Haishan Sun

All-Dielectric Electrooptic Sensor Based on a Polymer Microresonator Coupled Side-Polished Optical Fiber

A novel electrooptic (EO) electric field (E-field) sensor based on side-polished fiber coupled with an EO polymer microring resonator is proposed and demonstrated. An EO polymer waveguide with a ring shape is fabricated on the polished flat of an optical fiber. Light in the fiber evanescently couples into the resonator and forms resonant modes for certain wavelengths and produces notches in the output intensity of the fiber. External electric fields change the index of refraction of the ring waveguide and therefore dither its resonant wavelengths. For light of wavelength on the slope of a resonance notch, a change in the output intensity can be detected. The sensor is all dielectric without metal layers to distort the measured E-field. The resonant structure allows the sensor to potentially have much higher sensitivity than other electrooptic sensors based on Mach-Zehnder or polarization modulation. Since electrooptic polymers have higher electrooptic coefficients, lower dielectric constants and faster electrooptic responses than inorganic crystals, higher sensitivity, lower invasiveness, and higher bandwidth of E-field sensing can be expected. This sensor eliminates unreliable fiber-to-waveguide butt coupling as well as the high propagation loss encountered in the long straight EO polymer waveguides of sensors based on Mach-Zehnder structures. By using the fiber itself as the supporting substrate of the ring waveguide, the sensor can have small size and low disturbance to the measured electric field. The concept is demonstrated using AJLS103 EO polymer. A sensitivity of 100 mV/m has been achieved at frequencies up to 550 MHz (limited by the measurement system)

Enhanced Evanescent Confinement in Multiple-Slot Waveguides and Its Application in Biochemical Sensing

The interaction of light propagating in the wave-guiding structures with the surrounding media through its evanescent field has been used to detect biochemical activities without labeling the target molecules. By introducing multiple slots in a dielectric waveguide, we found that a much stronger evanescent field could be achieved in the surrounding media while still maintaining good optical confinement. The experimental demonstration of microring resonator sensors using single-mode waveguides having three slots indicates a 5-fold increase in sensitivity for homogeneous sensing and more than 3-fold increase in sensitivity for surface sensing in comparison to those of a waveguide without slots. Numerical simulations suggest an even higher sensitivity enhancement (as high as 100 times) as more slots and larger waveguide widths are used.

Direct electron beam writing of electro-optic polymer microring resonators

Electro-optic polymer waveguides in electron beam sensitive polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) polymer matrix doped with organic nonlinear chromophores could be directly patterned by electron beam exposure with high resolution and smoothness. The polymer in the exposed regions was removed with standard electron beam resist developer and without damaging the chromophore containing polymer waveguides. Feature sizes on the order of 100 nm could be clearly resolved. High quality microring resonators made of YL124/PMMA electro-optic polymer were successfully fabricated with this technique. The measured resonance extinction ratios were more than 16 dB and quality factors were in the range of 10(3) approximately 10(4).

Efficient fiber coupler for vertical silicon slot waveguides.

A mode size converter for efficient fiber coupling to silicon slot waveguides was proposed and demonstrated. It consists of two inverted lateral tapers that extend from the two strips of the silicon slot waveguide, and an overlaid low index waveguide with expanded mode size. Parameters including taper length and taper tip width were optimized with computer simulations. Samples were fabricated with a combined electron beam and photolithography process on a silicon-on-insulator wafer. The measured coupling loss to a standard single mode optical fiber was reduced by 8 dB for TE mode and 5.2 dB for TM mode with the converter.

Reduction of scattering loss of silicon slot waveguides by RCA smoothing

Because of stronger optical confinement density, silicon slot waveguides tend to have higher scattering loss than normal ridge waveguides with same sidewall roughness. A wet chemical process is found to be highly effective in reducing the surface roughness and scattering loss. A reduction in scattering loss by 10.2 dB/cm for TE and 8.5 dB/cm for TM polarizations has been achieved.

Achieving Higher Modulation Efficiency in Electrooptic Polymer Modulator With Slotted Silicon Waveguide

Silicon slot waveguide based Mach-Zehnder interferometric modulators with electrooptic polymers in the slot have the advantage of low half-wave voltage-length product (Vπ *L). Several key aspects of this unconventional electrooptic polymer modulator design to optimize the modulator performance are studied in this work. Both computer simulation and experiments have been conducted to understand the relationship between modulator performance such as modulation efficiency, optical loss and the waveguide design parameters. Techniques to achieve efficient poling of electrooptic polymers in the silicon slot waveguide have been developed. The doping of the silicon to enhance conductivity for efficient poling and the trade-off between conductivity and optical loss are experimentally investigated. Surface passivation of silicon nanophotonic structures has been found to be effective in improving poling efficiency. By applying these techniques to a silicon slot waveguide Mach-Zehnder modulator, a low Vπ*L of 0.52 V ·cm has been achieved. Finally travelling wave electrode designs have been evaluated and the results show that the bandwidth is mainly limited by the attenuation of the radio frequency signal in the electrode and a standard coplanar waveguide electrode design is able to reach 20 GHz in modulators of silicon slot waveguide embedded in electrooptic polymer.

Microring Resonators Made in Poled and Unpoled Chromophore-Containing Polymers for Optical Communication and Sensors

Poled and unpoled chromophore-containing polymers offer some unique advantages in device functionality and fabrication. UV light and electron beam (e-beam) can bleach out the color of chromophores and reduce the index of refraction of the polymer. The photobleaching and e-beam bleaching methods form optical waveguides in a single step and do not involve solvents or wet chemicals, and can be applied to polymers that are not compatible with other waveguide fabrication techniques. A variety of microring resonator devices for fiber-optic telecommunication and sensors have been realized with chromophore-containing polymers. A novel broadband fiber-optic electric field sensor is presented as an example. The sensor uses a polymer with chromophores preferentially aligned after electric poling, and the microring resonator is directly coupled to the core of optical fiber. The feasibility of vertical integration of a poled electrooptic polymer waveguide device interfaced with silicon microelectronic circuits is also demonstrated.

A reflective microring notch filter and sensor

We present a new design of wavelength selective reflector composed of a Y junction and a singly coupled microring resonator, and demonstrate its biochemical sensing applications with a prototype device. In contrast with other reflectors like distributed Bragg reflectors, this device acts as notch filter at its reflection port. One promising application of the device is for remote sensing of harsh or inaccessible site, where only one optical fiber is required to transmit the input and reflected light signal over a long distance. The design can also be used to make microring cavity lasers.

Microring resonators fabricated by electron beam bleaching of chromophore doped polymers

Decomposition of chromophore molecules under direct electron beam irradiation reduces the refractive index of chromophore containing polymers. The induced refractive index contrast between the exposed and unexposed regions is high enough for waveguide bends of small radius and thus microring resonator devices. This electron beam bleaching of chromophore-containing polymers provides a fabrication approach for nonlinear polymer optical waveguide devices. Fabrication of high quality microring resonators with critical feature size on the order of 100nm was demonstrated with this technique in an electro-optic polymer that contains YL124 chromophores.

Systematic Design and Simulation of Polymer Microring Resonators with the Combination of Beam Propagation Method and Matrix Model

In this paper, a basic microring resonator structure is divided into two separate regions, i.e. a 4-port coupler and a 2-port ring/curved waveguide, thus can be regarded as an optical system composed of two components.