Small Mode Area Research Articles

Absorption saturation measurement using the tapered optical nanofiber in a hot cesium vapor

We report the observation of ultralow-power absorption saturation in a tapered optical fiber (TOF) mounted in a hot cesium (Cs) vapor in a vacuum chamber. The small optical mode area of TOF produces a great influence on optical properties, allowing optical interactions with nanowatt-level power. The comparison of transmission characteristics for the TOF system and free-space vapor is investigated at different input power and atomic density. The unique performance of the Cs-TOF system makes it a promising candidate in resonant nonlinear optical applications with ultralow power.

Compact femtosecond 10 μJ pulse energy fiber laser with a CFBG stretcher and CVBG compressor

Abstract In this work, a compact high energy fiber chirped pulse amplification system with matched pair of a chirped fiber Bragg grating stretcher and a chirped volume Bragg grating compressor is presented. Chirped pulses of 230 ps duration were amplified in a single mode Yb-doped fiber amplifiers to 10 µJ pulse energy and re-compressed to 349 fs duration corresponding to the peak power of 26 MW. Gain saturation was demonstrated when pumping with tandem of single mode laser diodes due to small mode area of the single mode fiber. Such laser source could be used in applications where high peak power is required but moderate average power is sufficient.

All-dielectric bowtie waveguide with deep subwavelength mode confinement

To fulfil both size and power requirements for future photonic integrated circuits, an effective approach is to miniaturize photonic components. Surface plasmon polariton (SPP) is one of the most promising candidates for subwavelength mode confinement, however, structures based on SPP are subject to inevitable high propagation loss. Here, we report an all-dielectric bowtie (ADB) waveguide consisting of two identical silicon wedges embedded in a silica cladding with a nanoscale gap. Because of successive slot and antislot effects, the gap behaves as a 'capacitor-like' energy storage that makes the ADB waveguide have similar or even smaller mode area than the hybrid plasmonic waveguides recently reported. What is more important is that the ADB waveguide supports a quasi-TM eigenmode, which is lossless fundamentally because of no metal constituent. This makes our ADB waveguide have essential development in propagation length compared with the plasmonic waveguide. The ADB waveguide is fully compatible with semiconductor fabrication techniques and could give rise to truly nanoscale semiconductor-based photonics.

Highly Efficient Graphene-Based Optical Modulator With Edge Plasmonic Effect

We report a highly efficient graphene-based modulator by using an edge plasmonic effect in this paper. The modulation efficiency of the proposed modulator can be as large as 1.58 dB/ μ m, which is several times larger than that of previous reported modulators. By enhancing the gap plasmon mode and the edge plasmonic effect in a well-designed diagonal waveguide, a wedge-to-wedge SPP mode is strongly confined in both horizontal and vertical directions in terms of a small mode area $({{A_{eff}}/{A_0} , which significantly improves the light-graphene interaction. A large modulation efficiency of 4.05 dB/ μ m has been obtained after geometry optimization, which is the best values reported in our knowledge. The physical reason for the improvement is explored. We find the sharpness of the waveguide edges has strong impact on the field enhancement and modulation efficiency. Geometry optimization is made to further investigate the enhancement mechanisms and modulation capacities. Our results may promote the development of active nanophotonic devices incorporating two-dimensional materials.

Design of a new family of narrow-linewidth mid-infrared lasers

We describe the design of a new family of high spectral brightness narrow linewidth (NLW) mid-infrared (MIR) lasers of < 1 MHz anticipated linewidths with potential for operation at any target wavelength between 2.5 and 9.5 um. More specifically, we analyze the potential performance characteristics of mid-infrared distributed feedback (DFB) Raman fiber lasers (RFLs) based on Pi-phase-shifted (PPS) Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) written in appropriately chosen low-phonon-energy glass fibers. In particular, we calculate anticipated threshold pump powers for optimal laser designs and pump wavelengths for single frequency (fundamental mode) operation of specific mid-infrared DFB-RFLs operating at chosen target wavelengths, and show that these pump powers can be as low as a few milliWatts for MIR DFB-RFLs fabricated with appropriate low-loss small mode area single mode fibers. As such, we clearly establish the PPS-DFB RFL platform as a very practical approach for constructing a broad range of narrow linewidth MIR coherent sources for numerous applications, including proximal and remote sensing of molecules and various high spectral brightness and long coherence length MIR applications.

Long-Range Slot Hybrid Surface Plasmon Waveguide With Long Propagation Distance and Tight Mode Confinement

ABSTRACTA long-range hybrid slot surface plasmon waveguiding structure that is capable of achieving ultra-small mode confinement and a long propagation distance simultaneously is proposed in this article. In comparison with the conventional long-range hybrid surface plasmon waveguide, the proposed waveguide can provide one order smaller mode area and a longer propagation distance by introducing a through-slot in the gap region. Meanwhile, the practical fabrication errors have little influence over mode properties of the waveguide. These results indicate that our designed waveguide can be a potential candidate for high-performance nanophotonic circuit and device.

53.3 W Visible-Waveband Extra High Power Supercontinuum All-Fiber Laser

A visible-waveband extra high power supercontinuum (SC) all-fiber laser is demonstrated. The laser structure includes a seed laser, master power amplifier, and the SC generation system, which usually adopts photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with small mode area as the nonlinear (NL) medium. A repetition frequency multiplier is utilized in the seed laser to adjust the pulse peak power and suppress the NL effects in the amplification process. Additionally, a homemade all-fiber high power mode field adaptor, which is used to couple the pump pulses into the small mode area PCF, works successfully at the incident pulse power of 120 W with high coupling efficiency of 83%. Eventually, 53.3 W visible-waveband extra high power SC fiber laser is obtained with spectrum ranging from 430 to 2400 nm and spectral width below 10 dB flatness exceeding 1700 nm (except pump wavelength). In addition, the visible-waveband power (below 850 nm) takes up about 22% of the total SC power. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest average power of visible-waveband extra SC source ever reported in such broad spectrum range and high spectrum flatness.

Chalcogenide microstructured optical fibres for mid-IR applications

Abstract Compared to oxide-based glasses, vitreous materials composed of chalcogen elements (S, Se, Te) show large transparency windows in the infrared. Indeed, chalcogenide glasses can be transparent from the visible up to 12 – 18 μm , depending on their compositions. In addition, chalcogenide glasses contain large polarisable atoms and external lone electron pairs that induce exceptional non-linear properties. Consequently, the non-linear properties can be 100 or 1000 times as high as the non-linearity of silica. An original way to obtain single-mode fibres is to design microstructured optical fibres (MOFs). These fibres present unique optical properties thanks to the high degree of freedom in the design of their geometrical structure. Various chalcogenide MOFs operating in the IR range have been elaborated in order to associate the high non-linear properties of these glasses with the original MOF properties. Indeed, chalcogenide MOFs might lead to new devices with unique optical properties in the mid-infrared domain, like multimode or endlessly single-mode transmission of light, small or large mode area fibres, highly birefringent fibres and non-linear properties for wavelength conversion or generation of supercontinuum sources.

160 W high-power, high-efficiency, near-diffraction-limited beam quality all-fiber picosecond pulse laser

We experimentally demonstrate a high-power, high-efficiency, near-diffraction-limited beam quality all-fiber picosecond pulse laser, which consists of a passively mode-locked seed laser and three-stage master power amplifiers. A repetition frequency multiplier and a high Yb-doped gain fiber with shorter length are utilized in the laser system to suppress the nonlinear effects and reduce the pulse broadening caused by dispersion. Moreover, the homemade light mode controllers based on a coiling and tapering fiber technique and the active fiber of the amplifier with a relatively small mode area are adopted to improve the beam quality. In addition, by experimentally adjusting the active fiber length, the optical conversion efficiency of the overall laser system can be optimized. Eventually, a 160 W high-power, high-efficiency, near-diffraction-limited picosecond pulse fiber laser is obtained, with the beam quality factor M2 at 1.12 and an optical conversion efficiency of the system of 75%.

Age decreases mitochondrial motility and increases mitochondrial size in vascular smooth muscle.

Key points Age is proposed to be associated with altered structure and function of mitochondria; however, in fully‐differentiated cells, determining the structure of more than a few mitochondria at a time is challenging. In the present study, the structures of the entire mitochondrial complements of cells were resolved from a pixel‐by‐pixel covariance analysis of fluctuations in potentiometric fluorophore intensity during ‘flickers’ of mitochondrial membrane potential.Mitochondria are larger in vascular myocytes from aged rats compared to those in younger adult rats.A subpopulation of mitochondria in myocytes from aged, but not younger, animals is highly‐elongated.Some mitochondria in myocytes from younger, but not aged, animals are highly‐motile.Mitochondria that are motile are located more peripherally in the cell than non‐motile mitochondria. Mitochondrial function, motility and architecture are each central to cell function. Age‐associated mitochondrial dysfunction may contribute to vascular disease. However, mitochondrial changes in ageing remain ill‐defined because of the challenges of imaging in native cells. We determined the structure of mitochondria in live native cells, demarcating boundaries of individual organelles by inducing stochastic ‘flickers’ of membrane potential, recorded as fluctuations in potentiometric fluorophore intensity (flicker‐assisted localization microscopy; FaLM). In freshly‐isolated myocytes from rat cerebral resistance arteries, FaLM showed a range of mitochondrial X‐Y areas in both young adult (3 months; 0.05–6.58 μm2) and aged rats (18 months; 0.05–13.4 μm2). In cells from young animals, most mitochondria were small (mode area 0.051 μm2) compared to aged animals (0.710 μm2). Cells from older animals contained a subpopulation of highly‐elongated mitochondria (5.3% were >2 μm long, 4.2% had a length:width ratio >3) that was rare in younger animals (0.15% of mitochondria >2 μm long, 0.4% had length:width ratio >3). The extent of mitochondrial motility also varied. 1/811 mitochondria observed moved slightly (∼0.5 μm) in myocytes from older animals, whereas, in the younger animals, directed and Brownian‐like motility occurred regularly (215 of 1135 mitochondria moved within 10 min, up to distance of 12 μm). Mitochondria positioned closer to the cell periphery showed a greater tendency to move. In conclusion, cerebral vascular myocytes from young rats contained small, motile mitochondria. In aged rats, mitochondria were larger, immobile and could be highly‐elongated. These age‐associated alterations in mitochondrial behaviour may contribute to alterations in cell signalling, energy supply or the onset of proliferation.

Plasmonic propagation and spectral splitting in nanostructured metal wires

Due to the coupling of photons with the electrons at a metal-dielectric interface, surface plasmons (SPs) can achieve extreflely small wavelengths and highly localized electromagnetic fields. Hence, plasmonics with subwavelength characteristics can break the diffraction limit of light, and thus has aroused great interest for decades. The SP-inspired reflearch, in the application respect, includes extraordinary optical transmission, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, sub-wavelength imaging, electromagnetic induced transparency, perfect absorbers, polarization switches, etc.; and in the fundamental respect, includes plasmon-mediated light-matter interaction, such as plasmonic lasing, plasmon-exciton strong coupling, etc.#br#Recently a series of studies has been performed to push the dimensions of plasmonic devices into deep subwavelength by using nanowires. The chemically synthesized metallic nanowires have good plasmonic properties such as low damping. The reported silver nanowire structures show great potential as plasmonic devices for communication and computation. Now we develop the nanostructured metal wires for plasmonic splitters based on the following considerations. One is that we introduce cascade nano-gratings on a metallic nanowire, enabling a single nanowire to act as a spectral splitting device at subwavelength; and the other is that we use silicon as a substrate for the metallic nanowire, making the plasmonic nanowire device compatible with silicon based technologies.#br#In this paper, we continue and develop our previous work on position-sensitive spectral splitting with a plasmonic nanowire on silicon chip (see Scientific Reports (2013) 3 3095). The three parts are organized as follows. In the first part, we derive analytically the dispersion relation of the SPs in a suspended silver nanowire based on Maxwell equations. In the second part, we placed a silver nanowire in the silicon substrate, and use the finite-element method (FEM) to obtain the dispersion relation of the SPs for the practical applications. The calculations show that the SP mode can be confined better in this system, howbeit with larger loss. Starting from the dispersion relation, we then calculate the mode area, the propagation length and the effective index of the SP modes, with respect to the nanowire dimension and the substrate materials. It is shown that a thinner nanowire has smaller mode area and a higher-index substrate induces larger loss. We also perform the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation to investigate the electromagnetic field distribution in this system. We find that the SP mode is mainly confined around the top surface of the nanowire, and in the crescent gap between the nanowire and the substrate. In the third part, we demonstrate both experimentally and theoretically that the silver nanowire with two cascaded gratings can act as a spectral splitter for sorting/demultiplexing photons at different spacial locations. The geometry of the grating is optimized by rigorous coupled wave analysis (RCWA) calculation. The carefully designed gratings allow the SPs with the frequencies in the plasmonic band and prohibit the SPs with the frequencies in the plasmonics bandgap. Those prohibited SPs areflemitted out through a single groove in front of each grating. Both the detected images and the measured optical spectra demonstrate that the SPs with different colors can be emitted at different grooves along a single nanowire. Thus the structured metal nanowire shows potential applications in position-sensitive spectral splitting and optical signal processing on a nanoscale, and provides a unique approach to integrating nanophotonics with microelectronics.

Optimization of Macrobending Loss in Small and Large Mode Area Photonic Crystal Fibers

Use of low bend loss optical fibers in fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks becomes unavoidable to improve the optical networks performance. One of the candidates is photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) for their low bend loss properties. This paper presents procedures for optimization of the bend loss of PCFs with small and large mode areas by using solvers Softwares Rsoft and Optifiber. The optimizations are performed with respect to bend radius, core radius, photonic crystal pitch and the ratio of air-filling factor. The lowest bend loss of 1 dB/cm was obtained at bend radius of 56 mm and core diameter of 22 micrometer.

Millimeter Propagation and High Confinement in Rhombus-Based Hybrid Plasmonic Waveguides

A hybrid plasmonic waveguide, consisting of two dielectric nanowires symmetrically put at the opposite corner angles of a rhombic metal, is proposed and numerically analyzed by the finite-element method. Simulations show that the present waveguide can achieve the millimeter propagation distance (1244 μm) and deep subwavelength mode area (5.5 × 10−3 μm2), simultaneously. Compared with the previous hybrid waveguides based on cylinder nanowires or flat films, the rhombic corner angles enable our waveguide to achieve both longer propagation distance and smaller mode area. This is due to the enhanced coupling between the dielectric guided mode in nanowires and the surface plasmon polariton mode at rhombic surface. Furthermore, the extreme confinement near the rhombic corner angles can strengthen the light-matter interaction greatly and make the present waveguide useful in many applications, such as nonlinear photonics, high-quality nanolasers and nanophotonic waveguides.

Graphene nano-ribbon waveguides of record-small mode area and ultra-high effective refractive indices for future VLSI

Electronics circuits keep shrinking in dimensions, as requested by Moore's law. In contrast, photonic waveguides and circuit elements still have lateral dimensions on the order of the wavelength. A key to make photonics have a microelectronics-like development is a drastic reduction of size. To achieve this, we need a low-loss nanoscale waveguide with a drastically reduced mode area and an ultra-high effective refractive index. For this purpose, we propose here several low-loss waveguide structures based on graphene nano-ribbons. An extremely small mode area (~10(-7)λ(0)(2), one order smaller than the smallest mode area of any waveguide that has ever been reported in the literature; here λ(0) is the operating wavelength in vacuum) and an extremely large effective refractive index (several hundreds) are achieved. As a device example, a nano-ring cavity of ultra-small size (with a diameter of ~10(-2)λ(0)) is designed. Our study paves the way for future VLSI (very-large-scale integration) optoelectronics.

Ultralow-power nonlinear optics using tapered optical fibers in metastable xenon

We demonstrate nanowatt-level saturated absorption using a subwavelength diameter tapered optical fiber (TOF) suspended in a gas of metastable xenon atoms. This ultralow-power nonlinearity is enabled by a small optical mode area propagating over a relatively long distance through the Xe gas. The use of inert noble gases in these kinds of TOF experiments may offer practical advantages over the use of reactive alkali-metal vapors, such as rubidium.

Circular hybrid plasmonic waveguide with ultra-long propagation distance.

We propose a novel plasmonic waveguide structure, which is referred to as a circular hybrid plasmonic waveguide (HPW) and consists of a metal wire covered with low- and high-index dielectric layers. The circular HPW exhibits two distinctly different modes, namely, the strongly localized mode and the extremely low-loss mode. Our numerical calculation demonstrates that the strongly localized mode exhibits 10-4 order scale in normalized mode area and can be performed even in tens of nanometer sizes of waveguide geometry. In the extremely low-loss mode, the HPW exhibits ultra-long propagation distance of more than 103μm that can be achieved by forming the dipole-like hybrid mode and properly adjusting the radius of the metal wire. It is also shown that, even with this long-range propagation, the mode area of the dipole-like hybrid mode can be maintained at subwavelength scale. The simultaneous achievement of a small mode area and ultra-long propagation distance contributes to the ultra-high propagation distance to mode size ratio of the waveguide. The HPW results are very helpful for plasmonic device applications in the fields of low-threshold nanolasers, ultrafast modulators, and optical switches.

Hybrid plasmon polariton guiding with tight mode confinement in a V-shaped metal/dielectric groove

Plasmonic waveguides consisting of metallic grooves filled with low- and high-index dielectrics are proposed and the optical properties of guided plasmonic modes are investigated at a wavelength of 1550 nm. Numerical simulations reveal that the quasi-TE-like fundamental hybrid plasmonic mode exhibits strong localization near the low-index dielectric gap, along with pronounced local field enhancement and relatively small mode area. Moderate propagation loss can be achieved as well, corresponding to a propagation distance of around tens to hundreds of microns. The proposed hybrid plasmonic structure is compatible with the fabrication techniques of traditional channel plasmon polariton waveguides, and these structures could be employed as interesting building blocks for highly integrated photonic circuits.

Integrated optical dipole trap for cold neutral atoms with an optical waveguide coupler

An integrated optical dipole trap uses two-color (red and blue-detuned) traveling evanescent wave fields for trapping cold neutral atoms. To achieve longitudinal confinement, we propose using an integrated optical waveguide coupler, which provides a potential gradient along the beam propagation direction sufficient to confine atoms. This integrated optical dipole trap can support an atomic ensemble with a large optical depth due to its small mode area. Its quasi-TE0 waveguide mode has an advantage over the HE11 mode of a nanofiber, with little inhomogeneous Zeeman broadening at the trapping region. The longitudinal confinement eliminates the need for a one dimensional optical lattice, reducing collisional blockaded atomic loading, potentially producing larger ensembles. The waveguide trap allows for scalability and integrability with nano-fabrication technology. We analyze the potential performance of such integrated atom traps.

Nonlocal effects in a hybrid plasmonic waveguide for nanoscale confinement

The effect of nonlocal optical response is studied for a novel silicon hybrid plasmonic waveguide (HPW). Finite element method is used to implement the hydrodynamic model and the propagation mode is analyzed for a hybrid plasmonic waveguide of arbitrary cross section. The waveguide has an inverted metal nano-rib over a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) structure. An extremely small mode area of~10⁻⁶λ² is achieved together with several microns long propagation distance at the telecom wavelength of 1.55 μm. The figure of merit (FoM) is also improved in the same time, compared to the pervious hybrid plasmonic waveguide. We demonstrate the validity of our method by comparing our simulating results with some analytical results for a metal cylindrical waveguide and a metal slab waveguide in a wide wavelength range. For the HPW, we find that the nonlocal effects can give less loss and better confinement. In particular, we explore the influence of the radius of the rib's tip on the loss and the confinement. We show that the nonlocal effects give some new fundamental limitation on the confinement, leaving the mode area finite even for geometries with infinitely sharp tips.

Polarization maintaining highly birefringent small mode area photonic crystal fiber at telecommunication window

In this paper a highly polarization maintaining birefringent photonic crystal fiber at telecommunication window is reported via Full-Vectorial Finite Element Method (FV-FEM). By taking triangular lattice of three ring hexagonal structure PCF with suitable designing parameters such as symmetrical elliptical hole along radial axis of ellipticity a/b=5µm, air hole diameter d=1µm and pitch Λ=2.3µm, high birefringence (2.437×10-3) with small effective mode area(9.47µm2) and beat length (0.64cm) are found at wavelength 1.55µm.