We describe a semi-analytical approach for three-dimensional analysis of photonic crystal fibre devices. The approach relies on modal transmission-line theory. We offer two examples illustrating the utilization of this approach in photonic crystal fibres: the verification of the coupling action in a photonic crystal fibre coupler and the modal reflectivity in a photonic crystal fibre distributed Bragg reflector.
We present a method by which the degree of longitudinal variation in photonic crystal fibre (PCF) may be characterised through seeded four-wave mixing (FWM). Using an iterative numerical reconstruction, we created a model PCF that displays similar FWM phasematching properties across all measured length scales. Our results demonstrate that the structure of our PCF varies by less than 1% and that the characteristic length of the variations is approximately 15 cm.
A development and an application of the localized function method based on the Galerkin method applying a set of Sine functions to approximate the unknown mode fields of the localized modes propagating along the photonic crystal fibres is proposed. A way for considerably reducing the number of integrals in the case of symmetrical holes shapes with respect to the axes of coordinate systems located at the centers of the holes, circular, elliptical etc., is also presented. The method does not require an expansion of the refractive index and thus inaccuracies of the expansion can be avoided. In th…
The greater confinement of light that is possible in photonic crystal fibres leads to a greater effective nonlin- earity, which promises to yield greater quantum squeezing than is possible in standard optical fibre. However, experimental work to date has not achieved improvements over standard fibre. We present a comprehensive numerical investigation of polarisation squeezing in photonic crystal fibre in a Sagnac configuration. By including loss, a non-instantaneous Raman response, excess phase-noise, second- and third-order dispersion and self-steepening, the simulations are able to identify …
The strong waveguide dispersion in photonic crystal fibres provides unique opportunities for nonlinear optics with a zero-dispersion wavelength $λ_0$ far below the limit of ~1.3 micron set by the material dispersion of silica. By tuning the air-hole diameter d, the pitch Lambda, and the number of rings of air holes N, the strong waveguide dispersion can in principle be used to extend lambda_0 well into the visible, albeit to some extend at the cost of multimode operation. We study in detail the interplay of the zero-dispersion wavelength, the cut-off wavelength lambda_c, and the leakage loss i…
Compact Photonic Fibre-based Deformation Sensor Fabricated by Two-Photon Polymerization
Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies, Aston University（阿斯顿光子技术研究所，阿斯顿大学）；Laser nanoFab GmbH（激光纳米制造有限公司）；Leibniz Universität Hannover（汉诺威莱布尼茨大学）；Bruker Nano GmbH（布鲁克纳米有限公司）
Envisioning more compact and cost accessible astronomical instruments is now possible with existing photonic technologies like specialty optical fibres, photonic lanterns and ultrafast laser inscribed chips. We present an original design of a multicore fibre (MCF) terminated with multimode photonic lantern ports. It is designed to act as a relay fibre with the coupling effciency of a multimode fibre, modal stability similar to a single-mode fibre and low loss in a wide range of wavelengths (380 nm to 860 nm). It provides phase and amplitude scrambling to achieve a stable near field and far fie…
Optically levitated micro- and nanoparticles offer an ideal playground for investigating photon-phonon interactions over macroscopic distances. Here we report the observation of long-range optical binding of multiple microparticles, mediated by intermodal scattering and interference inside the evacuated core of a hollow-core photonic crystal fibre (HC-PCF). Three polystyrene particles with 1 μm diameter are stably bound together with an inter-particle distance of ~40 μm, or 50 times longer than the wavelength of the trapping laser. The bound-particle array can be translated to-and-fro over cen…
The success of photonic crystal fibres relies largely on the endless variety of two-dimensional photonic crystals in the cross-section. Here, we propose a topological bandgap fibre whose bandgaps along in-plane directions are opened by generalized Kekulé modulation of a Dirac lattice with a vortex phase. Then, the existence of mid-gap defect modes is guaranteed to guide light at the core of this Dirac-vortex fibre, where the number of guiding modes equals the winding number of the spatial vortex. The single-vortex design provides a single-polarization single mode for a bandwidth as large as on…
We demonstrate a numerical technique that can evaluate the core-to-core variations in propagation constant in multicore fibre. Using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo process, we replicate the interference patterns of light that has coupled between the cores during propagation. We describe the algorithm and verify its operation by successfully reconstructing target propagation constants in a fictional fibre. Then we carry out a reconstruction of the propagation constants in a real fibre containing 37 single-mode cores. We find that the range of fractional propagation constant variation across the cor…
The use of short lengths of large core phosphate glass fibre, doped with high concentrations of Er or Er:Yb represents an attractive route to achieving high power erbium doped fibre amplifiers (EDFAs) and lasers (EDFLs). With the aim of investigating the potential of achieving diffraction limited output from such large core fibres, we present experimental results of fundamental mode propagation through a 20 cm length of passive 300 micrometer core multimode fibre when the input is a well-aligned Gaussian beam. Through careful control of fibre geometry, input beam parameters and alignment, we m…
Low-noise frequency conversion of single photons is a critical tool in establishing fibre-based quantum networks. We show that a single photonic crystal fibre can achieve frequency conversion by Bragg-scattering four-wave mixing of source photons from an ultra-broad wavelength range by engineering a symmetric group velocity profile. Furthermore, we discuss how pump tuning can mitigate realistic discrepancies in device fabrication. This enables a single highly adaptable frequency conversion interface to link disparate nodes in a quantum network via the telecoms band.
Four-wave mixing (FWM) in optical fibre is a leading technique for generating high-quality photon pairs. We report the generation of photon pairs by spontaneous FWM in photonic crystal fibre pumped by a 1.5 GHz repetition-rate vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL). The photon pairs exhibit high count rates and a coincidence-to-accidental ratio of over 80. The VECSEL's high repetition-rate, high average power, tunability, and small footprint make this an attractive source for quantum key distribution and photonic quantum-state engineering.
We present a new type of compact and all-glass based vapour cell integrating hollow-core photonic crystal fibres. The absence of metals, as in a traditional vacuum chamber and the much more compact geometry allows for fast and homogeneous heating. As a consequence we can fill the fibres on much faster timescales, ranging from minutes to hours. Additionally the all-glass design ensures optical access along the fibre. This allows live monitoring of the diffusion of rubidium atoms inside the hollow-core by measuring the frequency-dependent fluorescence from the atoms. The atomic density is numeri…
Neuromorphic Infrared Fibre-Optic Event-Based Sensing with Fast and Efficient Photonic-Electronic Spiking Neurons
Institute of Photonics, University of Strathclyde（斯特拉斯克莱德大学光子学研究所）；High Frequency Electronics Group, University of Glasgow（格拉斯哥大学高频电子组）；LIP and Dep. Física, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa (FCUL)（里斯本大学理学院物理系及LIP）；International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory（国际伊比利亚纳米技术实验室）
Broadband mid-infrared light sources are highly desired for wide-ranging applications that span free-space communications to spectroscopy. In recent years, silicon has attracted great interest as a platform for nonlinear optical wavelength conversion in this region, owing to its low losses (linear and nonlinear) and high stability. However, most research in this area has made use of small core waveguides fabricated from the silicon-on-insulator platform, which suffer from high absorption losses of the silica cladding, limiting their ability to generate light beyond 3 $μ$m. Here we design and d…
We theoretically predict the occurrence of multiple hydrodynamical-like shock phenomena in the propagation of ultrashort intense pulses in a suitably engineered photonic crystal fiber. The shocks are due to the Raman effect, which acts as a nonlocal term favoring their generation in the focusing regime. It is shown that the problem is mapped to shock formation in the presence of a slope and a gravity-like potential. The signature of multiple shocks in XFROG signals is unveiled.
A Monte Carlo simulation has been performed to track light rays in cylindrical fibres by ray optics. The trapping efficiencies for skew and meridional rays in active fibres and distributions of characteristic quantities for all trapped light rays have been calculated. The simulation provides new results for curved fibres, where the analytical expressions are too complex to be solved. The light losses due to sharp bending of fibres are presented as a function of the ratio of curvature to fibre radius and bending angle. It is shown that a radius of curvature to fibre radius ratio of greater than…
In optical communication systems, fibre nonlinearity is the major obstacle in increasing the transmission capacity. Typically, digital signal processing techniques and hardware are used to deal with optical communication signals, but increasing speed and computational complexity create challenges for such approaches. Highly parallel, ultrafast neural networks using photonic devices have the potential to ease the requirements placed on the digital signal processing circuits by processing the optical signals in the analogue domain. Here we report a silicon photonice-lectronic neural network for …
Preparation of an atomic ensemble in a particular Zeeman state is a critical step of many protocols for implementing quantum sensors and quantum memories. These devices can also benefit from optical fibre integration. In this work we describe experimental results supported by a theoretical model of single-beam optical pumping of $^{87}$Rb atoms within a hollow-core photonic crystal fibre. The observed 50% population increase in the pumped F=2, m$_F$=2 Zeeman substate along with the depopulation of remaining Zeeman substates enabled us to achieve a 3 times improvement in the relative population…
We have designed and made an optical fibre that guides an approximate Airy pattern as one of its guided modes. The fibre's attenuation was 11.0 dB/km at 1550 nm wavelength, the match between the fibre's mode and the ideal infinite Airy pattern was 93.7%, and the far field resembled a top-hat beam. The guidance mechanism has strong similarities to photonic bandgap guidance.
We consider photonic crystal fibres (PCFs) made from arbitrary base materials and introduce a short-wavelength approximation which allows for a mapping of the Maxwell's equations onto a dimensionless eigenvalue equations which has the form of the Schrodinger equation in quantum mechanics. The mapping allows for an entire analytical solution of the dispersion problem which is in qualitative agreement with plane-wave simulations of the Maxwell's equations for large-mode area PCFs. We offer a new angle on the foundation of the endlessly single-mode property and show that PCFs are endlessly single…
Optical non-reciprocity, which breaks the symmetry between forward and backward propagating optical waves, has become vital in photonic systems and enables many key devices, such as optical isolators, circulators and optical routers. Most conventional optical isolators involve magneto-optic materials, but devices based on optical nonlinearities, optomechanically induced transparency and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) have also been demonstrated. So far, however, they have only been implemented for linearly or randomly polarized LP01-like fundamental modes. Here we report a light-driven …
Brillouin scattering in optical fibres is a fundamental interaction between light and sound with important implications ranging from optical sensors to slow and fast light. In usual optical fibres, light both excites and feels shear and longitudinal bulk elastic waves, giving rise to forward guided acoustic wave Brillouin scattering and backward stimulated Brillouin scattering. In a subwavelength-diameter optical fibre, the situation changes dramatically, as we here report with the first experimental observation of stimulated Brillouin scattering from surface acoustic waves. These Rayleigh-typ…
Topological states enable robust transport within disorder-rich media through integer invariants inextricably tied to the transmission of light, sound, or electrons. However, the challenge remains to exploit topological protection in a length-scalable platform such as optical fibre. We demonstrate, through both modelling and experiment, optical fibre that hosts topological supermodes across multiple light-guiding cores. We directly measure the photonic winding-number invariant characterising the bulk and observe topological guidance of visible light over metre length scales. Furthermore, the m…
For the past forty years, optical fibres have found widespread use in ground-based and space-based instruments. In most applications, these fibres are used in conjunction with conventional optics to transport light. But photonics offers a huge range of optical manipulations beyond light transport that were rarely exploited before 2001. The fundamental obstacle to the broader use of photonics is the difficulty of achieving photonic action in a multimode fibre. The first step towards a general solution was the invention of the photonic lantern (Leon-Saval, Birks & Bland-Hawthorn 2005) and the de…
The generation of large multiphoton quantum states - for applications in computing, metrology, and simulation - requires a network of high-efficiency quantum memories capable of storing broadband pulses. Integrating these memories into a fibre offers a number of advantages towards realising this goal: strong light-matter coupling at low powers, simplified alignment, and compatibility with existing photonic architectures. Here, we introduce a large-core kagome-structured hollow-core fibre as a suitable platform for an integrated fibre-based quantum memory with a warm atomic vapour. We demonstra…
We demonstrate, for the first time, the application of rare-gas filled hollow-core photonic crystal fibres (HC-PCFs) as tuneable ultraviolet light sources in femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy. The time-resolved photoelectron imaging technique reveals non-adiabatic dynamical processes operating on three distinct timescales in the styrene molecule following excitation over the 242-258 nm region. These include ultrafast (<100 fs) internal conversion between the S2(pipi*) and S1(pipi*) electronic states and subsequent intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution within S1(pipi*). Compact, co…
Higher repetition-rate optical pulse trains have been desired for various applications such as high-bit-rate optical communication, photonic analogue-to-digital conversion, and multi- photon imaging. Generation of multi GHz and higher repetition-rate optical pulse trains directly from mode-locked oscillators is often challenging. As an alternative, harmonic injection locking can be applied for extra-cavity repetition-rate multiplication (RRM). Here we have investigated the operation conditions and achievable performances of all-fibre, highly tunable harmonic injection locking-based pulse RRM. …
We demonstrate a surface-electrode ion trap fabricated using techniques transferred from the manufacture of photonic-crystal fibres. This provides a relatively straightforward route for realizing traps with an electrode structure on the 100 micron scale with high optical access. We demonstrate the basic functionality of the trap by cooling a single ion to the quantum ground state, allowing us to measure a heating rate from the ground state of 787(24) quanta/s. Variation of the fabrication procedure used here may provide access to traps in this geometry with trap scales between 100 um and 10 um…
In this study, we describe the formation of ZnO nanolayers inside the air capillaries of a silica photonic crystal fibre (PCF), targeting random laser and organic vapor sensing applications. ZnO nanolayers were developed by infiltrating the capillaries of the silica PCF with Zn-acetate/methanol solutions of various concentrations, followed by annealing treatments. The growth and morphology of the synthesized ZnO nanolayers were characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and found to be affected by the concentration of the Zn-acetate/methanol infiltration solution. For low con…
Based on the scalar Helmholtz equation and the finite-difference approximation, we formulate a matrix eigenvalue problem for the calculation of propagation constants, beta(omega), in micro-structured optical fibres. The method is applied to index-guiding fibres as well as air-core photonic bandgap fibres, and in both cases qualitatively correct results are found. The strength of this approach lies in its very simple numerical implementation and its ability to find eigenmodes at a specific eigenvalue, which is of great interest, when modelling defect modes in photonic bandgap fibres.
We expand our previous analysis of nonlinear pulse shaping in optical fibres using machine learning [Opt. Laser Technol., 131 (2020) 106439] to the case of pulse propagation in the presence of gain/loss, with a special focus on the generation of self-similar parabolic pulses. We use a supervised feedforward neural network paradigm to solve the direct and inverse problems relating to the pulse shaping, bypassing the need for direct numerical solution of the governing propagation model.
Alkali-filled hollow-core fibres are a promising medium for investigating light-matter interactions, especially at the single-photon level, due to the tight confinement of light and high optical depths achievable by light-induced atomic desorption. However, until now these large optical depths could only be generated for seconds at most once per day, severely limiting the practicality of the technology. Here we report the generation of highest observed transient ($>10^5$ for up to a minute) and highest observed persistent ($>2000$ for hours) optical depths of alkali vapours in a light-guiding …
We report on the development of a compact (volume $\approx$ 100\:cm$^3$), multimode diffraction-limited Raman spectrograph and probe designed to be compact as possible. The spectrograph uses `off the shelf' optics, a custom 3D-printed two-part housing and harnesses a multi-core fibre (MCF) photonic lantern (multimode to few-mode converter), which slices a large 40~\textmu m multimode input into a near-diffraction-limited 6~\textmu m aperture. Our unique design utilises the hexagonal geometry of our MCF, permitting high multimode collection efficiency with near-diffraction-limited performance i…
Efficient monitoring of airborne particulate matter (PM), especially particles with aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 um (PM2.5), is crucial for improving public health. Reliable information on the concentration, size distribution and chemical characteristics of PMs is key to evaluating air pollution and identifying its sources. Standard methods for PM2.5 characterization require sample collection from the atmosphere and post-analysis using sophisticated equipment in a laboratory environment, and are normally very time-consuming. Although optical methods based on analysis of scattering of fre…
Embedding strong photonic stopbands into traditional optical fibre that can directly access and sense the outside environment is challenging, relying on tedious nanoprocessing steps that result in fragile thinned fibre. Ultrashort pulsed laser filaments have recently provided a non contact means of opening high aspect ratio nanoholes inside of bulk transparent glasses. This method has been extended here to optical fibre, resulting in high density arrays of laser filamented holes penetrating transversely through the silica cladding and guiding core to provide high refractive index contrast Brag…
We show that diffraction of electromagnetic radiation (in particular of a visible light) can disappear in propagation through materials with periodically in space modulated refraction index, i.e. photonic crystals. In this way the light beams of arbitrary width can propagate without diffractive broadening and, equivalently, arbitrary light patterns can propagate without diffractive smearing.
The thin and flexible nature of optical fibres often makes them the ideal technology to view biological processes in-vivo, but current microendoscopic approaches are limited in spatial resolution. Here, we demonstrate a new route to high resolution microendoscopy using a multicore fibre (MCF) with an adiabatic multimode-to-singlemode photonic lantern transition formed at the distal end by tapering. We show that distinct multimode patterns of light can be projected from the output of the lantern by individually exciting the single-mode MCF cores, and that these patterns are highly stable to fib…
We investigate numerically that a finite Airy-Gaussian (AiG) beam varies its trajectory and shape in the defected photonic lattices. The propagation properties and beam self-bending are controlled with modulation depth and period of the photonic lattices, positive and negative defects, beam distribution factor and nonlinearity change. For positive defects, the pseudo-period oscillation and localization of the AiG beam may be formed under a certain condition, while the beam is diffused for negative defects. Moreover, the solitons may appear during the propagation process when the self-focusing …
Results from the calculation of the basic characteristics of the photonic crystal fiber with two rings of holes are presented by the approach which takes into account the exact distribution of the refractive index over the cross section of the photonic crystal fiber. Formulae are theoretically derived for the calculation of holes with arbitrary shapes by dividing the material within them into rotated at different angles rectangles. Keywords: photonic crystal fibre, Galerkin method, a set of sine functions, local coordinate systems.
An effort was conducted to numerically determine, using the Nonlinear Schrodinger Split-Step Fourier method, if using cross phase modulation could cause temporal soliton pulse propagation in a silicon slow-light photonic crystal waveguide shorter than a millimeter. The simulations demonstrated that due to the higher powers and shorter scales of photonic crystals, two-photon absorption would cause an optical soliton pulse to be extremely dissipative. The model demonstrated, however, that by utilizing cross-phase modulation, it is possible to sustain a compressed soliton pulse within a silicon p…
We demonstrate that photonic lanterns based on tapered multicore fibres provide an efficient way to couple multimode states of light to a two-dimensional array of Single-Photon Avalanche Detectors (SPADs), each of which has its own Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC) for Time-Correlated Single-Photon-Counting (TCSPC). Exploiting this capability, we demonstrate multiplexed single-mode wavelength-to-time conversion of multimode states of light using a multicore-fibre photonic lantern with 121 single-mode cores, coupled in a one-to-one fashion to 121 SPADS on a 32 $\times$ 32 pixel CMOS SPAD array. T…
Nonreciprocal photonic devices play a significant role in regulating the propagation of electromagnetic waves. Here we theoretically investigate the nonreciprocal properties of transverse magnetic modes in a one-dimensional graphene-based photonic crystal subjected to an applied electrical DC bias. We find that drifting electrons driven by the external DC electric field can give rise to extremely asymmetric dispersion diagrams. Furthermore, when the drifting electrons travel antiparallel to the normal component of the incident wave vector, the negative refraction is strongly suppressed, causin…
Light manipulations such as spin-direction locking propagation, robust transport, quantum teleportation and reconfigurable electromagnetic pathways have been investigated at the boundaries of photonic systems. Recently by breaking Dirac cones in time-reversal invariant photonic crystals, valley-pseudospin coupled edge states have been employed to realize selective propagation of light. Here, without photonic boundaries, we realize the propagation of pseudospin states in three-dimensional bulk metacrystal waveguides by employing the ubiquitous valley degree of freedom. Valley-dependent pseudosp…
Propagation of ultrashort light pulses in disordered multilayers is studied by using numerical simulations in time domain. We consider cases of instantaneous and noninstantaneous Kerr nonlinearities of the structure materials. The competitive nature of disorder and nonlinearity is revealed on the long and short timescales. We also pay special attention to the effect of pulse self-trapping in the photonic crystal with relaxing nonlinearity and show the dependence of this effect on the level of disorder. We believe that the results reported here will be useful not only in the field of optics but…
