The purpose of this thesis is to investigate a novel method to develop broadband microstrip (patch) antennas using substrates containing photonic crystals. Photonic crystals are a class of periodic dielectric, metallic, or composite structures that when introduced to an electromagnetic signal can exhibit a forbidden band of frequencies (or bandgap) in which the incident signal destructively interferes and thus is unable to propagate. It is proposed that such photonic crystals will reduce surface waves and prohibit the formation of substrate modes, which are commonly known inhibitors of patch antenna designs. By reducing or eliminating the effects of these electromagnetic inhibitors with photonic crystals, a broadband response can be obtained from inherently narrowband antennas. In addition, it is also proposed that the behavior of the photonic crystals will lead to a reduction in pattern sidelobes resulting in improvements in radiation pattern front-to-back ratio and overall antenna efficiency. This research is verified through analytical simulations and experimental investigations in the Virginia Tech anaechoic chamber. / Master of Science

Conventional fibers are comprised of a solid glass core and solid glass cladding often protected by a thin polymer sheath. The finely tuned difference in refractive indices, for step index-fibers, is achieved by doping the core with germanium or elements with similar effects. Holey fibers (including photonic crystal fibers) comprise of a pure silica core, and a pure but porous silica cladding of air holes [1]. This provides a huge difference in the refractive indices on the cladding and core without doping. This translates into radiation resistant fibers with very low losses and very robust to high temperatures to mention a few [2]. Several successful attempts have been made for ordered holey optical fibers since the initial publication by Knight et al; random holey optical fibers, which can be just as effective, have yet to be fabricated [3]. Sol-gel processing of silicon alkoxides can be used to fabricate silica monoliths of tailored pore densities and sizes [4]; this makes the process attractive for random holey fiber preform manufacturing. Similar attempts have been made by Okazaki et al [5] to make conventional optical fibers. This paper chronicles efforts to make random holey fiber optical preforms from silica sol-gel monoliths, characterized for some structural properties. Silica monoliths can be made by hydrolysis and condensation of TEOS (tetraethylorthosilicate) or TMOS (tetramethylorthosilicate). These can be catalyzed in a single step or two-step process, aged and dried at ambient pressures and temperatures, as well as by supercritical fluid extraction of CO2. Mechanical strengthening techniques as described by Okazaki [5] have also been employed. The silica gel monoliths are characterized by helium pycnometry and scanning electron microscopy. Various shapes and densities of silica monoliths have been prepared and characterized. Some of these have also drawn into fibers to demonstrate their viability. / Master of Science

Thesis advisor: Michael J. Naughton / For many centuries, physicists and engineers have explored the creation, manipulation and detection of light. Only within the past century, however, have fabrication techniques advanced to the point where individual photons can be generated, manipulated, and measured. These advances have brought us to the point we are at today, where photonic devices are set to revolutionize the fields of computing, sensing and quantum information, to name a few. Despite the promise of these devices, scientists are still working to fully understand the light-matter interactions that govern their behavior. In this thesis, we uniquely characterize the behavior of certain photonic devices in an effort to understand the underlying physical principles that define them. Of particular interest to us is imaging via near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) of photonic integrated circuit (PIC) elements with high quality factors (Q), such as microring resonators and photonic crystal cavities (PhCs). While these elements are becoming ubiquitous in emerging PIC designs, they have remained difficult to accurately image due to their high sensitivity to small perturbations (i.e. the NSOM probe). We solve this problem by controllably modulating the NSOM tip-sample distance and reducing the size of the probe. Finite element model computer simulations demonstrate that both of these adjustments decrease the tip sample interaction. We then apply this knowledge to generate first of their kind 50 nm resolution NSOM images of high Q resonant PIC devices. Importantly, aside from being accurate, the proposed NSOM technique is also facile and non-destructive. In addition to local field exploration of PIC elements, we explore non-classical optical transmission through sub-wavelength apertures in metallic films. We demonstrate that these interesting features arise from photonic wave interference. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Physics.

Today's information and communication industry is confronted with a serious bottleneck due to the prohibitive energy consumption and limited transmission bandwidth of electrical interconnects. Silicon photonics offers an alternative by transferring data optically and thereby eliminating the restriction of electrical interconnects over distance and bandwidth. Due to the inherent advantage of using the same material as that used for the electronic circuitry, silicon photonics also promises high volume and low cost production plus the possibility of integration with electronics. In this thesis, I introduce an all-silicon optical interconnect architecture that promises very high integration density along with very low energy consumption. The basic building block of this architecture is a vertically coupled photonic crystal cavity-waveguide system. This vertically coupled system acts as a highly wavelength selective filter. By suitably designing the waveguide and the cavity, at resonance wavelength of the cavity, large drop in transmission can be achieved. By locally modulating the material index of the cavity electrically, the resonance wavelength of the cavity can be tuned to achieve modulation in the transmission of the waveguide. The detection scheme also utilizes the same vertically coupled system. By creating crystal defects in silicon in the cavity region, wavelength selective photodetection can be achieved. This unique vertical coupling scheme also allows us to cascade multiple modulators and detectors coupled to a single waveguide, thus offering huge channel scalability and design and fabrication simplicity. During this project, I have implemented this vertical coupling scheme to demonstrate modulation with extremely low operating energy (0.6 fJ/bit). Furthermore, I have demonstrated cascadeability and multichannel operation by using a comb laser as the source that simultaneously drives five channels. For photodetection, I have realized one of the smallest wavelength selective detector with responsivity of 0.108 A/W at 10 V reverse bias with a dark current of 9.4 nA. By cascading such detectors I have also demonstrated a two-channel demultiplexer.

No description available.

La technologie photovoltaïque se caractérise par sa capacité à réduire constamment le coût de l’électricité délivrée, notamment grâce aux innovations technologiques. Un pas important a été franchi dans ce sens grâce à la mise en place d’une filière utilisant des couches minces, réduisant significativement la quantité de matériau actif nécessaire. Aujourd’hui, ces efforts se poursuivent et des couches semi-conductrices ultraminces voient le jour. Du fait de leur faible épaisseur, ces couches souffrent d’une faible absorption de la lumière, ce qui limite le rendement de conversion des cellules. Pour répondre à ce problème, les concepts issus de la nano-photonique peuvent être employés afin de contrôler la lumière à l’échelle des longueurs d’onde mises en jeu. Dans ce contexte, nous proposons de structurer la couche active des cellules solaires en cristal photonique (CP) absorbant. Cette nano-structure périodique assure simultanément une collection efficace de la lumière aux faibles longueurs d’onde et un piégeage des photons dans la couche active (ici en silicium amorphe hydrogéné) pour les longueurs d’onde situées près de la bande interdite du matériau absorbant. Dans le cadre de cette étude, des simulations optiques ont été utilisées de manière à optimiser les paramètres du CP, engendrant ainsi une augmentation de l’absorption de plus de 27% dans la couche active sur l’ensemble du spectre utile, et à établir des règles de design en vue de la fabrication des cellules structurées. Les principes physiques régissant leurs propriétés optiques ont été identifiés à partir d’une description analytique du système. Des mesures optiques réalisées sur les échantillons structurés, ont conforté les résultats de simulation et mis en évidence la robustesse de l’absorption de la cellule à l’égard de l’angle d’incidence de la lumière et des imperfections technologiques. Des simulations opto-électriques complémentaires ont démontré qu’une augmentation du rendement de conversion est réalisable, à condition d’introduire une étape de passivation de surface appropriée dans le procédé de fabrication de ces cellules. / The photovoltaic technology is pursuing its constant effort for lowering the price of the electricity delivered, notably thanks to the technological innovations. The use of thin-films based solar cells was an important step towards that direction since it enabled to decrease the amount of active material needed. Recently, ultrathin semi-conductor layers have emerged. Due to their limited thickness, those layers are suffering from a weak absorption of the incoming light which degrades the conversion yield of the resulting cells. To tackle this issue, nano-photonic concepts may offer well-suited solutions to handle the light at the wavelength scale. In this context, we propose to pattern the active layer of solar cells as an absorbing photonic crystal (PC). This periodical nano-structure ensures simultaneously an efficient collection of the light at low wavelengths, together with an appropriate method for trapping photons inside the active layer for the wavelengths close to the material bandgap, which in our case consists in hydrogenated amorphous silicon. In the framework of this study, optical simulations were used to optimize the PC parameters so as to provide a significant (+27% in the sole active layer) absorption increase over the whole spectrum considered and guidelines for the fabrication of the patterned cells. The physics principles ruling their optical properties were identified out of an analytical description of the system. Optical measurements carried on the patterned samples confirmed the simulation results and highlighted the robustness of the overall absorption with regards to the angle of incidence of the light and technological imperfections. In addition, opto-electrical simulations revealed that an increase of the conversion yield can be expected, provided that an appropriated surface passivation step is introduced in the fabrication process.

Globally increasing levels of bandwidth and capacity requirements force the optical communications industry to produce new products that are faster, more powerful, and more efficient. In particular, optical-electronic-optical (O-E-O) conversions in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) mechanisms prevent higher data transfer speeds and create a serious bottleneck for optical communications. These O-E-O transitions are mostly encountered in the Wavelength converters of WDMs, and as a result, all-optical wavelength conversion methods have become extremely important. The main discussion in this thesis will concentrate on a specific all-optical wavelength conversion mechanism. In this mechanism, photonic crystal structures are integrated with moving MEMS/NEMS structures to create a state-of-the-art all-optical wavelength converter prototype. A wavelength conversion of 20% is achieved using this structure. Since the interaction of light with moving MEMS/NEMS structures plays an important role in the proposed wavelength conversion mechanism, modeling and simulation of electromagnetic waves becomes a very crucial step in the design process. Consequently, a subsection of this thesis will focus on a proposed enhancement to the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) to model moving structures more efficiently and more realistically. This technique is named "Linear Dielectric Interpolation" and will be applied to more realistically and efficiently model the proposed photonic crystal MEMS/NEMS wavelength conversion mechanism.

Photonic crystals (PCs), consisting of a periodic pattern of variations in the material properties, are one of the platforms proposed as synthetic optical materials to meet the need for optical materials with desired properties. Recently, applications based on dispersive properties of the PCs have been proposed in which PCs are envisioned as optical materials with controllable dispersive properties. Unlike the conventional use of PCs to achieve localization, in these new applications propagation inside the photonic crystal is studied, and their dispersive properties are utilized. Among these applications, the possibility of demultiplexing light using the superprism effect is of particular interest. Possibility of integration and compactness are two main advantages of PC-based wavelength demultiplexers compared to other demultiplexing techniques, for applications including compact spectrometers (for sensing applications), demultiplexers (for communications), and spectral analysis (for information processing systems). I develop the necessary simulation tools to study the dispersive properties of photonic crystals. In particular, I will focus on superprism-based demultiplexing in PCs, and define a phenomenological model to describe different effects in these structures and to study important parameters and trends. A systematic method for the optimization and design of these structures is presented. Implementation of these structures is experimentally demonstrated using the devices fabricated in a planar SOI platform based on designed parameters. In the next step, different approaches to improve the performance of these devices (for better resolution and lower insertion loss) are studied, and extension of the concepts to other material platforms is discussed.

Silicon is the dominant material in Microelectronics. Building photonic devices out of silicon can leverage the mature processing technologies developed in silicon CMOS. Silicon is also a very good waveguide material. It is highly transparent at 1550nm, and it has very high refractive index of 3.46. High refractive index enables building high index contrast waveguides with dimensions close to the diffraction limit. This provides the opportunity to build highly integrated photonic integrated circuit that can perform multiple functions on the same silicon chip, an optical parallel of the electronic integrated circuit. However, silicon does not have some of the necessary properties to build active optical devices such as lasers and modulators. For Example, silicon is an indirect band gap material that can’t be used to make lasers. The centro-symmetric crystal structure in silicon presents no electro-optic effect. By contrast, electro-optic polymer can be engineered to show very strong electro-optic effect up to 300pm/V. In this research we have demonstrated highly compact and efficient devices that utilize the strong optical confinement ability in silicon and strong electro-optic effect in polymer. We have performed detailed investigations on the optical coupling to a slow light waveguide and developed solutions to improve the coupling efficiency to a slow light photonic crystal waveguides (PCW). These studies have lead to the demonstration of the most hybrid silicon modulator demonstrate to date and a compact chip scale true time delay module that can be implemented in future phased array antenna systems. In the future, people may be able to realize a photonic integrated circuit for optical communication or sensor systems using the devices we developed in our research. / text

Paskutiniais dešimtmečiais puslaidininkių fizika vaidino svarbų vaidmenį beveik kiekvienoje šiuolaikinių technologijų srityje. Šiame greitai besikeičiančiame pasaulyje mūsų jau nebetenkina supantys buities ir darbo prietaisai, valdomi naudojantis elektronais. Mums reikalingas didesnis kompiuterių operatyvumas, didesnė atminties talpa, greitesnis telekomunikacinis ryšys, ir todėl reikalingos naujos technologijos bei sprendimai. Naujas žingsnis fotoninės struktūros. Žinių ir technologijų pasiekimai leidžia fotoninių sturktūrų savybes taikyti šviesos valdymui. Dabartiniame optinės fizikos tyrinėjimų etape šviesos sąveika su medžiaga labai aktuali: ji gali atrodyti universali ir invariantiška, kadangi šviesa jau kontroliuojama pasitelkus hibridinius fotoninius kristalus. Šių darinių tyrimai patrauklūs tiek fundamentaliam, tiek taikomajam mokslui. Į opalą infiltravę skystąjį kristalą, gauname hibridinį fotoninį kristalą. Jo optines savybes galima keisti priklausomai nuo infiltruotos medžiagos lūžio rodiklio. Fotoniniai kristalai, reikia tikėtis, bus taikomi ateities fotoniniuose įrenginiuose, telekomunikacijoje. Su šia sritimi siejamos tokios pat ar net didesnės viltys, kokios buvo siejamos su prieš 50 metų išrastu puslaidininkiniu tranzistoriumi, pakeitusiu techniką ir davusiu impulsą naujoms mokslo kryptims. Teoriškai fotoninių kristalų egzistavimą nepriklausomai vienas nuo kito 1987 metais pirmieji aprašė E.Jablonovičius ir S. Johnas. Tačiau prireikė dar dešimt metų, kol buvo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / We live in the rapidly developing technological world. However, fields of communication, computer memory, and data processing require considerable improvements. The speed of data transportation is acceptable but capacity is low. There is a growing need for new technologies that rapidly detect and treat diseases at an early stage or even pre-stage. When we get accustomed to the advance, we demand more compact, energy-efficient, rapidly-responding and environmentally-safe technologies. During the last century this problem was solved by switching to transportation of electronic data, which connected people around the world. This approach had changed our lives, but about twenty years ago this technology reached its limits, while need for an even higher transportation capacity increases. Now we need faster computers and other state-of-the-art technological solutions: electrons are too slow and we have to use photons. Over the last decade, the steady progress regarding ability to fabricate hybrid photonic nanostructures led to a rich variety of different one-, two-, and three-dimensional dielectric/organic and/or metallic periodic structures. They demonstrate qualitatively new and fascinating linear-optical, nonlinear-optical, and quantum-optical features which provide an unprecedented control of light propagation and light-matter interaction. Photonic-based technology, coupled with nanotechnology, can meet many of these challenges. In this work fabrication of hybrid photonic... [to full text]