Techn. University, Diss., 2004--Berlin.

This thesis report works on optically characterizing waveguide based biosensors consisting of thin, narrow Au stripes embedded in CYTOP. The devices were examined using an ever evolving and improving interrogation setup, variations of which are described in detail in this document. A number of changes were made to the setup configuration in order to reduce noise levels and increase efficiency and accuracy of acquired measurements. Waveguides of varying configurations (straight waveguides and Mach-Zehnder Interferometers with etched and cladded channels) are described and optically characterized. The characterization results of these devices are presented in this thesis. Bulk index measurements are carried out in order to determine a suitable bio-sensing solution with a refractive index matched to that of CYTOP. Step index measurements clearly distinguishing the introduction of sensing solutions of refractive indices varying from one another, are made available. Preliminary bio-sensing experiments involving detection of change in refractive index of sensing fluid as well as adlayer thickness with the introduction of analytes binding to the waveguide surface that has been functionalized with antibodies, using both straight and cladded waveguides with single mode outputs are studied.

Optical fiber sensors have been intensively studied and successfully employed in various human social activities and daily living, such as industrial production, civil engineering, medicine, transportation, national defense and so on. According to different structures, optical sensors could be divided into various categories. This thesis focuses on studying different kinds of in-line fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometers, which have played an important role among the optical interferometric fiber sensors. The structure composition, fabrication process, physical principle and practical applications of two novel in-line fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometers are proposed and discussed in detail in this work. The tapered bend-insensitive fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer (BIF-MZI) is firstly fabricated and used as a fiber vibrometer. The unique double-cladding structure of bend-insensitive fiber not only provides higher mechanical strength to the sensor, but also guarantees a more uniform transmission spectrum， since only a few inner-cladding modes are left interfering with the core mode. A high sensitivity and fast response intensity demodulation scheme is employed by monitoring the power fluctuation of the BIF-MZI at the operation wavelength. Both damped and continuous vibrations are detected using the proposed sensor. It is demonstrated that this sensor responses to an extremely wide range of frequencies from 1 Hz up to 500 kHz with high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). The discrimination of temperature and axial strain is realized based on the dispersion effects of high-order-mode fiber (HOMF) by forming a single mode fiber-high-order-mode fiber-single mode fiber (SMF-HOMF-SMF) structure based in-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Unlike some kinds of in-line MZIs such as tapered and core–offset structures whose cladding modes are excited with different types under changing temperature and strain circumstances, the HOMF is capable of supporting three stable core modes, which guarantees a reliable and repeatable measurements within a large temperature or strain range. A new method based on the fast Fourier transform (FFT) is employed to analyze the mode couplings and their chromatic dispersion and intermodal dispersion properties in HOMF. The strong dispersion effects lead to a multi-peak feature in the spatial frequency spectrum. It is found that peaks that denote the waveform periods at positions that are beyond the critical wavelength possess highly sensitive and distinct phase responses to external disturbances, which provides the possibility to realize the discrimination measurements with high sensitivities and smaller errors by selecting appropriate peaks. The phase demodulation scheme is applied to quantify the temperature and strain changes in terms of phase shifts. Appropriate peak selections according to the practical needs would provide an easy access for applications where more than two parameters are required to be discriminated.

We have harnessed the power of various programmable photonics devices for an interferometric measurement technique. Distortion-free laser-based velocity measurements through a dynamic gas-liquid interface are enabled by a closed-loop optoelectronic system. We are employing electrically tunable lenses and micro mirrors to correct low-order wavefront distortions effectively. Our work represents a paradigm shift in interferometric velocity measurement techniques from using static to dynamic optical elements.

No description available.

This thesis describes the development of a Mach-Zehnder interferometric filter based planar Doppler velocimetry (MZI-PDV) flow measurement technique. The technique uses an entirely new optical system, an unbalanced MZI incorporating glass blocks for wavefront-matching, to replace the iodine cell currently used in conventional PDV. The free spectral range of the interferometric filter can be selected by adjusting the optical path difference of the MZI. This allows the velocity measurement range, sensitivity and resolution to be varied. This system offers no restricts to the choice of laser wavelength of operation which is not the case with most techniques. Two techniques to process the interference fringe images are presented. The first uses the shift of the fringe pattern to determine the Doppler frequency shift along profiles. The second provides a full-field measurement by normalising the received light intensity at each pixel in the image. With the single camera MZI-PDV scheme, exact alignment of the two output images on the active area of the camera is automatic. This eliminates the pixel-matching problem in conventional two camera PDV systems. The technique allows the measurement of up to three components of the flow velocity across a plane defined by a laser light sheet. The construction of a single velocity component MZI-PDV system that incorporates a phase-locking system designed to stabilise the filter is described. Measurements are made on the velocity field of a rotating disc with maximum velocities of ~±70ms-1 and an axis-symmetric air jet (with a nozzle diameter of 20mm) with an exit velocity of ~85ms-1. Standard deviations in the measured velocities were found to be about 2.9 and 2ms-1 for the two processing methods respectively. The system was then modified to make 3-component velocity measurements using imaging fibre bundles to port multiple views to a single detector head, and the standard deviation of the velocity error is around ±3ms-1 for a maximum velocity of ~±30ms-1 in the field of view. The factors that will affect the quality of the interference fringe image are investigated including polarisation sensitivity of the two beam splitters and flatness of the optical components. The inclination angle and the optical path deviation have little effect on the contrast of the interference fringes since collimated light beams, rather than divergent ones, are used in the interferometer.

This thesis describes the development of a Mach-Zehnder interferometric filter based planar Doppler velocimetry (MZI-PDV) flow measurement technique. The technique uses an entirely new optical system, an unbalanced MZI incorporating glass blocks for wavefront-matching, to replace the iodine cell currently used in conventional PDV. The free spectral range of the interferometric filter can be selected by adjusting the optical path difference of the MZI. This allows the velocity measurement range, sensitivity and resolution to be varied. This system offers no restricts to the choice of laser wavelength of operation which is not the case with most techniques. Two techniques to process the interference fringe images are presented. The first uses the shift of the fringe pattern to determine the Doppler frequency shift along profiles. The second provides a full-field measurement by normalising the received light intensity at each pixel in the image. With the single camera MZI-PDV scheme, exact alignment of the two output images on the active area of the camera is automatic. This eliminates the pixel-matching problem in conventional two camera PDV systems. The technique allows the measurement of up to three components of the flow velocity across a plane defined by a laser light sheet. The construction of a single velocity component MZI-PDV system that incorporates a phase-locking system designed to stabilise the filter is described. Measurements are made on the velocity field of a rotating disc with maximum velocities of ~±70ms-1 and an axis-symmetric air jet (with a nozzle diameter of 20mm) with an exit velocity of ~85ms-1. Standard deviations in the measured velocities were found to be about 2.9 and 2ms-1 for the two processing methods respectively. The system was then modified to make 3-component velocity measurements using imaging fibre bundles to port multiple views to a single detector head, and the standard deviation of the velocity error is around ±3ms-1 for a maximum velocity of ~±30ms-1 in the field of view. The factors that will affect the quality of the interference fringe image are investigated including polarisation sensitivity of the two beam splitters and flatness of the optical components. The inclination angle and the optical path deviation have little effect on the contrast of the interference fringes since collimated light beams, rather than divergent ones, are used in the interferometer.

It is well known that thermally evaporated a-As2S3 thin films are prone to oxidation when exposed to an ambient environment. These As2O3 crystals are a major source of scattering loss in sub-micron optical integrated circuits. Magnetron sputtering a-As2S3 not only produces films that have optical properties closer to their equilibrium state, the as-deposited films also show no signs of photo-decomposed As2O3. The TM propagation loss of the as-deposited As2S3-on-Ti:LiNbO3 waveguide is 0.20 plus/minus 0.05 dB/cm, and it is the first low loss hybrid waveguide demonstration. Using the recipe developed for sputtering As2S3, a hybrid Mach-Zehnder interferometer has been fabricated. This allows us to measure the group index of the integrated As2S3 waveguide and use it in the study of the group velocity dispersion in the sputtered film, as both material dispersion and waveguide dispersion may be present in the system. The average group index of the integrated As2S3 waveguide is 2.36 plus/minus 0.01. On-chip optical amplification was achieved through thermal diffusion of erbium into X-cut LiNbO3. The net gain measured for a transverse magnetic propagation mode in an 11 μm wide Er:Ti:LiNbO3 waveguide amplifier is 2.3 dB plus/minus 0.1 dB, and its on-chip gain is 1.2 plus/minus 0.1 dB/cm. The internal gain measured for a transverse electric propagation in an 7 μm wide Er:Ti:LiNbO3 waveguide amplifier is 1.8 dB plus/minus 0.1 dB and is among the highest reported in the literature. These gains were obtained with two 1488 nm lasers at a combined pump power of 182mW. In order to increase further the on-chip gain, we have to improve the mode overlap between the pump and the signal. This can be done by doping erbium into As2S3 film using multi-layer magnetron sputtering. The Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy shows that the doping of Er:As2S3 film with 16 layers of erbium is homogeneous, and Raman spectroscopy confirms no significant amount of Er-S clusters in the sputtered film. The deposition method was used to fabricate an Er:As2S3 waveguide, and the presence of active erbium ions in the waveguide is evident from the green luminescence it emitted when it was pumped by 1488 nm diode laser.

Organic polymer materials have been broadly applied in optical storage, optical communication and optical signal process. It has been revealed that these organic materials have some superior characteristics such as larger electro-optical (EO) coefficients, broader bandwidth and shorter response time, which make it good for EO modulator application. In our study, the goal is to study the EO coefficient of novel polymer material to be used in low driving voltage EO modulator. During the experiment, the dependence of the second harmonic generation (SHG) intensity on doping concentration of DR1/PMMA was observed and a reasonable explanation of the nonlinear dependency was given. We measured the EO coefficient of a new material, ASF/PMMA, using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. We also observed the relaxation process of SHG intensity of this new material, which was compared with that of DR1/PMMA. Under the same measurement condition, we found that the EO coefficient of ASF/PMMA (13.1 pm/V) is significantly larger than that of DR1/PMMA (3 pm/V). It is also found that relaxation time of ASF/PMMA and DR1/PMMA are 22 and 8.5 seconds, respectively. Because of the superior characteristics of this material, it is suitable to be used in EO modulator.

The reason of the essay research find position of leakage point, and design a fiber optical leakage detection system. The research of fiber optical detection system in past year, because property of structure produce SNR smaller, quality of detection system is too bed. The essay brings to a hybrid Mach-Zehnder & Sagnac interferomtric can improve the SNR to 10dB. Therefore, it provides the better SNR. The experiment is added to signal process, such as PTL, PGC structure. To provide the systematic characteristic, such as dynamic range(60dB), percentage error(0.025%). The focal of the essay provide leak detection systematic characteristics how we make use of signal process.