S. M. Oak

Reverse saturable absorption and optical limiting in indanthrone dyes

Fluence dependence of transmission in three dyes, viz. indanthrone, dichloroindanthrone and violanthrone, is reported at 532 nm as well as at 1.06 µm. These dyes show optical limiting at both these wavelengths for nanosecond pulses. The limiting is due to the combined effect of reverse saturable absorption from the triplet state and thermal defocussing in the dye solutions.

Investigation of optical limiting in iron oxide nanoparticles.

We present the study of optical limiting in iron oxide nanoparticles of diameters 31, 44, and 61 nm dispersed in toluene under exposure to nanosecond laser pulses at 532 nm. In the low fluence region smaller size nanoparticles show better optical limiting compared to larger size nanoparticles while in the high fluence region all the three samples show same limiting performance. Experimental results were compared with the well reported limiter fullerene C(60) dissolved in toluene. Iron oxide nanoparticles show better optical limiting compared to C(60) in the intermediate fluence region and comparable performance in the high fluence region. The pico-second Z-scan studies indicate that the contribution of electronic nonlinear refractive index and the two-photon absorption to the optical limiting is negligible. Our observations further indicate that the dominant mechanism for the optical limiting in iron oxide nanoparticles is nonlinear scattering.

Turnaround-Point Long-Period Fiber Gratings (TAP-LPGs) as High-Radiation-Dose Sensors

This letter reports the application of turnaround-point (TAP) long-period gratings (LPGs) for radiation dosimetry. The LPGs were realized using the laser-writing technique. After a gamma dose of 6 kGy, the TAP-LPGs show a radiation-induced shift of more than 35 nm for each of the dual resonance dips, which is the highest shift reported to date for any type of fiber gratings. These LPGs can therefore be used as radiation sensors down to doses of a few Gy with modest wavelength-resolving instrumentation. The LPGs show significant sensitivity of wavelength shifts up to 80 nm for a dose of 65 kGy. We attribute the very high radiation sensitivity to near-TAP operation and doping of Boron in the fiber. This should open up applications of LPGs to radiation dosimetry.

Intensity dependence of Z-scan in semiconductor-doped glasses for separation of third and fifth order contributions in the below band gap region

The limitations of the Z-scan method in separating the third order and fifth order nonlinearities in dilute nonlinear systems like semiconductor-doped glasses are discussed. By simulating various experimental situations, we show that rather sensitive detection is required in such cases to separate the two contributions. The earlier Z-scan data on semiconductor doped glasses is shown to be consistent with a dominantly fifth order nonlinearity.

Band alignment and interfacial structure of ZnO/Ge heterojunction investigated by photoelectron spectroscopy

Studies on band-offset and band-alignment of heterojunction of highly c-axis oriented ZnO thin films grown on n-Ge (1 1 1) by pulsed laser deposition show a type-II band alignment with the valence band offset (ΔEV) of 3.1 ± 0.2 eV. The valence band spectra of this heterojunction show band onsets corresponding to Ge, interfacial GeOx, and ZnO layers. This observation also enabled us to determine ΔEV of ZnO/GeOx heterojunction to be 1.4 ± 0.2 eV. These studies provide further insight into the band alignment of ZnO/GeOx/Ge system wherein the observed large value of ΔEV of ZnO/Ge can be used for heterojunction based optoelectronic devices.

Effect of laser linewidth and fiber length on self-pulsing dynamics and output stabilization of single-mode Yb-doped double-clad fiber laser

We report an experimental study of the effect of fiber length and laser linewidth on self-pulsing dynamics and output stabilization of a single-mode Yb-doped double-clad CW fiber laser. It is found that initiation of self-pulsing under low-level pumping conditions is due to relaxation oscillations and saturable absorption in the weakly pumped region of the doped fiber, irrespective of the fiber length and the laser linewidth. However, with an increase in pump power, depending on fiber length and laser linewidth, the pulses initiated due to relaxation oscillation get amplified, and result in short-duration giant pulses due to either stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) or stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). In the case of fiber lasers that employ a broadband mirror and wherein the fiber length is sufficient to reach the SRS threshold, the giant self-pulses are generated by SRS, whereas in the case of fiber lasers using a fiber Bragg grating, characterized by narrowband reflection and with sufficient fiber length to reach the SBS threshold, the giant self-pulses are generated by SBS. Output stabilization and, hence, elimination of self-pulsations can be achieved either by suppressing the relaxation oscillations with the addition of an appropriate length of a passive fiber to sufficiently increase the cavity photon lifetime, or by increasing the pump power to achieve gain uniformity along the doped fiber such that relaxation oscillations and reabsorption effects are suppressed.

Photoluminescence study of β-Ga2O3 nanostructures annealed in different environments

β-Ga2O3 nanostructures (nanowires, nanoribbons, and nanosheets) were synthesized via vapor transport method on gold coated silicon substrate in N2 ambient and these β-Ga2O3 nanostructures grown on silicon substrates were taken as the starting material to study the effect of annealing in the different environments (oxygen, water vapour, and ammonia solution) on the structural front and photoluminescence (PL) properties. The PL spectra of β-Ga2O3 nanostructures exhibit a UV-blue emission band whose intensity is strongly affected by the annealing in different environments. Annealing modifies the surface of the nanostructures by creating surface states which quench the PL by creating competitive nonradiative paths. This study also indicates the dominance of the formation of water induced surface states over ammonia induced surface states. The irreversible nature of these defects significantly affects the applicability of this system in moist high temperature environments.

Mechanisms of generation of multi-peak and mode-locked resembling pulses in Q-switched Yb-doped fiber lasers.

The output pulse characteristics of Q-switched Yb-doped fiber lasers have been investigated experimentally. It has been observed that for any typical modulation frequency, the pump power and the modulator OFF-time govern the shape of the output Q-switched pulse. At a fixed modulation frequency, with a fine adjustment of acousto-optic modulation window ON-time, pump power and cavity mirror position, it was possible to obtain modulation free single-peak pulse, multi-peak pulse, mode-locked resembling pulse and multi-pulse structured pulse shapes in a Q-switched fiber laser output. These observations have been analyzed and explained. Our investigations show that multi-peak pulse output is due to onset of nonlinear phenomena like SBS and SRS. Similarly, we have found that the mode-locked resembling periodically modulated output pulse shape is due to mode beating between the zeroeth order and the first order diffracted beams of the intra-cavity acousto-optic Q-switch.

Optical limiting in semiconductor-doped glasses

Abstract We report optical limiting at 527 nm in two Schott semiconductor-doped glasses OG530 and OG515. These two glasses show quite contrasting nonlinear optical behaviour. The glass OG515 shows strong clamping while OG530 shows no clamping in optical limiting inspite of having much larger nonlinear refractive index. Similarly OG530 exhibits saturation of absorption while OG515 does not.

Detection of Fuel Adulteration With High Sensitivity Using Turnaround Point Long Period Fiber Gratings in B/Ge Doped Fibers

We report for the first time the application of turnaround-point long period fiber gratings for wavelength encoded detection of automobile fuel adulteration. The demonstrated high sensitivity of 0.96 nm/% change of kerosene in petrol up to 10% adulteration is significantly high compared with previously published values. These specialty gratings can easily detect the presence of 1% contamination of kerosene in petrol and thus provide opportunities for development of portable fuel adulteration sensors.