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Intensity modulation direct detection (IMDD) transmission scheme has been the mainstay in optical communication ever since semiconductor lasers were put to use as the choice transmission sources. With the development of new improved laser types, this method will continue to dominate the third generation light wave networks where bit rates have steadily risen beyond 10Gbps mark. The main attraction of this scheme lies in its simplicity. With EDFA amplifiers providing a cost effective solution to the attenuation problem, long haul network capacity under the scheme has greatly increased. At the design stage of such systems, it is essential to accurately predict the behavior of each system component right from the laser transmitter up to the optical receiver under custom specific operating conditions and laser diodes are one of the key components for a wide range of light wave communication systems. For this purpose, computer-aided simulation techniques based on behavioral models of laser diodes have been developed and validated for a variety of applications [4-8]. A ‘representative’ behavior model, which closely approximates the device’s actual physical model, is essential to the system designer. Unfortunately, the component vendor or manufacturer may not be able to provide all the information needed to predict such behavior. The only information that can be made available, are certain measured variables over a specified measurement range. The designer therefore, needs a tool to effectively convert this data into a useful model with sufficiently accurate parameters for predicting behavior. As the complexity of the model increases, more detailed knowledge of the laser is required and the computation time for system performance calculation increases. While sophisticated models provide considerable insight into important characteristics of the lasers, for system simulation purposes a relatively simple model is often adequate. In this thesis we will propose a very robust and efficient procedure for estimating the modal parameters and go on to propose a complete solution to the 0D laser model extending to such domains as the below threshold dynamics and temperature effects. / Thesis / Master of Engineering (ME)

Fiber-optic systems represent the backbone of the communication networks, carrying most of the world’s data traffic. The main bottleneck in today’s fiber-optic communication systems has roots in the inherent nonlinearity of the fiber. Hence, developing new transmission schemes that are compatible with the nonlinear behavior of the optical fiber has become necessary. To utilize the full transmission capacity of an optical fiber, this thesis investigates two different techniques---compensation-based method and nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT). For the purpose of suppressing the nonlinear distortion in real time, an optical back propagation (OBP) technique using Raman pumped dispersion compensating fibers (DCF). OBP, as an all-optical signal processing technique, can compensate for both intra- and inter-channel nonlinear impairments in real time in point-to-point systems as well as in optical networks. The proposed inline OBP module consists of an optical phase conjugator (OPC), amplifiers and a Raman pumped DCF. In order to suppress the nonlinear effects of the transmission fiber, the power in the OBP fiber should increase exponentially with distance. This can be approximately achieved by using Raman pumping of the backpropagation fiber. Simulation results show that this technique provides 7.7 dB performance improvement in Q-factor over conventional systems. The second part of this thesis is dedicated to the NFT as a promising framework to exploit the inherent nonlinearity of optical fiber rather than treating it as an undesirable effect and using perturbation and approximation-based methods to mitigate it. A novel multistage perturbation technique to realize the NFT as a cascade of linear discrete Fourier transforms is developed. The linear Fourier transform can be easily implemented in the optical domain using a time lens or discrete photonic components, which can be implemented in silicon photonics. The proposed technique provides a promising way to implement NFT in the optical domain, which will fully utilize the potential of NFT for wavelength-division multiplexed fiber-optic systems in the optical domain. Moreover, a nonlinear frequency-division multiplexed (NFDM) transmission scheme with midpoint OPC is investigated. The proposed mid-OPC NFDM system offers a degree of freedom to have a flexible power normalization factor, P_n to minimize the signal-noise mixing in NFT processing for a specific launch power, resulting in significant system performance improvement up to 5.6 dB in Q-factor over conventional NFDM systems. Another advantage of the proposed scheme is that the mid-OPC NFDM system extends the transmission reach without having to increase the guard interval, which leads to higher spectral efficiency. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This dissertation presents the structure, operational principle and mathematical model of a novel high speed fiber optic spectrometer (HSFOS). In addition, the performance analysis is conducted and preliminary experimental results are listed and discussed. Such a spectrometer is highly desired by the ever-increasing applications of fiber optic sensors. In the recent decades, a variety of fiber optic sensors have been proposed, built and tested. Compared to their electronic counterparts, fiber optic sensors although still under development, are preferred more by certain industrial and medical applications which benefit from their unique properties such as immunity to electromagnetic interference, ability to withstand harsh environments and composition of purely dielectric materials. In recent years, new fiber optic sensors have been designed for applications where high response frequency up to a few hundred KHz is required while advantages of high accuracy and large dynamic range must be maintained. The bottle neck then emerged in the signal demodulation part of the sensor system. The quadrature phase detection could achieve high demodulation speed but with small dynamic range, medium accuracy and measurement ambiguity. The white light interferometry could provide a solution for high accuracy and large dynamic range measurement without ambiguity because of its absolute measurement nature. However the signal demodulation speed is limited due to the low spectrum acquisition rate of the existing spectrometers. The new HSFOS utilizes time domain dispersion of the sampled incoming light by dispersive fiber rather than the spatial dispersion employed by traditional spectrometers. In addition the signal that represents the spectrum of the light is naturally a serial signal which can be detected by a single detector and recorded by a high speed data acquisition device. Theoretical study of the operation principle is made and a mathematical model for the spectrometer is developed based on Marcuse's previous work. One major difference of the new derivation is that the propagation constant is expanded about the center circular frequency of each monochromatic light pulse instead of the center frequency of the chromatic light pulse which makes the physical picture of the chromatic light pulse evolution in a dispersive fiber clearer and facilitates both the analytical and numerical analysis. The profile of the dispersed chromatic light pulse could be treated as the superposition of all the dispersed monochromatic light pulses. Another major difference is the Taylor's series of the propagation constant is not truncated as it is in those previous work, which improves the accuracy of the model. Moreover, an approximate model is made which could further reduce the computation tasks in numerical simulations. Performance analysis for accuracy, resolution, speed and noise are conducted through numerical simulations based on the model and the experimental results. The sources of two different errors and their effects on accuracy are discussed respectively. The effects on spectral resolution by the properties of the modulation pulse and the fiber dispersion are studied. The results indicate that by using a rectangle modulation pulse under certain conditions, the resolution can be improved. The speed analysis gives that the spectrum acquisition rate can reach 1 million frames per second when the spectral width is less than 100 nm. In the noise analysis, the erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is determined to be the dominant noise source. But by using two EDFAs, the overall signal to noise ratio is improved by 9.2 dB. The preliminary experimental results for FP sensor and FBG sensor signal demodulation are presented. The HSFOS for FP sensor signal demodulation achieves 15 nm resolution. By using the oversampling method, the HSFOS for FBG sensor signal demodulation achieves 0.05 nm spectral positioning resolution. / Ph. D.

The objective of this work was to design, analyze and test a fast response fiber-optic temperature probe and sensor. The sensor is intended for measuring rapid temperature changes such as produced by a blast wave formed by a detonation. This work was performed in coordination with Luna Innovations Incorporated, and the design is based on extensions of an existing fiber-optic temperature sensor developed by Luna. The sensor consists of a glass fiber with an optical wafer attached to the tip. A basic description of the principles behind the fiber-optic temperature sensor and an accompanying demodulation system is provided. For experimental validation tests, shock tubes were used to simulate the blast wave experienced at a distance of 3.0 m from the detonation of 22.7 kg of TNT. The flow conditions were predicted using idealized shock tube theory. The temperature sensors were tested in three configurations, flush at the end of the shock tube, extended on a probe 2.54 cm into the flow and extended on a probe 12.7 cm into the flow. The total temperature was expected to change from 300 K to 1130 K for the flush wall experiments and from 300 K to 960 K for the probe experiments. During the initial 0.1 milliseconds of the data the temperature only changed 8 K when the sensors were flush in the end of the shock tube. The sensor temperature changed 36 K during the same time when mounted on a probe in the flow. Schlieren pictures were taken of the flow in the shock tube to further understand the shock tube environment. Contrary to ideal shock tube theory, it was discovered that the flow did not remain stagnant in the end of the shock tube after the shock reflects from the end of the shock tube. Instead, the effects of turbulence were recorded with the fiber-optic sensors, and this turbulence was also captured in the schlieren photographs. A fast-response thermocouple was used to collect data for comparison with the fiber-optic sensor, and the fiber-optic sensor was proven to have a faster response time compared to the thermocouple. When the sensors were extended 12.7 cm into the flow, the fiber-optic sensors recorded a temperature change of 143 K compared to 38 K recorded by the thermocouple during the 0.5 millisecond test. This corresponds to 22% of the change of total temperature in the air recorded by the fiber-optic sensor and only 6% recorded by the thermocouple. Put another way, the fiber-optic sensor experience a rate of temperature change equal to 2.9x105 K/s and the thermocouple changed at a rate of 0.79x105 K/s. The data recorded from the fiber-optic sensor also contained much less noise than the thermocouple data. An unsteady finite element thermal model was created using ANSYS to predict the temperature response of the sensor. Test cases with known analytical solutions were used to verify the ANSYS modeling procedures. The shock tube flow environment was also modeled with Fluent, a commercially available CFD code. Fluent was used to determine the heat transfer between the shock tube flow and the sensor. The convection film coefficient for the flow was predicted by Fluent to be 27,150 W/m2K for the front of the wafer and 13,385 W/m2K for the side. The Fluent results were used with the ANSYS model to predict the response of the fiber-optic sensor when exposed to the shock tube flow. The results from the Fluent/ANSYS model were compared to the fiber-optic measurements taken in the shock tube. It was seen that the heat flux to the sensor was slightly over-predicted by the model, and the heat losses from the wafer were also over-predicted. Since the prediction fell within the uncertainty of the measurement, it was found to be in good agreement with the measured values. Inverse heat transfer methods were used to determine the total temperature of the flow from the measured data. Both the total temperature and the film coefficient were determined simultaneously during this process. It was found that for short testing times, there were many possible solutions. In order to obtain ultimate success with this method, the uncertainty of the demodulation system must be improved and/or the simple analytical thermal model used to predict the response of the sensor needs to match the physical sensor. Whenever possible, longer testing times should be employed. Promising suggestions for extending this approach are provided. / Ph. D.

The health monitoring of smart structures in civil engineering is becoming more and more important as in-situ structural monitoring would greatly reduce structure life-cycle costs and improve reliability. The distributed strain and temperature sensing is highly desired in large structures where strain and temperature at over thousand points need to be measured simultaneously. It is difficult to carry out this task using conventional electrical strain sensors. Fiber optic sensors provide an excellent opportunity to fulfill this need due to their capability to multiplex many sensors along a single fiber cable. Numerous research studies have been conducted in past decades to increase the number of sensors to be multiplexed in a distributed sensor network. This dissertation presents detailed research work on the analysis, design, fabrication, testing, and evaluation of an intrinsic Fabry-Perot fiber optic sensor for quasi-distributed strain and temperature measurements. The sensor is based on two ultra-short and broadband reflection fiber Bragg gratings. One distinct feature of this sensor is its ultra low optical insertion loss, which allows a significant increase in the sensor multiplexing capability. Using a simple integrated sensor interrogation unit and an optical spectrum based signal processing algorithm, many sensors can be interrogated along a single optical fiber with high accuracy, high resolution and large dynamic range. Based on the experimental results and theoretical analysis, it is expected that more than 500 sensors can be multiplexed with little crosstalk using a frequency-division multiplexing technology. With this research, it is possible to build an easy fabrication, robust, high sensitivity and quasi-distributed fiber optic sensor network that can be operated reliably even in harsh environments or extended structures. This research was supported in part by U.S. National Science Foundation under grant CMS-0427951. / Ph. D.

Distributed temperature and strain sensing is demanded for a wide range of applications including real-time monitoring of industrial processes, health monitoring of civil infrastructures, etc. Optical fiber distributed sensors have attracted tremendous research interests in the past decade to meet the requirements of such applications. This research presents a multiplexed sensor array for distributed temperature and strain sensing that can multiplex a large number of UV-induced sensors along a single fiber. The objective of this research is to develop a quasi-distributed sensing technology that will greatly increase the multiplexing capacity of a sensor network and can measure temperature and strain with a high accuracy and high resolution. UV-induced intrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric (IFPI) optical fiber sensors, which have low reflectance and low power loss, are good candidates for multiplexed sensors networks. Partial reflectors are constructed by irradiating photosensitive fiber with a UV laser beam. A pair of reflectors will form a Fabry-Perot interferometer that can be used for temperature and strain sensing. A sensor fabrication system based on a pulsed excimer laser and a shadow mask is developed. A spectrum-based measurement system is presented to measure the interference fringes of IFPI sensors. A swept coherent light source is used as the light source. The spectral responses of the IFPI sensors at different wavelengths are measured. A frequency division multiplexing (FDM) scheme is proposed. Multiple sensors with different optical path differences (OPD) have different sub-carrier frequencies in the measured spectrum of the IFPI sensors. The multiplexing capacity of the sensor system and the crosstalk between sensors are analyzed. Frequency estimation based digital signal processing algorithms are developed to determine the absolute OPDs of the IFPI sensors. Digital filters are used to select individual frequency components and filter out the noise. The frequency and phase of the filtered signal are estimated by means of peak finding and phase linear regression methods. The performance of the signal processing algorithms is analyzed. Experimental results for temperature and strain measurement are demonstrated. The discrimination of the temperature and strain cross sensitivity is investigated. Experimental results show that UV-induced IFPI sensors in a FDM scheme have good measurement accuracy for temperature and strain sensing and potentially have a large multiplexing capacity. / Ph. D.

Measurement of physical parameters in harsh environments (high pressure, high temperature, highly corrosive, high electromagnetic interference) is often desired in a variety of areas, such as aerospace, automobile, energy, military systems, and industrial processes. Pressure and temperature are among the most important of these parameters. A typical example is pressure monitoring in jet engine compressors to help detect and control undesirable air flow instabilities, namely rotating stall and surge. However, the temperatures inside a compressor could reach beyond 600°C for today's large engines. Current fiber-optic sensor can operate up to about 300°C and even the most widely employed semiconductor sensors are limited below 500°C. The objective of this research is to push the limit of fiber-optic sensing technology in harsh environment applications for both pressure and temperature measurements by developing novel sensing structures, fabrication techniques, and signal processing algorithms. An all-fused-silica pressure sensor has been demonstrated which is fabricated on the tip of a fiber with a diameter no larger than 125μm. The sensor was able to function beyond the current limit and operate into the 600~700°C range. Also a temperature sensor has been developed using sapphire fibers and wafers for ultra-high temperature measurement as high as 1600°C. This effort will generate more understanding regarding sapphire fiber's high temperature properties and could possibly lead to novel designs of pressure sensor for beyond 1000°C. Both sensors have been field tested in real-world harsh environments and demonstrated to be reliably and robust. In this dissertation, the design, fabrication, and testing of the sensors are discussed in detail. The system and signal processing techniques are presented. The plan and direction for future work are also suggested with an aim of further pushing the operating limit of fiber-optic sensors. / Ph. D.

Fiber-optic Fabry-Perot interferometric (FFPI) sensors have been widely used due to their high sensitivity, ease of fabrication, miniature size, and capability for multiplexing. However, direct measurement of self-assembled thin films, receptor immobilization process or biological reaction is limited in the FFPI technique due to the difficulty of forming Fabry-Perot cavities by the thin film itself. Novel methods are needed to provide an accurate and reliable measurement for monitoring the thin-film growth in the nanometer range and under various conditions. In this work, two types of fiber-optic multicavity Fabry-Perot interferometric (MFPI) sensors with built-in temperature compensation were designed and fabricated for thin-film measurement, with applications in chemical and biological sensing. Both the tubing-based MFPI sensor and microgap MFPI sensor provide simple, yet high performance solutions for thin-film sensing. The temperature dependence of the sensing cavity is compensated by extracting the temperature information from a second multiplexed cavity. This provides the opportunity to examine the thin-film characteristics under different environment temperatures. To demonstrate the potential of this structure for practical applications, immunosensors were fabricated and tested using these structures. Self-assembled polyelectrolytes served as a precursor film for immobilization of antibodies to ensure they retain their biological activity. This not only provides a convenient method for protein immobilization but also presents the possibility of increasing the binding capacity and sensitivity by incorporating multilayers of antibodies into polyelectrolyte layers. The steady-state measurement demonstrated the surface concentration and binding ratio of the immunoreaction. Analysis of the kinetic binding profile provided a fast and effective way to measure antigen concentration. Monitoring the immunoreaction between commercially available immunoglobulin G (IgG) and anti-IgG demonstrated the feasibility of using the MFPI sensing system for immunosensing applications. / Ph. D.