Photonic crystal fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer with microholes ablated by a femtosecond laser for refractive index sensing

A new structure of the photonic crystal fiber（PCF）based Mach-Zednder interferometer（MZI）is fabricated and presented.The structure has microholes ablated by a femtosecond laser.The fringe visibility can be enhanced more than 10 dB compared with the interferometer without a microhole.The interferometer is characterized by sodium chloride solutions for refractive index（RI）sensing.The RI sensitivities are greatly increased by the hole fabrication since it directly changes the cladding modes of the PCF.For the interferometer sensor with two holes,the RI sensitivity is 157.74 nm/RIU,which is 5 times than that of the sensor without a microhole.Microholes ablation with a femtosecond laser on PCF can increase the sensor＇s sensitivity dramatically.Femtosecond laser has a wide application prospect in the field of performance improvement of the sensors.

Adsorption of Fe on GaAs（100）Surface

The adsorption of one monolayer Fe atoms on an ideal GaAs (100) surface is studied by using the self-consistent tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbital method. The Fe adatom chemisorption on Ga- and As-terminatedsurface are considered separately. A monolayer of S atoms is used to saturate the dangling bonds on one of the supercellsurfaces. Energies of adsorption systems of an Fe atom on different sites are calculated, and the charge transfers areinvestigated. It is found that Fe-As interaction is stronger than Fe-Ga interaction and Fe atoms prefer to be adsorbed onthe As-terminated surface. It is possible for the adsorbed Fe atoms to sit below the As-terminated surface resulting inan Fe-Ga-As mixed layer. The layer projected density states are calculated and compared with that of the clean surface.

Compact Terahertz Wave Collimator Design with Photonic Crystal Slabs

A compact terahertz （THz） wave collimator is proposed, which works under the frequency from 2.4 THz to 2.7 THz with a photonic crystal （PC） slab based on the self-collimation effect. The plane wave expansion （PWE） method is used to calculate the dispersion surfaces and the equal-frequency contours （EFCs） and optimize the structure. The propagation of the THz waves in the structure is simulated and the normalized transmission is calculated by using the finite-difference time-domain （FDTD） method with perfectly matched layer （PML） absorbing boundary conditions. Numerical simulations show that the designed collimator has a good collimation property and a high transmittance.

Development of Lead Free Crystal Glass Using Silica Sand from Gong Belibis Setiu, Terengganu

The silica sand deposit located at km 55 Jalan Pantai Kuala Terengganu-Kuala Besut in the District of Setiu, North Terengganu consists of loose sand of fine to coarse grain size which is developed over the raised beaches of marine origin. The underlying bedrock is believed to be either metasediment of Late Paleozoic age or intrusive granitic rocks. The average content of SiO2 is 99.3% while for the Fe2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2, their average content are 0.1%, 0.3% and 0.2% respectively. The screen analyses show that more than 90 percent of the silica sand is within 150 to 1,180 micron size range. The total area underlain by potential silica sand is about 1.9 million sq. metres with total measured reserve about 2.6 million tonnes. According to Malaysian Standard, MS 701：1981 and British Standard BS 2975：1988, silica sand for making crystal glass should meet the grade B specification in which the purity of silica sand is not less than 99.5% with only a small amount of iron oxide （0.015%）, alumina （0.05%）, chromium oxide （maximum 2 ppm） and other mineral oxides. In the production of crystal glass, a front loading furnace was used and maximum melting temperature was 1400 ℃. After melting process, physical evaluation on the crystal glass products were performed pertaining to complete accomplishment of melting such as existing of bubbles inside crystal glasses. In order to ensure that crystal glass quality meets the international standard, specification for crystal glass published by British standard BS 3828：1973 was taken as a guideline. Some of the parameters are density, surface hardness and refractive index. In general, silica sand from Gong Belibis, Setiu Terengganu is suitable as a raw material for making crystal glass product.

Effect of Different Plasmonic Nano-Inclusion on Double Negative-Semiconductor Photonic Crystal in Visible Region:Gain Assistance and All-Angle Negative Refraction

A gain assisted double negative- Metallo-semiconductor photonic crystal （DN-MSPC） for visible light with effect of different plasmonic （Al, Ag, Au, Cu） nanorod inclusion, is presented. Negative real values of both permeability （μ） and permittivity （ε） with extremely low imaginary values for visible light is obtained by applying Coupled dipole approximation. All-Angle negative refraction is obtained by applying surface plasmon polariton excitation （SPPE） in DN-MSPC operating in a dispersion regime with anti-parallel refracted wave vector and Poynting vector. Index matched to the incident light and compensated losses due the gain assistance leads the light amplification in the designed structure. Furthermore, extremely high left-handed transmission efficiency （〉99%） is also investigated. Demonstration of near and far-field resonance patterns reveal the nano-photonic device applications potential i.e. highly directional optical nanoantenna, filter, etc.

Parameter analysis of a photonic crystal fiber with raised-core index profile based on effective index method

Photonic crystal fibers （PCFs） with a stepped raised-core profile and one layer equally spaced holes in the cladding are analyzed. Using effective index method and considering a raised step refractive index difference between the index of the core and the effective index of the cladding, we improve the characteristic parameters such as numerical aperture and V-parameter, and reduce its bending loss to about one tenth of a conventional PCF. Implementing such a structure in PCFs may be one step forward to achieve low loss PCFs for communication applications.

Characterization of external refractive index sensitivity of a photonic crystal fiber long-period grating

Long-period gratings （LPGs） are fabricated in a photonic crystal fiber （PCF） using the symmetric point- by-point CO2 laser irradiation method to explore the sensitivity characterization of PCF-LPG. Numerical sim- ulation is used to guide the investigation. It is found that the refractive index （RI） sensitivity of PCF-LPG depends on the coupled cladding modes as well as the coupled resonance wavelength （RW） of the LPG. Experimental studies show that the longer the RW, the higher the RI sensitivity for the same cladding mode. At similar RWs, the lower the cladding mode, the higher the RI sensitivity of PCF-LPG.

Realization of absolute negative refraction index by a photonic crystal using anisotropic dielectric material

A method to realize absolute negative refraction index -1 with a two-dimensional （2D） photonic crystal is presented by introducing dielectric anisotropy in the photonic crystal material. The band structures of E-polarization mode and H-polarization mode can be adjusted by changing the parameters of materials. Thus the two modes with different polarizations have the same negative refraction index -1 for the same frequency. The results are demonstrated by numerical simulation based on the finite-difference time-domain （FDTD） method.

High Azimuthal Index Doughnut Beam Generated by Liquid Crystal Spiral Phase Plates

A novel technique of producing azimuthal index 1>1 doughnut beam of good quality by use of multi-liquid crystal cells is presented, it has the advantages of high conversion efficiency and flexibility.

Intermodal interference based refractive index sensor employing elliptical core photonic crystal fiber

A refractive index(RI)sensor based on elliptical core photonic crystal fiber(EC-PCF)has been proposed.The asymmetric elliptical core introduces the polarization-dependent characteristics of the fiber core modes.The performances of intermodal interference between the intrinsic polarization fiber core modes are investigated by contrast in two interferometers based on the Mach-Zehnder(M-Z)and Sagnac interference model.In addition,the RI sensing characteristics of the two interferometers are studied by successively filling the three layers air holes closest to the elliptical core in the cladding.The results show that the M-Z interference between LP_(01)and LP_(11)mode in the same polarized direction is featured with the incremental RI sensing sensitivity as the decreasing interference length,and the infilled scope around the elliptical core has a weak correlation with the RI sensing sensitivity.Due to the high birefringence of LP11 mode,the Sagnac interferometer has better RI sensing performance,the maximum RI sensing sensitivity of 12000 nm/RIU is achieved under the innermost one layer air holes infilled with RI matching liquid of RI=1.39 at the pre-setting EC-PCF length of 12 cm,which is two orders of magnitude higher than the M-Z interferometer with the same fiber length.The series of theoretical optimized analysis would provide guidance for the applications in the field of biochemical sensing.

Refractive Index Change and Color Center Formation in LiYF_4 Crystal Induced by a Femtosecond Laser

The refractive index change and color centers formation in LiYF4 crystal at room temperature are induced by a femtosecond laser irradiation. A mechanism for refractive index change and color centers formation is proposed.

The chemisorption of Mg on the Si(100)-(2×1) surface

The adsorption of a half monolayer of Mg atoms on the Si（100）-（2×1） surface is studied by using the self-consistent tight binding linear muffin-tin orbital method.Energies of the adsorption systems of Mg atoms on the different sites are calculated.It has been found that the adsorbed Mg atoms are more favorable on the cave site above the surface than any other sites on the Si（100）-（2×1） surface and a metastable shallow site also exists above the surface.This is in agreement with the experimental results.The charge transfer and the layer projected density of states are also studied.