One of the most promising devices to provide accurate measurement of the longitudinal bunch profile at the tens of femtosecond level is based on electro-optic techniques. In this thesis, a bunch profile monitor, based on electro-optic spectral decoding (EOSD), is currently developed for the CLIC Test Facility 3 at CERN. The monitor is optimised for bunch lengths over 3.5 ps with effective window of 16 ps, and sub-picosecond resolution. The measurement results from the EO monitor are compared with measurements by coherent transition radiation on a streak camera. The measurement on bunch charge dependence is studied. Timing resolution of the bunch profile monitor is studied in both theory and numerical calculation. This thesis summarises a frequency analysis approach of electro-optic effect based on $\chi^{(2)}$ frequency mixing process. From the theory analysed in frequency domain, a non-crossed polarization measurement includes all three of the probe laser background term, the linear term to Coulomb field and the quadratic term to Coulomb field. Three methods are induced based on this frequency analysis result to retrieve Coulomb field value which is emitted from electron beam. The measured 1.3 MV/m field strength agrees with calculation result. An experiment is designed to study the role of incident beam sizes and non-collinear incident beams in EO technique. Due to the phase matching process, the non-collinear angle of the incident beams induces a frequency dependent angular chirp in the beams emitted after the EO crystal. This frequency offset may lead to frequency loss in fibre coupling, and thus lead to bunch length broadening in a measurement for short electron bunch.

Bragg grating reflectors etched in amorphous silicon overlay films have been integrated with Ti:LiNbO3 optical waveguides. With a 12.5 mm long grating segment and an etch depth of ~ 93 nm in a 105 nm-thick silicon film, a narrow (0.05 nm) spectral bandwidth with a record high transmission dip (> 20 dB) was achieved at a wavelength of ~1542 nm for TE polarization on an x-cut, y-propagating substrate. The reflectance in the channel waveguides is found to be strongly dependent on the depth of the etched grating. The 3-dB bandwidth of 0.05 nm obtained for all tested samples is the smallest reported for waveguides in LiNbO3. The effect of the Bragg waveguide loss factor on the transmittance and reflectance spectra is investigated using a model for contra-directional coupling that includes an attenuation coefficient. The Bragg grating spectral characteristics are exploited to fabricate distributed Bragg feedback modulators (DBFM) and Bragg reflector Fabry-Perot modulators (BFPM). The sharp cut-off in transmission and reflection spectra, which is an inherent characteristic of Bragg grating, was tuned by applying voltage via the linear electrooptic effect, to produce intensity modulation. The Bragg grating based modulators consume less electric power compared to polarization intensity modulators (PIMs). The DBFM demonstrates 1/1.6 times the modulating voltage of a PIM with identical waveguide and electrode structure. The BFPM shows 1/3.3 times the modulating voltage of the PIM. No difference in the frequency response is observed among the three modulators. Comparison of the modulation sensitivity in the linear region indicates that the Bragg grating based modulators provide better sensitivity than that of the PIM with identical waveguide and electrode structure. These results indicate the potential advantage of the Bragg grating based modulators for enhanced modulation efficiency over conventional modulators. Further improvements can be expected from the optimization of the electrode design.

The past decades have witnessed the development of new materials with large nonlinear optical properties, which have made them attractive candidats for a broad spectrum of breakthrough applications in the electro-optic and photonic fields (e.g., telecommunication and computing). A deeper understanding of the relationship between, on the one hand, the chemical structure and, on the other hand, the electronic and (linear and nonlinear) optical properties has proven useful for the rational design of new efficient materials. Reaching such an understanding has attracted major interest in the scientific community worldwide in both academia and industry. Therefore, the development of new efficient NLO chromophores and materials along with commercial devices of high quality is helped via the establishment of multidisciplinary research teams combining: (i) the theoretical modeling using quantum-chemical computational calculations; (ii) the organic synthesis; (iii) the optical characterization; and (iv) the device fabrication. In this dissertation, quantum-chemistry is used to evaluate the second- and third-order NLO properties of series of new chromophores and take advantage of a feedback loop with the experimental team to understand the structure-property relationships.

Electro-Optic(EO) probing techniques are advancing rapidly in recent years due to their superior performance in characterization of semiconductor devices and circuits. Although the conventional systems can only monitor the amplitude distribution of electric field, some advanced EO probing techniques are able to measure not only the electric-field amplitude, but also direction of the electric field. Because valuable information can be released in such as chamfered bending transmission lines, patch antennas and wireless devices, etc., EO probing technique becomes an important tool to the characterization of radio frequency devices. These systems often require two beams or two different EO crystals to differentiate the directions of the electric field under test because only one type of EO modulation, compressed/stretched deformation modulation, is utilized in the measurement. Therefore, the measurements are inaccurate and complicated due to the fact that the path length and EO interaction strength of the two probing beams are different. In this research, we demonstrate the EO probing technique with one beam and one EO crystal to extract 2-D electric-field vector using an additional modulation effect, i.e. rotational deformation modulation. This electric field vector measurement technique is compact, accurate and low cost. We not only prove that on-wafer 2-D electric-field-vector measurement using single-beam electro-optic probing technique is feasible theoretically and experimentally, but also combine rotational deformation modulation and compressed/stretched deformation modulation to a practical circuit measurement. Commercial software, Ansoft Maxwell 3-D Field Simulator, is employed to verify our measurements. Good agreement is obtained between experiment and simulation results. In addition to 2-D electric-field-vector measurement, we made an attempt to high-frequency real-time measurement. With the trend of low voltage operation in wireless communication, the most serious issue of high-frequency real-time EO probing technique is the improvement of signal to noise ratio. We tried to improve the stability of laser source, control the polarization of incident beam, and utilize Fabry-Perot filter in order to implement high-frequency real-time measurement. A bandwidth of 900 MHz was achieved, which is record-high to our knowledge.

­^¤åºK­n Electro-optic probing techniques are advancing rapidly in recent years. These techniques have been proven to be an effective tool in parameter extraction of semiconductor devices such as response time, delay time as well as scattering parameters. Not only the magnitude of the electric field but also the direction of the corresponding E-field direction are measured in several developed electro-optic probing system. By incorporated these techniques, the near-field electric field vectors can be estimated and they are valuable information for the analysis of RF circuit devices, e.g., micro-strip transmission line, patch antenna, etc. When probing the 2-D E-field vectors, one can only measure 1-D E-field direction, then rotate the device under test by 90¢X for another orthogonal tangential E-field direction. However the process not only reduces the probing accuracy but also increases the time interval for achieving measurement and lead to obstacles in use. In the thesis, 2D E-field can be obtained without rotating the DUT by using two kinds of modulation schemes, i.e., compressed/stretched deformation modulation(CSDM) and rotational deformation modulation(RDM). These novel techniques provide a total solution for the above bottleneck and improve the sensitivity for different E-field direction. Besides, a heterodyne method is developed to measure the high frequency near-field 2D E-field distribution. By the heterodyne method, the EO probing system can incorporate the CW laser instead of the pulse laser for reducing the cost and enhancing the merits when applied.

Bragg grating reflectors etched in amorphous silicon overlay films have been integrated with Ti:LiNbO3 optical waveguides. With a 12.5 mm long grating segment and an etch depth of ~ 93 nm in a 105 nm-thick silicon film, a narrow (0.05 nm) spectral bandwidth with a record high transmission dip (> 20 dB) was achieved at a wavelength of ~1542 nm for TE polarization on an x-cut, y-propagating substrate. The reflectance in the channel waveguides is found to be strongly dependent on the depth of the etched grating. The 3-dB bandwidth of 0.05 nm obtained for all tested samples is the smallest reported for waveguides in LiNbO3. The effect of the Bragg waveguide loss factor on the transmittance and reflectance spectra is investigated using a model for contra-directional coupling that includes an attenuation coefficient. The Bragg grating spectral characteristics are exploited to fabricate distributed Bragg feedback modulators (DBFM) and Bragg reflector Fabry-Perot modulators (BFPM). The sharp cut-off in transmission and reflection spectra, which is an inherent characteristic of Bragg grating, was tuned by applying voltage via the linear electrooptic effect, to produce intensity modulation. The Bragg grating based modulators consume less electric power compared to polarization intensity modulators (PIMs). The DBFM demonstrates 1/1.6 times the modulating voltage of a PIM with identical waveguide and electrode structure. The BFPM shows 1/3.3 times the modulating voltage of the PIM. No difference in the frequency response is observed among the three modulators. Comparison of the modulation sensitivity in the linear region indicates that the Bragg grating based modulators provide better sensitivity than that of the PIM with identical waveguide and electrode structure. These results indicate the potential advantage of the Bragg grating based modulators for enhanced modulation efficiency over conventional modulators. Further improvements can be expected from the optimization of the electrode design.

Bandwidth demands in global telecommunication infrastructures continue to rise and new optical techniques are needed to deal with massive data flows. Generating high bandwidth signals (> 40 GHz) using conventional modulation techniques is hindered by material limitations and fabrication complexities. Similarly, controlling such high bandwidths in both the temporal and spectral domain becomes more problematic using conventional electronic processes. Advances in electro-optic organic materials, fibers/micro-fluidics integration, and nonlinear optics have significant potential for higher bandwidth modulation and temporal/spectral control. The work presented in this dissertation demonstrates the use of various nonlinear optical effects in new photonic device and system designs towards the generation and manipulation of highspeed optical pulses. First, an all fiber-based system utilizing an integrated carbon disulfide-filled liquidcore optical fiber (i-LCOF) and co-propagating pulses of comparable temporal lengths is presented. The slow light effect was observed in 1-meter of i-LCOF, where 18 ps pulses were delayed up to 34 ps through the use of stimulated Raman scattering. Delays greater than a pulse width indicate a potential application as an ultrafast controllable delay line for time division multiplexing in multi-Gb/s telecommunication systems. Similarly, an optically tunable frequency shift was observed using this system. Pulses experienced a full spectral bandwidth shift at low peak pump powers when utilizing the Raman-induced frequency shift and slow light effects. Numerical simulations of the pulse-propagation equations agree well with the observed shifts. Included in our simulations are the contributions of both the Raman cross-frequency shift and slow light effects to the overall frequency shift. These results make the system suitable for numerous applications including low power wavelength converters. Second, a silica/electro-optic (EO) polymer phase modulator with an embedded bowtie antenna is proposed for use as a microwave radiation receiver. The detection of high-frequency electromagnetic fields has been heavily studied for wireless data transfer. Recently there has been growing interest in the field of microwave photonics. We present the design and optimization of a waveguide with an EO polymer core and silica/sol-gel cladding. The effect of electrodes on the insertion losses and poling efficiency are also analyzed, and conditions for low-loss and high poling efficiency are established. Experimental results for a fabricated device with microwave-response between 10 - 14 GHz are presented. Finally, we present the design for a fast optical switch incorporating silicon as the passive waveguide structure and EO polymer as the active material. The design uses a simple directional coupler with coplanar electrodes and promises to have low cross-talk and high switching speed (on the order of nanoseconds). An initial design for a 1x2 switch is fabricated and tested, and future optimization processes are also presented.

A searched for narrow-band-noise (NBN) modulations of the infrared transmission in blue bronze has been performed. No modulations were observed, giving an upper limits for NBN changes in the absorption coefficient of )2000/(/3.0.andlt;.cmNBN. The implication of these results on proposed CDW properties and NBN mechanisms are discussed. An infrared microscope with a capability of doing both reflectance and transmission measurements has been integrated into the previous electro-transmission system with tunable diode lasers. Electro-optic experiments were done using the microscope for the studies of the CDW states of K0.3MoO3 (blue bronze) and orthorhombic TaS3. The electro-reflectance signal for blue bronze has been evidenced for the first time. The infrared reflectance of K0.3MoO3 varied with position when a voltage greater than the CDW depinning threshold is applied. The spatial dependence of .R/R was slightly different than for ./, in that the magnitude of .R/R decreased and, for low voltages and frequencies, the signal became inverted near the contacts. Perhaps the differences might be associated with changes in the CDW properties on the surface. For blue bronze, the electro-reflectance signal was measured to be smaller than electro-transmittance signal by one order of magnitude for light polarized transverse to the chain direction, while the electro-reflectance signal for parallel polarized light was found to be a few times smaller than for transverse polarized light. The fits of the electro-reflectance spectrum showed that the changes in background dielectric constant were ~ 0.05 % and/or oscillator strength and/or frequency shifts of the phonons were ~ 0.05 % and ~ 0.005 cm-1 in the applied electric field. We also found that parallel polarized phonons are affected by CDW strain, and these changes dominate the electro-reflectance spectrum. We have examined the electro-reflectance spectra associated with CDW current investigation for light polarized parallel to the conducting chains for signs of expected current-induced intragap states, and conclude that the density of any such states is at most a few times less than expected. We have observed a large (~1%) change in infrared reflectance of orthorhombic TaS3, when its CDW is depinned. The change is concentrated near one current contact. Assuming that the change in reflectance is proportional to the degree of CDW polarization, we have studied the dynamics of CDW repolarization through position dependent measurements of the variation of the electro-reflectance with the frequency of square wave voltages applied to the sample, and have found that the response could be characterized as a damped harmonic oscillator with a distribution of relaxation (i.e. damping) times. The average relaxation time, which increases away from the contacts, varies with applied voltage as with p ~ 3/2, but the distribution of times broadens as the voltage approaches the depinning threshold. Very low resonant frequencies (~ 1 kHz) indicate a surprisingly large amount of inertia, which is observable in the time dependence of the change in reflectance as a polarity dependent delay of ~ 100 s.

2012 IEEE International Symposium on Electrical Insulation (ISEI), June 10-13, 2012, Ritz Carlton Hotel, San Juan, PR, USA

Microring resonators are a fundamental building block for integrated optical filters, and have both modulation and waveform generation applications. A hybrid chalcogenide (As2S3) on titanium diffused (Ti:LiNbO3) waveguide platform has been developed to realize tunable microring resonators on a lithium niobate (LiNbO3) substrate. The use of a LiNbO3 substrate allows for electro-optic tuning, which is demonstrated for the first time on an As2S3 guided optical mode. While optical modes confined in diffused waveguides are commonly electro-optically tuned, the use of a rib waveguide external to the substrate poses new design challenges. Simulation work to determine the optimum electrode design was carried out, while also taking into account the limitations of working with a low melting temperature chalcogenide material. The tuning of this hybrid As2S3 on Ti:LiNbO3 device structure is demonstrated with fabricated Mach-Zehnder interferometers and ring resonators. Electro-optic tuning of the TM polarization utilizing the r13 LiNbO3 tuning coefficient is shown, yielding results that show an improvement over previous tunable LiNbO3 microring resonators. Simulations are also carried out to show the waveform generating capabilities of this hybrid device platform.