Sodium Nitrate Passivation as a Novel Insulation Technology for Soft Magnetic Composites

Sodium nitrate passivation has been developed as a new insulation technology for the production of FeSiAl soft magnetic composites (SMCs). In this work, the evolution of coating layers grown at different pH values is investigated involving analyses on their composition and microstructure. An insulation coating obtained using an acidic NaNO_(3) solution is found to contain Fe2O_(3), SiO_(2), Al2O_(3), and AlO(OH). The Fe2O_(3) transforms into Fe3O4 with weakened oxidizability of the NO_(3)– at an elevated pH, whereas an alkaline NaNO_(3) solution leads to the production of Al2O_(3), AlO(OH), and SiO_(2). Such growth is explained from both thermodynamic and kinetic perspectives and is correlated to the soft magnetic properties of the FeSiAl SMCs. Under tuned passivation conditions, optimal performance with an effective permeability of 97.2 and a core loss of 296.4 mW∙cm−3 is achieved at 50 kHz and 100 mT.

Relation between EL2 Groupand EL6 Group in SI-GaAs

The annealing behavior for EL2 and EL6 groups as dominant deep levels in semi-insulating GaAs was presented using Photo Induced Transient Spectroscopy measurement (PITS). During rapid thermal annealing, a relation was identified between EL2 group at 0.79 and 0.82 eV and EL6 group at 0.24, 0.27 and 0.82 eV below the conduction band. It is found that they may be close in structure, and belong to the EL2 and EL6 groups, respectively. In rapidly annealed samples, the quantity of all defects in the EL2 group increases, while that in the EL6 group decreases. However, by furnace annealing at 950°C for 5 h, some of the defects in the EL2 group break up, and the quantity of all defects in the EL6 group increases. It is suggested that the EL2 group and EL6 group are related in their microscopy structures. The relation between the two groups and origins was also discussed.

Yb-doped passively mode-locked fiber laser with Bi_2Te_3-deposited

In this study we present an all-normal-dispersion Yb-doped fiber laser passively mode-locked with topological insulator（Bi2Te3） saturable absorber. The saturable absorber device is fabricated by depositing Bi2Te3 on a tapered fiber through using pulsed laser deposition（PLD） technology, which can give rise to less non-saturable losses than most of the solution processing methods. Owing to the long interaction length, Bi2Te3 is not exposed to high optical power, which allows the saturable absorber device to work in a high power regime. The modulation depth of this kind of saturable absorber is measured to be 10%. By combining the saturable absorber device with Yb-doped fiber laser, a mode-locked pulse operating at a repetition rate of 19.8 MHz is achieved. The 3-d B spectral width and pulse duration are measured to be 1.245 nm and317 ps, respectively.

Paired interference 3-dB coupler based on SOI rib waveguides with anisotropic chemical wet etching

A 3-dB paired interference （PI） optical coupler in silicon-on-insulator （SOI） based on rib waveguides with trapezoidal cross section was designed with simulation by a modified finite-difference beam propagation method （FD-BPM） and fabricated by potassium hydroxide （KOH） anisotropic chemical wet etching. Theoretically, tolerances of width, length, and port distance are more than 1, 100, and 1 μm, respectively. Smooth interface was obtained with the propagation loss of 1.1 dB/cm at the wavelength of 1.55 μm. The coupler has a good uniformity of 0.2 dB and low excess loss of less than 2 dB.

Performance testing of log pile photonic crystal fast-fabricated by direct femtosecond laser writing

Great efforts has been made on fabricating photonic crystals （PCs） with photonic band gaps （PBGs） during the past decade. Three-dimensional （3D） log pile PC was fabricated fast by direct femtosecond laser writing in ORMOCER. Qualitative analysis of the errors of PC was investigated using the Image Pro Plus. Surface qualities such as bending, distortion, and surface roughness were shown, and the band gap in the infrared wavelength region was observed. Meanwhile, the theory was experimentally verified that the center of PBG diminishes as the crystal lattice period reduces. Therefore, it is possible to fabricate PCs whose band gap range is from the near-infrared to visible wave band.

Three-step lithography to the fabrication of vertically coupled micro-ring resonators in amorphous silicon-on-insulator

A simple method to fabricate vertically coupled micro-ring resonators in amorphous silicon-on-insulator is created by a three-step lithography process. First, the linear loss at 1.55 μm of the a-Si：H film is calculated to be 0.2 =k 0.05 dB/cm. Then, the bottom line waveguide of Su-8 with a flat top surface of 300 nm is created by etching. The thickness of Su-8 can easily be controlled by the etching time. Finally, by opening the window pattern and etching several layers, the first layer marks made by electron beam lithography are found with a 50 nm resolution, and the high quality of the micro-ring resonator is demonstrated.

Reverse current reduction of Ge photodiodes on Si without post-growth annealing

A new approach to reduce the reverse current of Ge pin photodiodes on Si is presented, in which an i-Si layer is inserted between Ge and top Si layers to reduce the electric field in the Ge layer. Without post- growth annealing, the reverse current density is reduced to -10 mA/cm^2 at -1 V, i.e., over one order of magnitude lower than that of the reference photodiode without i-Si layer. However, the responsivity of the photodiodes is not severely compromised. This lowered-reverse-current is explained by band-pinning at the i-Si/i-Ge interface. Barrier lowering mechanism induced by E-field is also discussed. The presented ＂non-thermal＂ approach to reduce reverse current should accelerate electronics-photonics convergence by using Oe on the Si complementary metal oxide semiconductor （CMOS） platform.

A compact T-branch beam splitter based on anomalous reflection in two-dimensional photonic crystals

We project a compact T-branch beam splitter with a micron scale using a two-dimensional （2D） photonic crystal （PC）. For TE polarization, one light beam can be split into two sub-beams along opposite directions. The propagating directions of the two splitting beams remain unchanged when the incident angle varies in a certain range. Coupled-mode theory is used to analyze the truncating interface structure in order to investigate the energy loss of the splitter. Simulation results and theoretical analysis show that choosing an appropriate location of the truncating interface （PC-air interface） is very important for obtaining high efficiency due to the effect of defect modes. The most advantage of this kind of beam splitter is being fabricated and integrated easily.

High-speed electrooptical VOA integrated in silicon-on-insulator

In this paper, we present simulation results of an electrooptical variable optical attenuator (VOA) integrated in silicon-on-insulator waveguide. The device is functionally based on free carriers absorption to achieve attenuation. Beam propagation method (BPM) and two-dimensional semiconductor device simulation tool PISCES-II were used to analyze the dc and transient characteristics of the device. The device has a response time (including rise time and fall time) less than 200 ns, much faster than the thermooptic and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMSs) based VOAs.

SOI thermo-optic modulator with fast response

Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology offers tremendous potential for integration of optoelectronic functions on a silicon wafer. In this letter, a 1 x 1 multimode interference (MMI) Mach-Zender interferometer (MZI) thermo-optic modulator fabricated by wet-etching method is demonstrated. The modulator has an extinction ratio of -11.0 dB, extra loss of -4.9 dB and power consumption of 420 mW. The response time is less than 30 us.

Compact and broadband waveguide taper based on partial bandgap photonic crystals

Partial bandgap characteristics of parallelogram lattice photonic crystals are proposed to suppress the radiation modes in a compact dielectric waveguide taper so as to obtain high transmittance in a large wavelength range. Band structure of the photonic crystals shows that there exists a partial bandgap, The photonie crystals with partial bandgap are then used as the cladding of a waveguide taper to reduce the radiation loss efficiently. In comparison with the conventional dielectric taper and the complete bandgap photonic crystal taper, the partial bandgap photonic crystal taper has a high transmittance of above 85% with a wide band of 170 nm.

Polarization-independent grating coupler based on silicon-on-insulator

A novel and simple polarization independent grating couplers is designed and analyzed here, in which the TE polarization and the TM polarization light can be simultaneously coupled into a silicon waveguide along the same direction with high coupling efficiency. For the polarization-insensitive grating coupler, the coupling effi- ciencies of two orthogonal polarizations light are more than 60% at 1550 nm wavelength based on our optimized design parameters including grating period, etching height, filling factor, and so on. For TE mode the maximum efficiency is ~72% with more than 30 nm i dB bandwidth, simultaneously, for TM mode the maximum efficiency is 75.15% with 40 nm 1 dB bandwidth. Their corresponding wavelength difference between two polarizations＇ coupling peaks is demonstrated to be 35 nm. Polarization independent grating coupler designed here can be widelv used in optical communication and ontical information processing.

Design and fabrication of the star coupler based on SOI material

A 1 x 25 star coupler is designed through calculation and beam propagation method (BPM) simulation. Improvement methods are focused on the design of the tapered waveguides in the device, improving the uniformity of the output light power of the star coupler. Utilizing the conventional Si process technology, the device is fabricated based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) material. The test result shows that the star coupler has a perfect function of power splitting.