nm. We experimentally demonstrate for the first time the possibility to thermally-tune the revealed antiresonances by taking advantage the high thermo-optic coefficient of the solution-processed nanolayers. Two different hybrid fiber structures, with core diameter 10 and 5 μm, were developed and characterized using a supercontinuum source. The maximum sensitivity was measured to be as high as 3.6 nm/°C at 1300 nm. The proposed fiber device could potentially constitute an efficient route towards realization of monolithic tunable fiber filters or sensing elements.

Highly Sensitive Temperature Fiber Sensor Based on Mach-Zehnder Interferometer

ABSTRACTWe propose a highly sensitive temperature fiber sensor based on a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI). The MZI is composed of a piece of no-core fiber (NCF), a single-mode fiber (SMF), and a fiber taper (FT) structure. To accomplish high sensitivity, the component was immersed in a material with high thermo-optic coefficient (TOC). The experimental results showed that a high temperature sensitivity of 1.56 nm/°C was achieved for surrounding material with a refractive index (RI) of 1.45. The presented sensor has numerous advantages, for instance, extremely high sensitivity, easy fabrication, simple structure, compact size, and in-line applications.

Sensitivity-enhanced temperature sensor based on PDMS-coated long period fiber grating

A sensitivity-enhanced temperature sensor based on a poly-dimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-coated long period fiber grating (LPFG) has been proposed and experimentally investigated. By embedding the LPFG in a temperature-sensitive elastomeric polymer, the temperature sensitivity of the proposed sensor could be effectively improved by 4 times higher than those of the conventional bare LPFG sensors due to the high thermo-optic coefficient (TOC) of PDMS. It can be found that the temperature sensitivities of higher-order modes are higher than those of lower-order modes by analyzing transmission spectra characteristics of the sensor. Because of LPFG is sensitive to surrounding refractive index (RI), the PDMS-coated LPFG will have a high temperature sensitivities of 255.4pm/°C in the range of 20–80°C. Due to the high measurement resolution of 0.078°C, the sensor is promising to be applied to the fields that high-precision temperature measurement is required.

Optical fiber temperature sensor based on a microcavity with polymer overlay.

An ultracompact, cost-effective, and highly accurate fiber optic temperature sensor is proposed and demonstrated. The sensing head consists of Fabry-Perot microcavity formed by an internal mirror made of a thin titanium dioxide (TiO2) film and a microscopic segment of single-mode fiber covered with Poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). Due to the high thermo-optic coefficient of PDMS the reflectance of the fiber-PDMS interface varies strongly with temperature which in turn modifies the amplitude of the interference pattern. To quantify the changes of the latter we monitored the visibility of the interference pattern and analyzed it by means of the fast Fourier transform. Our sensor exhibits linear response, high sensitivity, and response time of 14 seconds. We believe that the microscopic dimensions along with the performance of the sensor here presented makes it appealing for sensing temperature in PDMS microfluidic circuits or in biological applications.

Fluorinated star-shaped block copolymers: Synthesis and optical properties

Tetrakis(4-(1-bromoethyl)phenyl)silane is synthesized and utilized to initiate the atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of methyl methacrylate (MMA) to generate bromo-terminated four-armed PMMA macroinitiators, which further initiate the ATRP of methylacryloyloxyl-2-hydroxypropyl perfluorooctanoate (FGOA) to create fluorinated star-shaped block copolymers PMMA-b-poly(FGOA)s with fluorine content ranging from 0 to 31.7 wt %. The polymerizations are well controlled with the polydispersity indices <1.30. The polymers readily dissolve in common organic solvents and show good film-formation. Compared with the nonfluorinated sample, the fluorinated films exhibit significantly increased water contact angles owing to the enrichment of fluorine on the surface. The enhanced hydrophobicity is advantageous for the optical stability when the devices work under a moist environment. Moreover, the films possess high thermo-optic coefficients, tunable refractive indices, and extremely low birefringence coefficients because of the presence of bulky and rigid tetraphenylsilane core and star-shaped topological structure, showing potential application in optical waveguide devices. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2016, 54, 1969–1977

Highly Sensitive Surface Plasmon Resonance-based Optical Fiber Multi-parameter Sensor

We proposed and demonstrated a compact, simple-to-construct and highly sensitive optical fiber sensor capable of simultaneously measuring refractive index (RI) and temperature (T) based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect. The device structure consists of a single mode fiber (SMF) spliced between two multimode fibers where whole SMF was coated with chromium and gold. The thicknesses of the layers of chromium and the gold were 5 nm and 30 nm, respectively. By covering half of the sensing region of the device with a polymer with high thermo-optic coefficient (TOC), it is feasible to detect RI and T changes with sensitives of 2664.540 nm/RIU and -2.852 nm/°C, respectively.

Highly Sensitive Temperature Sensor Based on a Polymer-Coated Microfiber Interferometer

A simple-to-fabricate and highly sensitive optical fiber temperature sensor is presented. The device consists of an optical microfiber mode interferometer embedded in a polymer with high thermo-optic coefficient which is also used as a packaging material. Temperature modifies the refractive index of the polymer, hence the phase difference between the interfering modes, which results in a prominent wavelength shift of the interference pattern. The sensor was tested in the 20 °C–48 °C range. The temperature sensitivity was found to be 3101.8 pm/°C. The simplicity and the performance of our device make it attractive for several applications.

Temperature Fiber Sensors Based on Mach–Zehnder Interferometer With Sturdy Structure

This paper presents a highly sensitive and in-line temperature fiber sensor based on Mach-Zehnder interferometer with material overlay. The sensor is constructed using a section of single-mode fiber sandwiched between a no-core fiber and a waist-enlarged taper and immersed in a material with high thermo-optic coefficient. The experimental results indicated that a high temperature sensitivity of 0.825 nm/°C was accomplished for surrounding material with the refractive index of ~1.45. The proposed sensor has numerous merits of in-line applications, high sensitivity, easy fabrication, simple structure, compact size, and furthermore, the structure is sturdy due to its high mechanical strength.

Thermo-optic devices on polymer platform

Optical polymers possess in general relatively high thermo-optic coefficients and at the same time low thermal conductivity, both of which make them attractive material candidates for realizing highly efficient thermally tunable devices. Over the years, various thermo-optic components have been demonstrated on polymer platform, covering (1) tunable reflectors and filters as part of a laser cavity, (2) variable optical attenuators (VOAs) as light amplitude regulators in e.g. a coherent receiver, and (3) thermo-optic switches (TOSs) allowing multi-flow control in the photonic integrated circuits (PICs). This work attempts to review the recent progress on the above mentioned three component branches, including linearly and differentially tunable filters, VOAs based on 1×1 multimode interference structure (MMI) and Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI), and 1×2 TOS based on waveguide Y-branch, driven by a pair of sidelong placed heater electrodes. These thermo-optic components can well be integrated into larger PICs: the dual-polarization switchable tunable laser and the colorless optical 90° hybrid are presented in the end as examples.

High-Sensitivity Temperature Sensor Based on a Selectively-Polymer-Filled Two-Core Photonic Crystal Fiber In-Line Interferometer

A highly sensitive temperature sensor based on an all-fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer using a selectively polymer-filled two-core photonic crystal fiber is experimentally demonstrated. The sensor fiber was made by the manual gluing and subsequent infiltration of polymer; the cladding air holes surrounding one core were selectively filled with a polymer material with a high thermo-optic (TO) coefficient while leaving those of the other core unfilled, and this led to the large TO mismatch between two cores. It was found from measurements that a very high temperature sensitivity of 1.595 nm/°C could be achieved, which was more than two orders of magnitude higher than that of the sensor fiber before the selective filling process.

Fiber Optic Temperature Sensor Based on Amplitude Modulation of Metallic and Semiconductor Nanoparticles in a Liquid Crystal Mixture

The response of an amplitude modulation temperature sensor based on a liquid crystal doped with either metallic or semiconductor nanoparticles has been theoretically analyzed. The effects of the concentration, the type of nanoparticle material, and liquid crystal compound have been studied in detail. The high sensitivity of light resonances to refraction index changes, in collaboration with the high thermooptic coefficients of liquid crystal materials, has resulted in the design of an optical fiber sensor with high temperature sensitivity. This sensitivity has been demonstrated to be dependent on nanoparticle concentration. A maximum theoretical sensitivity of 64 × 10–2 dB/°C has been observed. Moreover, the sensitivity is highly linear with a regression coefficient of 99.99%.

Ultracompact and Low-Power Plasmonic MZI Switch Using Cyclomer Loading

We present a 2 × 2 hybrid silicon-plasmonic thermooptic (TO) asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometric (MZI) switch having only 40-μm long active cyclomer-loaded plasmonic phase arms. It requires less than 12 mW of power and has 2/5-μs ON/OFF-times, respectively, a modulation depth higher than 90% and a 13.2-dB extinction ratio. Data traffic evaluation has been carried out using 10-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero streams, yielding error-free operation at both switching states with power penalties ranging between 1 to 4.8 dB. The use of the cyclomer loading having a higher TO coefficient than polymethyl methacrylate has resulted to the smallest footprint among plasmonic MZI TO switches reported so far.

Temperature sensor based on a hybrid ITO-silica resonant cavity.

Integrated optical devices comprised of multiple material systems are able to achieve unique performance characteristics, enabling applications in sensing and in telecommunications. Due to ease of fabrication, the majority of previous work has focused on polymer-dielectric or polymer-semiconductor systems. However, the environmental stability of polymers is limited. In the present work, a hybrid device comprised of an indium tin oxide (ITO) coating on a silicon dioxide toroidal resonant cavity is fabricated. Finite element method simulations of the optical field in the multi-material device are performed, and the optical mode profile is significantly altered by the high index film. The quality factor is also measured and is material loss limited. Additionally, its performance as a temperature sensor is characterized. Due to the high thermo-optic coefficient of ITO and the localization of the optical field in the ITO layer, the hybrid temperature sensor demonstrates a nearly 3-fold improvement in performance over the conventional silica device.