This thesis describes the development of optical wavelength converters with an integrated coupling structure, fabricated on periodically poled MgO doped lithium niobate (MgO:LN) for optical fiber communication and other all-optical signal processing applications. Wavelength converter is an integral part of any broadband communication system. The ability to transfer information between carrier wavelengths allows for efficient use of the available bandwidth in a transmission medium. Wavelength converters based on PPLN waveguides are among the most efficient nonlinear optical devices available today, due to highspeed operation, low noise, parallel operation on multiple wavelength channels and preservation of information carried in the optical domain. However, low conversion efficiency is an issue for wavelength converter based on PPLN waveguide. Compared to pure LN, MgO doped LN decrease restriction in optical damage and increase conversion efficiency. Integrated coupling structure demonstrates a solution to mode-coupling of the input wave to the fundamental mode of DFG device and increase the conversion efficiency. Therefore, a periodically poled MgO doped lithium niobate (MgO:LN) waveguides with integrated coupling structure is fabricated. The components of integrated coupling structure are compatible with lithium nobate waveguides, including directional couplers, small radius bends, adiabatic taper, and mode filter. The integrated coupling structure combines the pump and signal waves into the DFG conversion section, and makes the single mode conversion of the pump from input waveguide to conversion section. Theoretical models and simulations are provided in this thesis, and performances of the device with this structure are also presented. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

As WDM results in an ever-increasing trend of traffic concentration, any failure on a single fiber-link or a single switching node will be catastrophic. Rapid restoration can recover the affected traffic so as to make the network more robust and reliable. The conventional restoration methods are designed mostly for reconfiguring the network topology; they are not immune from service interruption. In this thesis, an effective algorithm called backup-path-wavelength rearrangement scheme is proposed to reduce the connection blocking probability in an all-optical network. The proposed scheme performs wavelength retuning on the backup paths to improve the acceptance probability for new connection requests and introduce zero service interruption to the traffic in the network. The performance evaluation indicates that the connection blocking probability can be decreased greatly by the proposed scheme. The combination of BPWR and traffic grooming can efficiently alleviate the wavelength continuity constraint.

Esta tesis constituye un estudio detallado y exhaustivo de las propiedades de una variedad específica de ondas ópticas solitarias. Observadas experimentalmente por primera vez en 1995, estas ondas estan formadas por un haz óptico a frecuencia fundamental y su segundo armónico que están ligados entre sí y viajan juntos en el material cuadrático; y son debidas al equilibrio entre la difracción lineal que sufre el haz al propagarse y un término no lineal de segundo orden en la susceptibilidad del medio. Las llamamos por eso solitones ópticos en medios cuadráticos o simplemente 'solitones cuadráticos'. También se les conoce como 'Solitones Multicolor' aludiendo al hecho de que requieren de haces a diferentes frecuencias para formarse.Un medio no-lineal cuadrático tiene por fuerza que ser no-centrosimétrico, lo cual es una variedad de anisotropía. Una gran parte de los materiales no-lineales cuadráticos (los que tienen mayor interés para la industria) son uniaxiales lo que significa que presentan un eje de simetría que suele llamarse eje óptico. De la dirección de un haz relativa a ese eje óptico dependen las características de la propagación del haz en el medio cuadrático no-lineal. Una consecuencia de eso en configuraciones de interés es un desvío ('walk-off') sufrido por el haz respecto a su dirección de propagación inicial al entrar en el material no-lineal.Las propiedades de los solitones cuadráticos 'caminantes' son también estudiadas en la tesis, estableciendo que existe una relación entre la potencia inyectada en el medio y el ángulo de desvío (walking angle).Una parte importante de la tesis está dedicada al estudio a través de exhaustivos experimentos numéricos del potencial de estas ondas solitarias para constituir la base de dispositivos de conmutación y encaminamiento totalmente ópticos que puedan hacer realidad la promesa de la red transparente totalmente óptica. Los experimentos han permitido identificar varias configuraciones de interés con niveles de potencia y dimensiones que permiten plantearse el diseño y construcción de dispositivos comerciales de conmutación y encaminamiento totalmente ópticos basados en solitones ópticos cuadráticos. / This thesis is a comprehensive study of the fundamental properties of a specific kind of optical spatial solitary waves. First observed experimentally in 1995, these solitary waves are formed by an optical beam at a fundamental frequency and its second harmonic which propagate together and are mutually entangled; and are due to a balanced interplay between the beams' linear diffraction and a second-order nonlinear susceptibility of the medium. They are thereby referred as 'Optical Solitons in Quadratic Nonlinear Media' or simply 'Quadratic Solitons', They are also known as 'Multicolor Solitons' recalling that they are formed by beams at different frequencies.A quadratic nonlinear media needs to be non centrosymmetric which is a special kind of anisotropy. A great deal of quadratic nonlinear materials (the most used by industry such as lithim niobate, KTP, etc.) are uniaxial meaning that they feature a symmetry axis known as 'optical axis'. The direction of propagation of an optical beam relative to that axis determines the characteristics of the beam's propagation through the quadratic nonlinear material. A main result of that in some configurations of interest is a walk-off suffered by the beam as it enters the quadratic material.The properties of the families of quadratic solitons in the presence of a linear walk-off (quadratic walking solitons) are studied as well in the thesis stating that there is a relationship between the power injected into the medium and the walking angle, suitable to applications of all-optical switching and routing.An important last part of the thesis is devoted to the study from a practical viewpoint and through extensive numerical experiments of the potential of these solitary waves as the basis of practical all-optical switches and routers which could take the all-optical transparent network to a reality. The experiments have allowed to identify several configurations of interest with power level and dimensions suited to practical applications which could allow the production of commercial all-optical switching and routing devices based on quadratic solitons.

Demonstration of ultrafast all-optical signal processing (AOSP) using silicon as the active material has been limited by large two-photon absorption loss and long lifetimes of the resulting free carriers. For AOSP at speeds in the terahertz, an order of magnitude faster than that the fastest current electronic counterpart, a class of π-conjugated organic molecules called polymethines provides a promising alternative to silicon as they possess large third-order nonlinearities, and ultrafast polarization response to an incident field. The challenge in the application of polymethines as active nonlinear optical materials for AOSP is in translating their promising molecular properties into bulk material properties. The large linear polarizability and charged nature of the polymethines molecules strongly promote aggregation and phase-separation in solid blends, offsetting their advantageous molecular optical properties. In this work, polymethines’ resistance to deleterious spontaneous symmetry breaking and aggregation was enhanced by substitutions of metal- and chalcogen- containing terminal groups, and rigid steric groups above and below the π-conjugated plane of polymethine chain. The resulting polymethines/amorphous polycarbonate (APC) blend films demonstrated an unprecedentedly high two-photon figure-of-merit, |Re(χ(3))/Im(χ(3))| and low linear loss. The optical quality of the polymethines/APC films was also improved by replacing the commonly-used alkyl ammonium counterions with more polarizable aryl phosphonium counterions with moderate ground state dipole moment. The resulting dye-polymer blend films showed an enhanced near-infrared transparency while its magnitude of the third-order susceptibility, |χ(3)|, showed a good agreement with that extrapolated from the molecular third-order polarizability, γ. For facile integration of these promising organic materials into SOH, the substrate surface was functionalized using silane coupling chemistry for the reduction of surface energy mismatch between the polymer films and the waveguide containing substrates. The optical and SEM micrographs showed vastly improved coverage and infiltration of the microfeatures. Furthermore, to enable the precise engineering of waveguide cross-sectional dimensions for single-mode propagation in the organic cladding, the dispersion curves of the polymethines/polymer blends were generated using prism coupling and ellipsometry. The combined efforts in the development of molecules and materials discussed in the thesis have culminated into a successful identification and optimization of the polymethines dyes and their polymer blends for imminent demonstrations of on-chip AOSP at terahertz speed.

The main objective of the thesis was to construct a wide-field Kerr microscope to study all-optical helicity-dependent (AOHDS) switching in FePt nanograins. The wide- field Kerr microscope was successfully implemented into AOHDS experiments, was fully characterized and optimized for maximum image contrast. The real-time imaging and resolution of 2, 5µm enables the study of a wide range of magnetic materials and their dynamics. Moreover, a new light source, the High Lumen Density MODULE from CRY- TUR, spol. s r.o., was tested for future application in Kerr microscopy. The technical solution enabled to form a collimated beam with low divergence required for Kerr mi- croscopy. From the switching experiments on FePt nanograins, we observed a strong non-magnetic contribution to the magnetic signal, not reported in previous works. The experiments have also shown that the switching intensity depends on the laser spot size and total laser power, suggesting that the FePt grains are not entirely isolated. The grains' ensemble exhibits a more complex behavior than anticipated. 1

In this dissertation we present the research findings around two important hot topics of modern and future fiber-optic communication systems: 100 Gbit/s transmission and alloptical processing of received phase-modulated signals. The findings are discussed in the same chronological order they were obtained. Each topic is summarized in two chapters that correspond to one selected journal and one conference publications. The first and second chapters are dedicated to the simulation and numerical analysis of 100 Gbit/s systems. In chapter one, we present a thorough investigation of the best 100 Gbit/s serial modulation format. Seven different modulation formats are considered and are compared in terms of tolerance to dispersion and maximum reach for a 10⁻⁹ bit error rate target. In chapter two, the behavior of chapter one’s best candidate is analyzed in a realistic environment. The influence of the existing lower data rate neighboring channels is discussed in particular. The results of these two chapters were obtained in collaboration with engineers from the Deutsche Telekom Technology Center in Darmstadt, Germany. They served as a theoretical basis for a field trial carried out by this same company. Chapter three and four focus on the use of semiconductor optical amplifiers for all-optical processing applications. Impaired phased-modulated signals are under particular interest in this study. The novelty in this work resides in the counter-propagating configuration that the semiconductor optical amplifier is operated in. In chapter three we give a detailed description of the experimental results. The complete setup is explained and the improvement in Q-factor and bit error rate for the received signal is proven. Furthermore, two novel concepts (Photonic Balancing and Saturated Asymmetric Filtering) that explain the observed improvements are developed and discussed for the first time to the best of our knowledge. Finally, chapter four aims at optimizing numerically the experimental setup for the saturated asymmetric filtering technique. The required detuned filter after the saturated semiconductor optical amplifier is optimized in terms of both off set and bandwidth.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-04T18:31:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Uriel Ramon Crisostomo de Miranda.pdf: 2534131 bytes, checksum: cc07c4aea1cb66b02b0ddb169a1a1628 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-26 / This study aimed to investigate by means of simulations a tunable device capable of regenerating a NRZ-OOK modulated, 10 Gb/s optical signals in an all-optical way. The principle employed for regenerating was the FWM effect in two stages of DS-HNLF. We evaluated the simulations results by comparing estimated bit error rate at the input and output of the regenerator device. The results suggest that it is possible to regenerate all channels in C-band, for optical systems, using the same device only by adjusting parameters that are settable in commercial optical devices such as optical power and frequency of lasers. There was improvement of at least seven orders of magnitude for any C-band channel with input BER below 10-7. Such results, always using the same optical components, suggest that alloptical tunable regenerators can be constructed experimentally and could replace conventional electrical regenerators. / Este trabalho teve como objetivo investigar por meio de simula??es um dispositivo sintoniz?vel capaz de regenerar sinais ?pticos com modula??o NRZ-OOK de 10 Gb/s de maneira totalmente ?ptica. Como princ?pio para regenera??o empregouse o efeito de mistura de quatro ondas em dois est?gios de fibra altamente-n?olinear. Avaliou-se o resultado das simula??es atrav?s da compara??o de estimativas de taxa de erro de bit entre os sinais de entrada e sa?da do regenerador. Os resultados mostraram que ? poss?vel regenerar canais de toda a banda C para sistemas ?pticos utilizando o mesmo dispositivo, ajustando-se apenas par?metros que s?o configur?veis em dispositivos ?pticos comerciais, como pot?ncia e frequ?ncia de lasers cont?nuos. Observou-se melhora de no m?nimo sete ordens de grandeza para qualquer canal da banda C com BER de entrada abaixo de 10-7. Tais resultados, utilizando-se sempre os mesmos componentes ?pticos, sugerem que regeneradores totalmente ?pticos sintoniz?veis podem ser constru?dos experimentalmente e poderiam substituir regeneradores el?tricos convencionais.

Bragg spaced quantum wells represent a unique class of resonant photonic materials, wherein a photonic bandgap is created by the periodic spacing of quantum wells and the associated variation in the complex susceptibility (index and absorption) of the material. Interest in BSQWs has grown in the past decade due to their large ultrafast nonlinearities and the corresponding large ultrafast reflectivity changes and transmissivity. These nonlinearities are of particular interest in areas of communication technology, where ultrafast all-optical logic components have become increasingly in demand. This research will further investigate BSQWs and the for the first time effects of spin-dependent nonlinear excitation on their photonic band structures. It will also investigate how these effects can be used in all-optical polarization switching and tunable optical buffer (slow light) applications.

Free Space Optics (FSO) has received a great deal of attention lately both in the military and civilian information society due to its potentially high capacity, rapid deployment, portability and high security from deception and jamming. The main issue is that severe weather can have a detrimental impact on the performance, which may result in an inadequate availability. This report contains a feasibility study for an all-optical free-space link intended for short-range communication (200-500 m). Laboratory tests have been performed to evaluate the link design. Field tests were made to investigate availability and error performance under the influence of different weather conditions. Atmospheric impact due to turbulence related effects have been studied in detail. The most crucial part of the link design turned out to be the receiver optics and several design solutions were investigated. The main advantage of an all-optical design, compared to commercially available electrooptical FSO-systems, is the potentially lower cost.

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.