Wavelength and sensitivity tunable long period gratings fabricated in fluid-cladding microfibers

We report the fabrication of long period gratings in fluid-cladding microfibers by directly focusing a femtosecond laser beam on the microfibers surface to induce periodical modification a long one side of the microfibers.A long period grating is fabricated in a water-cladding microfiber with a diameter of~5μm,which demonstrates a resonant attenuation of 28.53 dB at wavelength of 1588.1 nm with 10 pitches.When water cladding is changed to be refractive index oil of n=1.33 and alcohol solution with concentration of 5%,the resonance wavelength shifts to 1575.1 nm with resonant attenuation of 24.91 dB and 1594.1 nm with resonant attenuation of 35.9 dB,respectively.The long period grating demonstrates different temperature sensitivities of-0.524 nm/℃,-0.767 nm/℃and-1.316 nm/℃for water,alcohol solution and refractive index oil cladding microfibers,respectively,which means the alterable liquid cladding allows the availability of tunable wavelength and sensitivity.The fluid-cladding protects the microfibers from external disturbance and contamination and allows more flexibility in controlling the transmission property and sensing characteristics of long period gratings,which can be used as fiber devices and sensors for chemical,biological,and environmental applications.

A compact electro-absorption modulator based on graphene photonic crystal fiber

A compact electro-absorption modulator based on graphene photonic crystal fiber is proposed. To enhance the graphene–light interaction efficiency, the innermost six air-holes of photonic crystal fiber are replaced by two large semicircular holes, and monolayer graphene is deposited on the two large semicircular holes. By optimizing the structure parameters, a strong graphene–light interaction is obtained. Moreover, the switch on–off point of the modulator is unchangeable,which is only related to the frequency of the incident light. The influence factors of this composite structure have been analyzed. The proposed modulator is compared with other graphene-based modulators, and the results show that it is filled without dielectric spacer. There are some excellent performances, such as an extinction ratio 7 dB of y-polarization mode,3-dB modulation bandwidth of 70 GHz with small footprint of 205 μm, and a consumption of energy per bit 59 pJ/bit.

Study on polarization properties of graphene coated D-shaped fiber

The optical properties of graphene coated D-shaped single mode fiber and photonic crystal fiber are numerically analyzed. Enhancement of the graphene-light interaction is found in graphene coated D-shaped photonic crystal fiber,which introduces a tunable polarization of the D-shaped fiber by changing the chemical potential of the coated graphene.An optimal polarizer model is demonstrated with the extinction ratio of 66.26 dB/mm and the insertion loss of 9.4 dB/mm.The modulator extinction ratios of the TE mode and TM mode are 11.5 dB and 5 dB, respectively, with a device length of100 μm. This paper provides a theoretical reference for the optical property research of the graphene fiber.