Fusion Splicing Photonic Crystal Fibers and Conventional Single-Mode Fibers: Microhole Collapse EffectLimin Xiao, M.S. Demokan, Wei Jin et al.|Journal of Lightwave Technology|2007 We investigate the microhole collapse property of different photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) and its effect on the splice loss using an electric arc fusion splicer. The physical mechanism of the splice loss for different kinds of PCFs is studied, and a guideline for splicing these PCFs and conventional single-mode fibers (SMFs) is proposed. We demonstrate a low-loss fusion splicing of five different PCFs with SMFs, including large-mode PCF, hollow-core PCF, nonlinear PCFs, and polarization-maintaining PCF.
High-sensitivity temperature sensor based on an alcohol-filled photonic crystal fiber loop mirrorA compact temperature sensor based on a fiber loop mirror (FLM) combined with an alcohol-filled high-birefringence photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The output of the FLM is an interference spectrum with many resonant dips, of which the wavelengths are quite sensitive to the change of the refractive index of the filled alcohol for the interference of the FLM. Simulation analysis predicts a high temperature sensitivity, and experimental results show it reaches up to 6.6 nm/°C for the 6.1-cm-long PCF used in the FLM.
Fabrication of selective injection microstructured optical fibers with a conventional fusion splicerLimin Xiao, Wei Jin, M.S. Demokan et al.|Optics Express|2005 A simple method for fabricating selective injection microstructured optical fibers (MOFs) using a conventional fusion splicer is described. The effects of fusion current, fusion duration and offset position on the hole collapse property of the MOFs are investigated. With this method, the central hollow-core and the holes in the cladding region can be selectively infiltrated, which allows for the fabrication of novel hybrid polymer-silica and liquid-silica MOFs for various applications.
Er-Doped Mode-Locked Fiber Laser With a Hybrid Structure of a Step-Index–Graded-Index Multimode Fiber as the Saturable AbsorberZhaokun Wang, D. N. Wang, Fan Yang et al.|Journal of Lightwave Technology|2017 A mode-locked all-fiber laser based on the nonlinear multimode interference (NL-MMI) effect of the graded-index multimode fiber (GIMF) is proposed and demonstrated. The saturable absorber (SA) used in the laser consists of a step-index multimode fiber (SIMF) connected by a GIMF. Compared with the theoretically proposed SMF-GIMF-SMF structure, the introduction of the SIMF eliminates the restriction on the length of the GIMF and provides a more flexible method of making an SA based on the NL-MMI. Through bending the device to a certain state, the modulation depth of the SA was measured to be 3.16%. The mode-locked laser output pulses have the pulsewidth of ~446 fs, the bandwidth of 4.48 nm, and the fundamental repetition rate of 11.73 MHz. This versatility and simplicity of the SA device combined with the possibility of scaling the pulse energy in the large-mode-area double-clad fiber laser make it highly attractive in ultrafast photonics.
An Optical Fiber Curvature Sensor Based on Two Peanut-Shape Structures Modal InterferometerHuaping Gong, Xiao Yang, Kai Ni et al.|IEEE Photonics Technology Letters|2013 A novel curvature sensor based on optical fiber modal interferometer is demonstrated. It consists of two peanut-shape structures that are formed only by single mode fibers. The two peanut-shape structures can split and recombine the core and cladding modes, consequently, it produces modal interference. The experimental results show that the shift of the peak wavelength is almost linearly proportional to the change of curvature, and the sensitivities of the sensors with the lengths of 21, 26, and 30 mm are -18.46, -21.87, and 13.68 nm/m <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-1</sup> , respectively. The proposed curvature sensor is simple, high sensitive, and inexpensive.