Optical beamforming networks (OBFNs) are a strong contender for phased array operation, especially using microwave photonics (MWP), with advantages in size, weight, power efficiency and cost. Applications for such systems range from satellite to cellphone communication. The use of OBFNs require multiple components to up-convert, down-convert and process radio frequency (RF) signals in the optical domain. In this thesis, these components and a photonic packaging solution were designed and tested. For the OBFN itself, the modulation for up-conversion was performed with a micro-ring modulator, which was able to perform 1.11V forward bias modulation at 500MHz with a modulation depth of 21 dB. A true time delay optical ring resonator (ORR) was designed and characterized, yielding 784 ps delay at 3.33V heater bias, tunable to any value below this. An accessible, low-cost photonic packaging approach was developed, which achieved an optical coupling loss of 2.8 dB per facet. In conjunction with the photonic packaging was an electromagnetic interference (EMI) enclosure, which was able to block unwanted external RF signals. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

No description available.

Optical waveguide structures and devices are the fundamental basic building blocks of photonic cireuits which play important roles in modern telecommunication and sensing systems. With the fast development of fabrication technologies and in response to the needs of miniaturization and fast increased functionality in future integrated photonic chips, various structures based on high-index contrast waveguides, surface plasmonic polaritons structures, etc., have been widely proposed and investigated. Modeling and simulation methods, as efficient and excellent cost performance tools comparing to costly facilities and time-consuming fabrication procedures, are demanded to explore and design the devices and circuits before their finalization. This thesis covers a series of techniques for modeling, simulation and design of photonic devices and circuits with the emphasis of handling of radiation wave and the related power couplings. The fundamental issue in optical waveguide analysis is to obtain the complete mode spectrum. In principle, we need the radiation modes to expand the arbitrary fields of an open waveguide. In practice, however, the continuum nature of the radiation modes makes them hard to use. The discrete leaky modes may approximately represent a cluster of radiation modes under some circumstance and can be utilized in mode expansion together with guided modes to significantly simplify the analysis of mode coupling problems in optical waveguides. However, the leaky modes are unbounded by nature and hence lack the usual characteristics of normal guided modes in terms of normalization and orthogonality. Recently a novel scheme for handling of radiation optical fields was proposed and demonstrated by applying perfectly matching layers (PML) terminated with a perfectly reflecting boundary (PRB) condition. In this scheme, the radiation fields are represented in terms of a set of complex modes, some of which resemble the conventional leaky modes and others associated with the interaction between the PML media and the reflecting numerical boundaries. The mode spectrum is therefore split into the guided modes and complex modes which possess the normal mode features such as normalization and modal orthogonality. The seemingly paradoxical application of both the PML and PRB in the new method has in fact overcome one of the main challenges assoiated with this traditional method, i.e., the desire for discrete, orthogonal, and normalized modes to represent radiation fields and the need for elimination and reduction of spurious reflections from the edges of the finite computation window. With the understanding of mode spectrum, a full vector mode matching method and a complex coupled mode method for analyzing the wave propagation in optical waveguides under the framework of PRL and PRB computation model have been proposed. The methods have been validated through various structures such as waveguide facet, polarization rotators, long/short period gratings etc. Then the proposed techniques have been utilized to design a series of waveguide structures based on surface plasmonic polaritons, slot waveguides etc. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

In recent years, interest has grown in the research fields of semiconductor lasers and photonic crystals. This thesis looks at integrating photonic crystals into existing semiconductor laser technology to act as functional laser mirrors. The majority of the research is conducted on a quantum-dot material system. The surface recombination velocity of a GaAs based quantum-dot material is shown to be a similar value to InP material. This allows the creation of fine photonic crystal structures in the laser design without high threshold current penalties. The spectral reflection properties of a one dimensional photonic crystal is studied and found to be an unsuitable candidate for a stand-alone laser mirror, due to its low reflectivity. A two-dimensional photonic crystal W3 defect waveguide is successfully integrated as a quantum-dot laser mirror. Single fundamental mode output is achieved with a typically multi-mode 20 μm wide laser mesa, highlighting the mode selective property of the mirror. A similar two-dimensional mirror is studied for its potential as a dispersion compensating mirror for mode-locked lasers. Initial theoretical analysis shows pulse compression for a suitably designed mirror. Experimental continuous- wave results for the same mirror structure demonstrate the tuning of mirror reflectivity with photonic crystal hole radius. A hybrid silicon-organic photonic crystal laser is demonstrated with output in the visible spectrum. This design is a new type of silicon emitter.

The use of photonic crystals for light extraction from light-emitting diodes (LEDs) gives the possibility to shape the farfield emission pattern. This is of particular interest for étendue-limited LED applications that require a more directional farfield than state- of-the-art Lambertian emitters. However, the application of a photonic crystal in a LED results in directional emission only if the photonic crystal and the distribution of guided modes in the LED are tuned correctly. In this thesis, red- and blue-emitting thin-film PhC-LEDs in the AlGaInP and InGaN material systems were modelled, designed, fabricated and characterized. The first experimental results show that light extraction with photonic crystals from AlGaInP thin-film LEDs several microns thick is neither directional nor more efficient than state-of-the-art LEDs with a rough surface structure. Directional light extraction for AlGaInP PhC-LEDs is for the first time demonstrated in much thinner devices where the photonic crystal light extraction of guided modes is combined with the resonant-cavity effect. In an attempt to approach the ideal PhC-LED, strong photonic crystal farfield shaping is demonstrated in InGaN thin-film LEDs of sub-micron thickness. Analysis of their spectral farfields unexpectedly shows that high order diffraction contributes significantly to the light extraction efficiency if the mode absorption is sufficiently low. It is also demonstrated that directional photonic crystal light extraction is possible in InGaN thin-film LEDs several microns thick. The directionality stems from the modulation of the spontaneous emission caused by the proximity of the active region to the bottom mirror. Two new concepts for enhanced light extraction and high directionality are presented: Photonic crystals with two dominating lattice constants are found to outperform conventional photonic crystal LEDs. An alternative approach is the dielectric PhC-LED - FDTD simulations show that the high extraction efficiency of LEDs with surface roughness is combined with the higher directionality of photonic crystal light extraction.

This thesis is concerned with the fabrication methodology of polymeric photonic crystals operating in the visible to near infrared regions and the correlation between the chemical deposition morphologies and the resultant photonic stopband enhancements of photonic crystals. Multiphoton lithography (MPL) is a powerful approach to the fabrication of polymeric 3D micro- and nano-structures with a typical minimum feature size ~ 200 nm. The completely free-form 3D fabrication capability of MPL is very well suited to the formation of tailored photonic crystals (PCs), including structures containing well defined defects. Such structures are of considerable current interest as micro-optical devices for their filtering, stop-band, dispersion, resonator, or waveguiding properties. More specifically, the stop-band characteristics of polymer PCs can be finely controlled via nanoscale changes in rod spacings and the chemical functionalities at the polymer surface can be readily utilized to impart new optical properties. Nanoscale features as small as 65 ± 5 nm have been formed reproducibly by using 520 nm femtosecond pulsed excitation of a 4,4'-bis(di-n-butylamino)biphenyl chromophore to initiate crosslinking in a triacrylate blend. Dosimetry studies of the photoinduced polymerization were performed on chromophores with sizable two-photon absorption cross-sections at 520 and 730 nm. These studies show that sub-diffraction limited line widths are obtained in both cases with the lines written at 520 nm being smaller. Three-dimensional multiphoton lithography at 520 nm has been used to fabricate polymeric woodpile photonic crystal structures that show stop bands in the visible to near-infrared spectral region. 85 ± 4 nm features were formed using swollen gel photoresist by 730 nm excitation MPL. An index matching oil was used to induce chemical swelling of gel resists prior to MPL fabrication. When swollen matrices were subjected to multiphoton excitation, a similar excitation volume is achieved as in normal unswollen resins. However, upon deswelling of the photoresist following development a substantial reduction in feature size was obtained. PCs with high structural fidelity across 100 µm × 100 µm × 32 layers exhibited strong reflectivity (>60% compared to a gold mirror) in the near infrared region. The positions of the stop-bands were tuned by varying the swelling time, the exposure power (which modifies the feature sizes), and the layer spacing between rods. Silver coatings have been applied to PCs with a range of coverage densities and thicknesses using electroless deposition. Sparse coatings resulted in enhanced reflectivity for the stop band located at ~5 µm, suggesting improved interface reflectivity inside the photonic crystal due to the Ag coating. Thick coatings resulted in plasmonic bandgap behavior with broadband reflectivity enhancement and PC lattice related bandedge at 1.75 µm. Conformal titania coatings were grown onto the PCs via a surface sol-gel method. Uniform and smooth titania coatings were achieved, resulting in systematically red-shifted stopbands from their initial positions with increasing thicknesses, corresponding to the increased effective refractive index of the PC. High quality titania shell structures with modest stopbands were obtained after polymer removal. Gold replica structures were obtained by electroless deposition on the silica cell walls of naturally occurring diatoms and the subsequent silica removal. The micron-scaled periodic hole lattice originated from the diatom resulted in surface plasmon interferences when excited by infrared frequencies. The hole patterns were characterized and compared with hexagonal hole arrays fabricated by focused ion beam etching of similarly gold plated substrate. Modeling of the hole arrays concluded that while diatom replicas lack long-ranged periodicity, the local hole to hole spacings were sufficient to generate enhanced transmission of 13% at 4.2 µm. The work presented herein is a step towards the development of PCs with new optical and chemical functionalities. The ability to rapidly prototype polymeric PCs of various lattice parameters using MPL combined with facile coating chemistries to create structures with the desired optical properties offers a powerful means to produce tailored high performance photonic crystal devices.

<p>The objective of this dissertation work is to examine light localization in semiconductors provided by a complete photonic bandgap via three-dimensional (3D) woodpile photonic crystals. A 3D photonic crystal is a periodic nanostructure that demonstrates omni-directional Bragg reflection. These materials are anticipated to become a powerful tool for engineering light propagation and localization within subwavelength scales due to their complete photonic bandgap and the distinctive dispersion relation. </p><p>The approach of realizing microcavities in this dissertation is to combine multi-directional etching fabrication methods with mode gap design. Modulation of unit cell size along a line-defect 3D waveguide could bring a guiding mode into the mode gap region of the waveguide and form a microcavity with a resonance inside the complete photonic bandgap. The designed microcavities could be fabricated by multi-directional etching methods because they can structurally be decomposed into two sets of connected and straight dielectric rods. </p><p>Ultra-high-quality factor microcavities and sub-wavelength-scale waveguides are designed without introduction of local disorders. Monopole, dipole, and quadrupole resonant modes are demonstrated with a small modal volume. The smallest modal volumes obtained are 0.36 cubic half-wavelengths for a resonance field in vacuum, and 2.88 cubic half-wavelengths for a resonance field in a dielectric. Direct metal contacts with the microcavities do not significantly deteriorate the quality factors because the resonant fields are located inside the microcavities. Single-mode woodpile waveguides are also designed in both lateral and vertical propagation directions. </p><p>The multi-directional etching method is a simple approach to the fabrication of woodpile photonic crystals and designed optical components with a variety of crystal orientations and surfaces, including (110), (001), (100), and (010) planes. An arbitrary surface plane (mn0) is obtained with this method, where m and n are integers. Moreover, it can also produce large area woodpile photonic crystals with high precision in silicon and GaAs materials.</p><p>These optical components in woodpile photonic crystals would be building blocks of high-density, low-loss 3D integrated optics, cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), nonlinear optics, and enable the realization of current-injection optical devices.</p> / Dissertation

The atomic layer deposition (ALD) growth of titania thin films was studied for the infiltration of silica photonic crystals. Titania thin films were grown in a custom-built ALD reactor by the alternating pulsing and purging of TiCl4 and water vapor. The conformal nature of ALD growth makes it an ideal candidate for the infiltration of the complex opal structure. Titania is a high refractive index material, which makes it a popular material for use in photonic crystal (PC) applications. Photonic crystals are periodic dielectric structures that forbid the propagation of light in a certain wavelength range. This forbidden range is known as the photonic band gap (PBG). A refractive index contrast of at least 2.8 is required for a complete PBG in an inverted opal structure. Therefore, the rutile structure of titania is more desirable for use in PCs due to its higher index of refraction than the anatase or brookite structure. The growth mechanisms and film properties of the TiO2 thin films were studied. Investigation of the growth mechanisms revealed saturated growth rate conditions for multiple temperature regions. Film characterization techniques included XRD, SEM/EDS, XPS, AFM, reflectivity, and index of refraction measurements. Post growth heat treatment was performed to study the conversion from the as-deposited crystal structure to the rutile structure. After optimization of the deposition process, the infiltration of silica opals for PC applications was attempted. The filling fraction was optimized by increasing the pulse and purge lengths at a deposition temperature of 100oC. Although the silica opals were successfully infiltrated using ALD of TiO2, the long range order of the PC was destroyed after the heat treatment step required to achieve the high index rutile structure.

Recently, long-period fiber gratings (LPFGs) based on PCFs have been demonstrated by using heating or a mechanically pressure to induce periodic index variations along the fibers. However, LPFGs fabricated by these two methods suffer the structure damage. In this thesis we propose novel optically controllable LPFGs based on the photoresponsive photonic liquid crystal fibers (PLCFs) and no structure damage occurs during the fabrication process. The photoresponsive PLCF was filled with a LC mixture consisting of the nematic LC E7 and the photoresponsive 4MAB. The properties of the photoresponsive PLCF can be modulated by using laser irradiation. In addition, the transmission bands of the photoresponsive PLCF can also be tuned by controlling the 4MAB concentration or operation temperature. An optically controllable LPFG was fabricated based on the photoresponsive PLCF by using blue-laser irradiation through a mask with 700-£gm grating period. The measured resonant wavelength appeared at 1539 nm with the FWHM was 27 nm, and the maximum dip depth was about −15 dB with a 6.5-dB insertion loss. The LPFG was shown to be erasable by using a green laser. In addition, we have also investigated the effects of the number of grating period, 4MAB concentrations, operation temperatures, thermal recovery properties, and irradiation intensity on the LPFGs. Our proposed optically controllable LPFGs possess reversible property and are quite useful to be applied in tunable optical devices.

Photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) are divided into two different kinds of fibers. The first one, index-guiding PCF, guides light by total internal reflection between a solid core and a cladding region with multiple air-holes. On the other hand, the second one uses a perfectly periodic structure exhibiting a photonic band-gap (PBG) effect at the operating wavelength to guide light in a low index core-region. A compact 2D-FDTD method based on finite-difference time-domain method is formulated and is effectively applied to analysis PCFs and PBGFs. We study the propagation features of fundamental mode and the fundamental characteristics such as effective index, modal-field diameter and chromatic dispersion in index-guiding PCFs. By optimizing the air-hole diameters and the hole-to-hole spacing of index-guiding PCFs, both the dispersion and the dispersion slope can be controlled in a wide wavelength range. We also investigate the propagation features of fundamental mode and band-gap effect of PBGFs.