Highly sensitive and stable probe refractometer based on configurable plasmonic resonance with nano-modified fiber core

A dispersion model is developed to provide a generic tool for configuring plasmonic resonance spectral characteristics.The customized design of the resonance curve aiming at specific detection requirements can be achieved.According to the model,a probe-type nano-modified fiber optic configurable plasmonic resonance(NMF-CPR)sensor with tip hot spot enhancement is demonstrated for the measurement of the refractive index in the range of 1.3332-1.3432 corresponding to the low-concentration biomarker solution.The new-type sensing structure avoids excessive broadening and redshift of the resonance dip,which provides more possibilities for the surface modification of other functional nanomaterials.The tip hot spots in nanogaps between the Au layer and Au nanostars(AuNSs),the tip electric field enhancement of AuNSs,and the high carrier mobility of the WSe_(2)layer synergistically and significantly enhance the sensitivity of the sensor.Ex-perimental results show that the sensitivity and the figure of merit of the tip hot spot enhanced fiber NMF-CPR sensor can achieve up to 2995.70 nm/RIU and 25.04 RIU^(−1),respectively,which are 1.68 times and 1.29 times higher than those of the conventional fiber plasmonic resonance sensor.The results achieve good agreements with numerical simulations,demonstrate a better level compared to similar reported studies,and verify the correctness of the dispersion model.The detection resolution of the sensor reaches up to 2.00×10^(−5)RIU,which is obviously higher than that of the conventional side-polished fiber plasmonic resonance sensor.This indicates a high detection accuracy of the sensor.The dense Au layer effectively prevents the intermediate nanomaterials from shedding and chemical degradation,which enables the sensor with high stability.Furthermore,the terminal reflective sensing structure can be used as a practical probe and can allow a more convenient operation.

Fabrication and Testing of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Truss Core Sandwich Panels

Truss core sandwich panels reinforced by carbon fibers were assembled with bonded laminate facesheets and carbon fiber reinforced truss cores. The top and bottom facesheets were interconnected with truss cores. Both ends of the truss cores were embedded into four layers of top and bottom facesheets. The mechanical properties of truss core sandwich panels were then investigated under out-of-plane and in-plane compression loadings to reveal the failure mechanisms of sandwich panels. Experimental results indicated that the mechanical behavior of sandwich structure under in-plane loading is dominated by the buckling and debonding of facesheets.

Combined Transmission Interference Spectrum of No Core Fiber and BP Neural Network for Concentration Sensing Research

To investigate wavelength response of the no core fiber（NCF）interference spectrum to concentration,a three-layer back propagation（BP）neural network model was established to optimize the concentration sensing data.In this method,the measured wavelength and the corresponding concentration were trained by a BP neural network,so that the accuracy of the measurement system was optimized.The wavelength was used as the training set and got into the input layer of the three layer BP network model which is used as the input value of the network,and the corresponding actual concentration value was used as the output value of the network,and the optimal network structure was trained.This paper discovers a preferable correlation between the predicted value and the actual value,where the former is approximately equal to the latter.The correlation coefficients of the measured and predicted values for a sucrose concentration were 1.000 89 and 1.003 94;similarly,correlations of0.999 51 and 1.018 8 for a glucose concentration were observed.The results demonstrate that the BP neural network can improve the prediction accuracy of the nonlinear relationship between the interference spectral data and the concentration in NCF sensing systems.

Cardiogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells on elastomeric poly (glycerol sebacate)/collagen core/shell fibers

AIM: To facilitate engineering of suitable biomaterials to meet the challenges associated with myocardial infarction. METHODS: Poly (glycerol sebacate)/collagen (PGS/ collagen) core/shell fibers were fabricated by core/ shell electrospinning technique, with core as PGS and shell as collagen polymer; and the scaffolds were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), contact angle and tensile testing for cardiac tissue engineering. Collagen nanofibers were also fabricated by electrospinning for comparison with core/shell fibers. Studies on cell-scaffold interaction were carriedout using cardiac cells and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) co-culture system with cardiac cells and MSCs separately serving as positive and negative controls respectively. The co-culture system was characterized for cell proliferation and differentiation of MSCs into cardiomyogenic lineage in the co-culture environment using dual immunocytochemistry. The co-culture cells were stained with cardiac specific marker proteins like actinin and troponin and MSC specific marker protein CD 105 for proving the cardiogenic differentiation of MSCs. Further the morphology of cells was analyzed using SEM.RESULTS: PGS/collagen core/shell fibers, core is PGS polymer having an elastic modulus related to that of cardiac fibers and shell as collagen, providing natural environment for cellular activities like cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation. SEM micrographs of electrospun fibrous scaffolds revealed porous, beadless, uniform fibers with a fiber diameter in the range of 380 ± 77 nm and 1192 ± 277 nm for collagen fibers and PGS/collagen core/shell fibers respectively. The obtained PGS/collagen core/shell fibrous scaffolds were hydrophilic having a water contact angle of 17.9 ± 4.6° compared to collagen nanofibers which had a contact angle value of 30 ± 3.2°. The PGS/collagen core/shell fibers had mechanical properties comparable to that of native heart muscle with a young's modulus of 4.24 ± 0.7 MPa, while that of collagen nanofibers was comparatively higher around 30.11 ± 1.68 MPa. FTIR spectrum was performed to confirm the functional groups present in the electrospun scaffolds. Amide Ⅰ and amide Ⅱ of collagen were detected at 1638.95 cm -1 and 1551.64 cm -1 in the electrospun collagen fibers and at 1646.22 cm -1 and 1540.73 cm -1 for PGS/collagen core/shell fibers respectively. Cell culture studies performed using MSCs and cardiac cells co-culture environment, indicated that the cellproliferation significantly increased on PGS/collagen core/shell scaffolds compared to collagen fibers and the cardiac marker proteins actinin and troponin were expressed more on PGS/collagen core/shell scaffolds compared to collagen fibers alone. Dual immunofluorescent staining was performed to further confirm the cardiogenic differentiation of MSCs by employing MSC specific marker protein, CD 105 and cardiac specific marker protein, actinin. SEM observations of cardiac cells showed normal morphology on PGS/collagen fibers and providing adequate tensile strength for the regeneration of myocardial infarction. CONCLUSION: Combination of PGS/collagen fibers and cardiac cells/MSCs co-culture system providing natural microenvironments to improve cell survival and differentiation, could bring cardiac tissue engineering to clinical application.

Fiber core mode leakage induced by refractive index variation in high-power fiber laser

This paper presents an investigation of specific optical fiber core mode leakage behavior that occurs in high-power double-clad fiber lasers as a result of thermally-induced refractive index variations. A model of the power transfer between the core modes and the cladding modes during thermally-induced refractive index variations is established based on the mode coupling theory. The results of numerical simulations based on actual laser parameters are presented. Experimental measurements were also carried out, the results showed good agreement with the corresponding simulation results.

All-fiber optical modulator based on no-core fiber and magnetic fluid as cladding

An all-fiber optical modulator, which is composed of a piece of no-core fiber spliced between two sections of singlemode fibers and uses magnetic fluid（MF） as the cladding of the no-core fiber section, is proposed and investigated experimentally. Due to the tunable refractive index and absorption coefficient of MF, the output intensity can be modulated by controlling an applied magnetic field. The dependences of the modulator＇s temporal response on the working wavelength,the magnetic field strength（H）, and the MF＇s concentration are investigated experimentally. The results are explained qualitatively by the dynamic response process of MF under the action of a magnetic field. The findings are helpful for optimizing this kind of modulator.

Supercontinuum generation in seven-core photonic crystal fiber pumped by a broadband picosecond pulsed fiber amplifier

We report a supercontinuum source generated in seven-core photonic crystal fibers（PCFs） pumped by a self-made all-fiber picosecond pulsed broadband fiber amplifier. The amplifier＇s output average power is 60 W at 1150 nm with spectral width of 260 nm, and its repetition rate is 8.47 MHz with pulse width of 221 ps. With two different lengths of seven-core PCF, different output powers and spectra are obtained. When a 10 m long seven-core PCF is chosen, the output supercontinuum covers the wavelength range from 620 nm to 1700 nm, with the output power of 11.7 W. With only 2 m long seven-core PCF used in the same experiment, the wavelength of the supercontinuum spans from 680 nm to 1700 nm,with the output power of 20.4 W. The results show that the pulse width is 385 ps in the 10 m long seven-core PCF and 255 ps in the 2 m long one, respectively, due to the normal dispersion of the PCF.

Nonlinear compression of picosecond chirped pulse from thin-disk amplifier system through a gas-filled hollow-core fiber

We theoretically study the nonlinear compression of a 20-rnJ, 1030-nm picosecond chirped pulse from the thin-disk amplifier in a krypton gas-filled hollow-core fiber. The chirp from the thin-disk amplifier system has little influence on the initial pulse, however, it shows an effect on the nonlinear compression in hollow-core fiber. We use a large diameter hollow waveguide to restrict undesirable nonlinear effects such as ionization; on the other hand, we employ suitable gas pressure and fiber length to promise enough spectral broadening; with 600-μm, 6-bar （1 bar = 105 Pa）, 1.8-m hollow fiber, we obtain 31.5-fs pulse. Moreover, we calculate and discuss the optimal fiber lengths and gas pressures with different initial durations induced by different grating compression angles for reaching a given bandwidth. These results are meaningful for a compression scheme from picoseconds to femtoseconds.

Polarization characteristics of chiral photonic crystal fibers with an elliptical hollow core

The theoretical study of dielectric-chiral photonic crystal fiber （PCF） with an elliptical hollow core is presented. The band structure of chiral photonic crystal （PhC） is calculated by using a modified plane-wave expansion （PWE） method. By examining the out-of-plane photonic bandgaps （PBGs） of chiral PhC, a kind of chiral PCF with a hollow core is designed and their eigenstates are calculated. The distributions of mode field and polarization state are demonstrated, and how the structural asymmetry of the core together with the chirality in the background affects the modal polarization is discussed. The dependences of birefringence on chirality for different ellipticities of core are investigated.

Picosecond pulses compression at 1053-nm center wavelength by using a gas-filled hollow-core fiber compressor

We theoretically study the nonlinear compression of picosecond pulses with 10-m J of input energy at the 1053-nm center wavelength by using a one-meter-long gas-filled hollow-core fiber（HCF） compressor and considering the third-order dispersion（TOD） effect. It is found that when the input pulse is about 1 ps/10 m J, it can be compressed down to less than20 fs with a high transmission efficiency. The gas for optimal compression is krypton gas which is filled in a HCF with a 400-μm inner diameter. When the input pulse duration is increased to 5 ps, it can also be compressed down to less than 100 fs efficiently under proper conditions. The results show that the TOD effect has little impact on picosecond pulse compression and the HCF compressor can be applied on compressing picosecond pulses efficiently with a high compression ratio, which will benefit the research of high-field laser physics.

High sensitive fiber strain sensor using suspended-core fibers

A novel fiber strain sensor is proposed, based on the two-mode interference of a suspended-core fiber. A fullvectorial finite difference mode solver is employed as the numerical tool for characterizing the proposed strain sensor. The numerical results show that the proposed strain sensor has an estimated sensitivity of 0.05 rad/（m-με）, higher than that of the strain sensors using conventional multimode fibers, while the temperature sensitivity of the proposed sensor is relatively low.

Numerical analysis of photonic crystal fiber with chalcogenide core tellurite cladding composite microstructure

Kinds of photonic crystal fibers with chalcogenide core tellurite cladding composite microstructure are proposed. The multi-core photonic crystal fiber can reach the higher nonlinearity coefficient and the larger effective mode area. The small single-core photonic crystal fiber has a very high nonlinearity coefficient. At the wavelength λ=0.8μm, the nonlinearity coefficient can reach 31.37053 W-1·m-1, at the wavelength λ=1.55μm, the nonlinearity coefficient is 11.19686W-1·m-1.

Highly efficient Cherenkov radiation generation in the irregular point of hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

Highly efficient Cherenkov radiation （CR） is generated by the soliton self-frequency shift （SSFS） in the irregular point of a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber （HC-PCF） in our laboratory. The impacts of pump power and wavelength on the CR are investigated, and the corresponding nonlinear processes are discussed. When the average power of the 120 fs pump pulse increases from 500 mW to 700 mW, the Raman soliton shifts from 2210 nm to 2360 nm, the output power of the CR increases by 2.3 times, the maximum output power ratio of the CR at 539 nm to that of the residual pump is calculated to be 24.32：1, the width of the output optical spectrum at the visible wavelength broadens from 35 nm to 62 nm, and the conversion efficiency η of the CR in the experiment can be above 32%.

The Loss of Optical Fiber with Pure Quartz Core and Fluorine—Doped Glass Cladding

The optical fiber with pure quartz core and Fluorine-doped glass cladding was made by POD (plasma outside deposition) technique in some corporations, while we used the creative technique of “overcladding F-doped tube onto quartz rod in high temperature” to make the optical fiber which has the same structure as that from POD, in order to research and compare the influence factors on the loss of the fiber, our research work includes contrast experiments on coating polymers with different refractive index and the concentricity error of the fiber core and cladding. The measurement results show us that there are great differences in the loss spectra between the different fiber samples. We made analysis of it.

Hybrid Long-Period Fiber Grating with Multimode Fiber Core for Refractive Index Measurement

A refractive index （RI） sensor based on hybrid long-period fiber grating （LPFG） with multimode fiber core （MMFC） is proposed and demonstrated. The surrounding RI can be determined by monitoring the separation between the resonant wavelengths of the LPFG and MMFC since the resonant wavelengths of the LPFG and MMFC will shift in opposite directions when the surrounding RI changes. Experimental results show that the sensor possesses an enhanced sensitivity of 526.92nm/RIU in the RI range of 1.387-1.394 RIU. The response to the temperature is also discussed.

Periodic Modulation of Nonlinearity in a Two-Core Photonic Crystal Fiber: A Numerical Investigation

We present a numerical investigation of the propagation and the switching of ultra-short pulses (100 fs) in a two-core nonlinear coupler of photonic crystal fibers constructed with periodically modulated the non-linearity fiber (PMNL-PFC). Our simulations are taking into account different amplitude and frequency modulations of the PMNL-PFC. A coupler for coupling whose length is Lc = 1.8 cm, the transmission characteristics, the compression factor, the crosstalk (Xtalk) and extinction ratio (Xratio) levels of the first order solitons were studied for low to high pump energies considering 2Lc. By an analysis on the reference channel (channel 2), it is observed that at low modulation frequencies an increase occurs in the switching power increasing transmission efficiency. For high modulation frequencies, the transmitted energy efficiency loses. The switching pulses are stronger for low frequency and high amplitude modulation. The Xtalk is a function of the measurement made on the secondary channel (channel 1). It was observed that this unwanted high-frequency energy increases to lessen the measure of the amplitude modulation. In summary, we have demonstrated that introduction of a non-linearity profile takes the periodically modulated PMNL-PFC to strong variations at transmission efficiency, Xtalk, Xratio a function of frequency and modulation amplitude and the input power.

Energetic few-cycle pulse compression in gas-filled hollow core fiber with concentric phase mask

The compression of high-energy, linearly polarized pulses in a gas-filled hollow core fiber(HCF) by using a concentric phase mask is studied theoretically. Simulation results indicate that using a properly designed concentric phase mask, a40-fs input pulse centered at 800 nm with energy up to 10.0 mJ can be compressed to a full width at half maximum(FWHM) of less than 5 fs after propagating through a neon-filled HCF with a length of 1 m and diameter of 500 μm with a transmission efficiency of 67%, which is significantly higher than that without a concentric phase mask. Pulses with energy up to 20.0 mJ can also be efficiently compressed to less than 10 fs with the concentric phase mask. The higher efficiency due to the concentric phase mask can be attributed to the redistribution of the transverse intensity profile, which reduces the effect of ionization. The proposed method exhibits great potential for generating few-cycle laser pulse sources with high energy by the HCF compressor.

Realization of a broadband terahertz wavelength-selective coupling based on five-core fibers

We propose a novel kind of wavelength-selective coupling for the terahertz range based on solid five-core fiber （FCF）. The performances of coupling, propagation characteristics, and confinement loss properties are numerically investigated by using a full vector beam propagation method （BPM）. Simulation results show that it is possible to realize a broad- band wavelength-selective coupling. The coupling length can reach 1.913 cm, and the confinement loss is better than 1.965 ×10^-4 cm^-1. Furthermore, a parameter, the power difference, is defined, and it numerically demonstrates the working performance of the wavelength-selective coupler; that is, when the power difference is better than - 15 dB, the frequency located in the range of 0.76 THz-100 THz is separated relatively well from the frequency of 0.3 THz. Finally, the effect of the structural parameter on the working performance of the coupler is also investigated. We show that the performance optimization is possible by appropriately tuning the core diameter, and the tunabilities of frequency and bandwidth are possible by appropriately tuning the pitch. The wavelength-selective coupler is of potential application for optical fiber sensing and communication in terahertz wavelength division multiplexer fields.

Spatiotemporal propagation dynamics of intense optical pulses in loosely confined gas-filled hollow-core fibers

We numerically study the propagation dynamics of intense optical pulses in gas-filled hollow-core fibers（HCFs）. The spatiotemporal dynamics of the pulses show a transition from tightly confined to loosely confined characteristics as the fiber core is increased, which manifests as a deterioration in the spatiotemporal uniformity of the beam. It is found that using the gas pressure gradient does not enhance the beam quality in large-core HCFs, while inducing a positive chirp in the pulse to lower the peak power can improve the beam quality. This indicates that the self-focusing effect in the HCFs is the main driving force for the propagation dynamics. It also suggests that pulses at longer wavelengths are more suitable for HCFs with large cores because of the lower critical power of self-focusing, which is justified by the numerical simulations. These results will benefit the generation of energetic few-cycle pulses in large-core HCFs.

Generation of few-cycle radially-polarized infrared pulses in a gas-filled hollow-core fiber

We perform a numerical study for temporally compressing radially-polarized（RP） infrared pulses in a gas-filled hollow-core fiber（HCF）. The dynamic transmission and nonlinear compression of RP pulses centered at wavelengths of0.8 m, 1.8 m, 3.1 m, and 5.0 m in HCFs are simulated. By comparing the propagation of pulses with the same optical cycles and intensity, we find that under proper conditions these pulses can be compressed down to 2–3 cycles. In the transverse direction, the spatiotemporal beam profile ameliorates from 0.8-m to 1.8-m and 3.1-m pulses before the appearance of high-order dispersion. These results show an alternative method of scaling generation for delivering RP infrared pulses in gas-filled HCFs, which can obtain energetic few-cycle pulses, and will be beneficial for relevant researches in the infrared scope.