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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:wpi.edu/oai:digitalcommons.wpi.edu:etd-theses-1048 |
| Date | 10 January 2007 |
| Creators | Akdemir, Kahraman Daglar |
| Contributors | David Cyganski, Committee Member, Brian M. King, Advisor, Reinhold Ludwig, Committee Member |
| Publisher | Digital WPI |
| Source Sets | Worcester Polytechnic Institute |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Masters Theses (All Theses, All Years) |
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