In this Letter, an all-optical logic sequence generator based on two different polarization holographic gratings has been proposed and demonstrated, which has one input port and four output ports. The polarization state of input light signal determines logic output signals. It can produce four kinds of logic sequence output signals: 1000, 0100, 0010, and 0001, corresponding to the input light signal of four different polarization states: the p-linear, s-linear, left-handed circular, and right-handed circular. The two polarization gratings have been fabricated, and the working principle of the logic sequence generator has been proved by diffraction pattern analysis of polarization gratings.

Angle tolerant transmissive subtractive color filters incorporating a metasurface exploiting hydrogenated amorphous silicon nanopillars (NPs) on a glass substrate were proposed and demonstrated. The achieved transmission efficiency ranged from 75% to 95% at off-resonance wavelengths. For an NP resonator, electric and magnetic-field distributions in conjunction with absorption cross-sections were investigated to confirm a resonant transmission dip, which is primarily governed by the absorption resulting from simultaneous excitation of magnetic and electric dipoles via Mie scattering. The proposed devices exhibit higher angular tolerance and lower crosstalk for the absorption spectra and, therefore, are applicable with photodetectors, image sensors, and imaging/display devices.

All-optical logic gates including AND, XOR, and NOT gates, as well as a half-adder, are realized based on two-dimensional lithium niobate photonic crystal (PhC) circuits with PhC micro-cavities. The proposed all-optical devices have an extinction ratio as high as 23 dB due to the effective all-optical switch function induced by two-missing-hole micro-cavities. These proposed devices can have potential implementation of complex integrated optical functionalities including all-optical computing in a lithium niobate slab or thin film.

The position-dependent mode couplings between a semiconductor nanowire (NW) and a planar photonic crystal (PPC) nanocavity are studied. By scanning an NW across a PPC nanocavity along the hexagonal lattice’s Γ – M and M – K directions, the variations of resonant wavelengths, quality factors, and mode volumes in both fundamental and second-order resonant modes are calculated, implying optimal configurations for strong mode-NW couplings and light-NW interactions. For the fundamental (second-order) resonant mode, scanning an NW along the M – K (Γ – M) direction is preferred, which supports stronger light-NW interactions with larger NW-position tolerances and higher quality factors simultaneously. The simulation results are confirmed experimentally with good agreements.

Separating lights into different paths according to the polarization states while keeping their respective path’s polarizations with high purification is keen for polarization multiplex in optical communications. Metallic nanowire gratings with multi-slits in a period are proposed to achieve polarized beam splitters (PBSs) in reflection and diffraction. The setting of multi-slits largely reduces the reflection of photons with a transverse magnetific field via the plasmonic waveguiding effect, which leads to highly polarized output lights with extinction ratio larger than 20 dB in each channel. The proposed reflection/diffraction PBSs enrich the approaches to control the polarization states with the advantages of wide incident angles and flexible beam splitting angles.

In our Letter, we selected several commercial optical transceivers, which consist of single-channel transceiver modules, parallel transmitting and receiving modules, and Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) optical line terminal (OLT) and optical network unit (ONU) modules, to do the total ionizing dose (TID) testing via the gamma-ray radiation method. The changing of current and receiver sensitivity of optical transceivers is discussed and analyzed. Based on the TID testing exposed to a TID of 50 krad (Si) at a dose rate of about 0.1 rad (Si)/s, the performance of single-channel transceivers and parallel receiving modules has not changed after 50 krad (Si) exposure, the parallel transmitting and EPON ONU modules have not worked after 40 krad (Si) and 47 krad (Si) exposure, the EPON OLT module has bit error in the process of irradiation, and it can work well after annealing; the reason for the error of OLT is analyzed. Finally, based on the theoretical analysis and testing results, this Letter provides several design suggestions to improve the reliability for optical transceivers, which can be referenced by satellite system designation for various space missions.

To overcome the beam squint in wide instantaneous frequency, we review a number of system-level optical controlled phase array antennas for beam forming. The optical delay network based on a fiber device in terms of topological structure of an N-bit optical switch, fiber grating, high-dispersion fiber, and vector-sum technology is discussed, respectively. Lastly, an integrated circuit is simply summarized.

Extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) in subwavelength metal structures has been studied widely. Herein, we propose a strategy for tuning the EOT of the bullseye structure. Specifically, the bullseye structure was immersed in a nonlinear medium, and a controlling light was employed to change the refractive index of the medium. At different intensities and distributions of controlling light, the transmission property of signal light in the bullseye structure was simulated. The results show that a variable transmission spectrum in the bullseye structure can be realized. Moreover, the position of the central transmission peak shifts linearly with the increasing intensity of controlling light.

The tilted energy band in the multiple quantum wells (MQWs) arising from the polarization effect causes the quantum confined Stark effect (QCSE) for [0001] oriented III-nitride-based near ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (NUV LEDs). Here, we prove that the polarization effect in the MQWs for NUV LEDs can be self-screened once the polarization-induced bulk charges are employed by using the alloy-gradient InxGa1-xN quantum barriers. The numerical calculations demonstrate that the electric field in the quantum wells becomes weak and thereby flattens the energy band in the quantum wells, which accordingly increases the spatial overlap for the electron-hole wave functions. The polarization self-screening effect is further proven by observing the blueshift for the peak emission wavelength in the calculated and the measured emission spectra. Our results also indicate that for NUV LEDs with a small conduction band offset between the quantum well and the quantum barrier, the electron injection efficiency for the proposed structure becomes low. Therefore, we suggest doping the proposed quantum barrier structures with Mg dopants.

Over the last years, there has been tremendous progress with compact pulsed lasers based on various solid-state gain media, such as crystals and glasses doped with laser-active ions. With the integration of increasingly diverse saturable absorber materials, these small sources are capable of delivering stable pulses with durations as short as femtoseconds and repetition rates exceeding 10 GHz. These promising sources are known as solid-state waveguide lasers, which have become synonymous with miniaturization, integration, and functionality. This article overviews the progress in the development of passively Q-switched and mode-locked solid-state waveguide lasers employing diverse saturable absorbers. The most commonly used laser configurations, state-of-the-art waveguide fabrication techniques, and experimental demonstrations of pulsed waveguide lasers are summarized and reviewed. Selected well-noted topics, which may shape the future directions in this field, are also presented.

In this Letter, we present an electrically tunable holographic waveguide display (HWD) based on two slanted holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystal (HPDLC) gratings. Experimental results show that a see-through effect is obtained in the HWD that both the display light from HWD and the ambient light can be clearly seen simultaneously. By applying an external electric field, the output intensity of the display light can be modulated, which is attributed to the field-induced rotation of the liquid crystal molecules in the two HPDLC gratings. We also show that this electrically tunable performance enables the HWD to adapt to different ambient light conditions. This study provides some ideas towards the development of HWD and its application in augmented reality.

A liquid crystal Pancharatnam–Berry (PB) axilens is proposed and fabricated via a digital micro-mirror-device-based photo-patterning system. The polarization-dependent device behaves as an axilens for a left-handed circularly polarized incident beam, for which an optical ring is focused with a long focal depth in the transverse direction at the output, and an anti-axilens for a right-handed circularly polarized incident beam, for which an optical ring gradually expands at the output. The modification of the size and the sharpness of the diffracted ring beam is demonstrated by encoding a positive (negative) PB lens term into the director expression of a PB (anti-)axicon.

New techniques for controlling the amplitudes of two orthogonal linearly polarized light are presented. One is based on adjusting the DC voltage into a Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM) to alter the amplitude of the light traveling on the slow axis of a fiber into the modulator with little changes in the fast-axis light amplitude. Another is based on adjusting the input DC voltages of a dual-polarization MZM operating in the reverse direction, which enables independent control of the two input orthogonal linearly polarized light amplitudes. Experimental results demonstrate that more than 30 dB difference in slow- and fast-axis light power can be obtained by controlling an MZM input DC voltage, and over 24 dB independent power adjustment for light traveling on the slow and fast axes into a dual-polarization MZM.

We propose a plasmonic sensor with variable refractive index (RI), which exhibits high sensitivity and extraordinary optical transmission (EOT). Its variable RI is attributed to its dielectric layers and metallic slit arrays. According to simulation results, the third resonant wavelength has a wavelength sensitivity of 800 nm/RIU and an ultra-high transmittance of 0.8 by adjusting the RIs of the upper and lower dielectrics, incident light angle, and structural geometric parameters. With its unique features, the proposed structure holds considerable potential for extensive application to metal–dielectric grating sensors operating at visible and near-infrared frequencies.

We report experimental realization of Raman spectra enhancement of copper phthalocyanine, using an on-chip metallic planar waveguide of the sub-millimeter scale. The oscillating ultrahigh order modes excited by the direct coupling method yield high optical intensity at resonance, which is different from the conventional strategy to create localized “hot spots.” The observed excitation efficiency of the Raman signal is significantly enhanced, owing to the high Q factor of the resonant cavity. Furthermore, effective modulation of the Raman intensity is available by adjusting the polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) thickness in the guiding layer, i.e., by tuning the light–matter interaction length. A large modulation depth is verified through the fact that 10 times variation in the enhancement factor is observed in the experiment as the PMMA thickness varies from 7 to 23 μm.

A hollow-core metal-cladding waveguide (HCMW) optofluidic resonator that works based on a free-space coupling technique is designed. An HCMW can excite ultra-high-order modes (UOMs) at the coupled angle, which can be used as an optofluidic resonator to detect alterations of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) concentration. Theoretical analysis shows that the UOMs excited in the HCMW have a highly sensitive response to the refractive index (RI) variation of the guiding layer. An EGFR solution with a 0.2 ng/mL alteration is detected, and the RI variation caused by the concentration alteration is about 2.5×10 3.

In this Letter, the liquid crystal variable phase retarder is applied for the accurate modulation of the laser power in a detection system and the construction of a system that suppresses the influence of laser noise on the gyro’s bias instability. A closed-loop control method for a laser noise suppression system is proposed. We obtain a power stability index of 0.038% in a 3-h continuous test, and the nuclear magnetic resonance gyroscope bias instability reaches 1°/h. The proposed control method effectively improves the signal-to-noise ratio of the gyroscope detection signal, which lays the technical foundation for future research work.

We use the selective area growth (SAG) technique to monolithically integrate InP-based 4-channel arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs) with uni-traveling carrier photodiode arrays at the O-band. Two kinds of channel spacing demultiplexers of 20 nm and 800 GHz are adopted for potential 100 Gbps coarse wavelength division multiplexing and local area network wavelength division multiplexing systems, with an evanescent coupling plan to facilitate the SAG technique into device fabrication. The monolithic chips in both channel spacings exhibit uniform bandwidths over 25 GHz and a photodiode responsivity of 0.81 A/W for each channel, in agreement with the simulated quantum efficiency of 80%. Cross talk levels are below 20 dB for both channel spacing chips.

Photothermal/photoacoustic (PT/PA) spectroscopy provides useful knowledge about optical absorption, as well as the thermal and acoustical properties of a liquid sample. For microfluidic biosensing and bioanalysis where an extremely small volume of liquid sample is encapsulated, simultaneous PT/PA detection remains a challenge. In this work, we present a new optofluidic device based on a liquid-core optical ring resonator (LCORR) for the investigation of PT and PA effects in fluid samples. A focused 532 nm pulsed light optically heats the absorptive fluid in a capillary to locally create a transient temperature rise, as well as acoustic waves. A 1550 nm CW laser light is quadrature-locked to detect the resonance spectrum shift of the LCORR and study thermal diffusion and acoustic wave propagation in the capillary. This modality provides an optofluidic investigative platform for biological/biochemical sensing and spectroscopy.

A cross-shaped photonic crystal waveguide formed by a square lattice Al2O3 rods array is numerically and experimentally investigated. The band gap of the TE mode for the photonic crystals and transmission characteristics of waveguides are calculated by the plane wave expansion method and the finite element method. We perform the experiments in the microwave regime to validate the numerical results. The measured reflection and transmission characteristics of the photonic crystals show a large band gap between 8.62 and 11.554 GHz (relative bandwidth is 29.34%). The electromagnetic waves are transmitted stably in the waveguides, and the transmission characteristics maintain a high level in the band gap.

To further improve the luminous efficiency of LED lightings, this Letter proposes a chip-on-board (COB) device by combining diced staggered V-shaped patterns and remote phosphors. The results show that the V-shaped patterned COB (V-COB) with vertex angles from 120o to 150o can achieve a ～17% output power increase (OPI) compared to the conventional COB. V-COB remote phosphor devices (RPDs) are then manufactured and tested. The luminous efficiency of the proposed RPD represents an 11.6% increase at the correlated color temperature of ～3000 K. Such an improvement can be attributed to both the decreases of total internal reflections and phosphor backscatterings.

We report a waveguide crossing based on a multimode-interference (MMI) structure for metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguides. The MMI-based crossing comprises two orthogonal intersecting MMI waveguides that are connected to the single-mode input/output waveguide symmetrically. Single self-images are formed at the crossing center and output plane of the MMI waveguide, thereby mitigating the crosstalk and improving the throughput. The characteristics of the proposed MMI-based crossing are investigated with the finite element method of Comsol Multiphysics. The results show that the throughput reaches 1.8 dB and the crosstalk is less than 46 dB at the wavelength of 1550 nm.

A frequency-tunable wireless access scheme based on optoelectronic oscillating technology is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. By using this scheme, the frequency of the transmitted wireless signals can be tuned by adjusting the wavelength of the input light. The 1.25 Gb/s on-off keying signals with the carrier frequency of 8–14.5 GHz are generated and transmitted through a radio over fiber link. The envelope detecting technique is employed in the receiver to support the down-conversion and demodulation. Electrical local oscillators are not required in the transmitter and receiver end, which simplifies the system structure and lowers the cost.

The tunable multiple plasmon-induced transparency (PIT) effect is investigated numerically in a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguide with three side-coupled rectangular resonators. The system exhibits dual-mode PIT effects in the visible and near-infrared regions. By adjusting the geometrical parameters of the structure, we can manipulate not only each single PIT window, but also the double PIT windows simultaneously. Our structures may have potential applications for optical communication, integrated optics, and optical information processing. The finite element method (FEM) illustrates our theoretical design.

In this work, we report a broadband terahertz wave modulator based on a top-gate graphene field effect transistor with polyimide as the gate dielectric on a PET substrate. The transmission of the terahertz wave is modulated by controlling the Fermi level of graphene via the polyimide as the top-gate dielectric material instead of the traditional dielectric materials. It is found that the terahertz modulator can achieve a modulation depth of ～20.9% with a small operating gate voltage of 3.5 V and a low insertion loss of 2.1 dB.

Temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) of phase-separated InGaN quantum wells is investigated over a broader excitation power range. With increasing excitation power from 0.5 μW to 50 mW, the In-rich quasi-quantum dot (QD)-related PL peak disappears at about 3 mW, while temperature behavior of the InGaN matrix-related PL peak energy (linewidth) gradually evolves from a strong “S-shaped” (“W-shaped”) temperature dependence into a weak “S-shaped” (an approximately “V-shaped”), until becoming an inverted “V-shaped” (a monotonically increasing) temperature dependence. This indicates that, with increasing excitation power, the carrier localization effect is gradually reduced and the QD-related transition is submerged by the significantly enhanced InGaN matrix-related transition, while the carrier thermalization effect gradually increases to become predominant at high excitation powers.

Using a lithium niobate (LN) material, we propose a broadband polarization beam splitter (PBS) with high efficiency by employing a negative refractive photonic crystal (PhC) wedge slab with an angle of 60°. It can split the incident light into two parts at about 90° with TE and TM polarizations. The transmissions of polarized light for an LN-based PBS are more than 80% with a broad angle and wavelength bandwidth of 8° and 70 nm at 1.55 μm, while with a Si-based PhC, no PBS with high efficiency can be realized for the relatively lower transmission of TM output light.

A slim optical fingerprint recognition sensor (OFRS) based on a grating input coupler and a microprism sensing surface is proposed. By using a subwavelength grating coupler, input light is coupled into the planar waveguide and the propagation angle is well engineered to avoid image overlap, thus an undistorted fingerprint is captured. For maintaining a thin structure, a microprism array is utilized to facilitate the breaking of total internal reflection under a large diffraction angle from the grating. The feasibility, efficiency, and image quality of the proposed structure are verified and discussed. The device has the advantages of a slim structure, a high image contrast, and a compact architecture, suitable for mobile devices.

We demonstrate an ultra-narrow-band optical filter based on a hybrid-microsphere consisting of a coated SiO2 microsphere. As compared to the SiO2 microsphere, the hybrid-microsphere produces a quality factor of >108, a transmission spectrum bandwidth of <1 pm, and an increased side-mode suppression ratio. The microsphere surface roughness and whispering gallery mode (WGM) transmission spectra are measured experimentally. A 0.01 nm bandwidth, single-wavelength fiber laser output is achieved with a tunable wavelength, using the SiO2 microsphere as the mode selector. The optical field distribution and WGM transmission spectrum of the hybrid-microsphere with different coating parameters are theoretically investigated by the finite-difference time-domain method.

Research on white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) based on multi-color-emitting quantum dots (QDs) is carried out in this Letter. The equations of luminous efficiency (LE), color rendering index (CRI), chromaticity coordinates (x,y), and color temperature (Tc) of white LEDs are obtained, according to the spectral-LE function Φ of LED chips and QDs. The calculated results indicate that the values of the performance parameters of QD-based white LEDs are closely related and proportional to the QDs’ fluorescence spectra, and white LEDs with a high LE and a high CRI may be fabricated based on QDs. We have provided theoretical guidance for preparing such white LEDs.

Parallel-coupled dual-racetrack silicon microresonators can potentially be used for quadrature amplitude modulation. We analyze the evolution of the coverage of coherent output states of devices with varying device parameters. As the coupling constant increases, the coverage of coherent states initially improves then degrades, which is unexpected based on a prior preference for overcoupling. Increasing the quality factor generally improves the coverage. The influence of the refractive index modulation is found to saturate after reaching a certain level. Analytic formulas are developed to provide insight into the coverage evolution. These results are fairly robust against a small asymmetry of device parameters.

We theoretically present a concise and tunable dual-band metamaterial absorber composed of a typical metal-dielectric-metal structure in the terahertz regime. The dual-band absorption originates from two different resonance modes induced in one square ring, which is different from the common dual-band absorber composed of a super unit with several different-sized structures. The proposed absorber can realize dynamic tunability through changing the permittivity of the dielectric layer by applying different temperatures. Other good performances, such as a wide incident angle and polarization insensitivity, are also available for the proposed absorber. Such a metamaterial absorber is a promising candidate for terahertz imaging and detection.

Surface stabilized (anti) ferroelectric liquid crystal cells can be used as an optically addressed media for optical data processing. The structure of the cell has to contain a photo sensible agent, i.e., an absorbing dye-doped orienting layer. The all-optical generation of the diffractive grating can be done due to the switching parameters of the smectic slab within cells with a sensitive layer. This Letter considers a study of the optically induced charge generation into the dye-doped layer, and the explanation of the phenomena of the selective molecular director reorientation, while cell driving what leads to the induction of phase grating.

Multi-robot coordination (MRC) is a key challenge for complex artificial intelligence systems, and conventional wireless-communication-based MRC mechanisms that cannot be deployed in radio-frequency-limited environments. In this Letter, we present a promising solution that utilizes indoor omni-directional visible light communication (VLC) technology to realize efficient multi-robot intelligent coordination (MRIC). The specific design is presented along with the implemental details of a practical MRIC experimental platform. The experimental results show that a 50 Mb/s on-off-keying-based omni-directional VLC can be realized with an effective distance of 2.3 m and a bit error rate of <10 6 in the proposed MRIC platform.

Pockel’s effect and optical rectification induced by the built-in electric field in the space charge region of a silicon surface layer are demonstrated in a {001}-cut high-resistance silicon crystal. The half-wave voltage is about 203 V, deduced by Pockel’s effect. The ratio χzxx(2)/χzzz(2) is calculated to be about 0.942 according to optical rectification. Our comparison with the Kerr signal shows that Pockel’s signal is much stronger. This indicates that these effects are so considerable that they should be taken into account when designing silicon-based photonic devices.

In this Letter, we propose an optical attenuator based on the phase modulation of a spatial light modulator (SLM). In this system, we use two polarized beam splitters (PBSs) to control the polarized light and one SLM to modulate the phase of the polarized light. In the initial state, the light beam is divided into p-light and s-light when it passes through the first PBS. When the light passes through the second PBS, s-light is reflected and p-light is detected by the CCD camera. By loading different grayscales on the SLM, p-light changes its polarized state to s-light. The light power can be attenuated during the loading process. Our experiment shows that the system can obtain a wide optical attenuation from 1–27.2 dB. When loading two grayscales, the SLM has a fast switching time of 25 ms under a low actuated voltage of 5.5 V. The response time of the optical attenuator depends on the switching time of the SLM. Therefore, the system can also have a fast response time. By using the method of spatial multiplexing and adding two mirrors in the system, it can also be extended into a 1×2 optical switch. The results verify its feasibility. The optical attenuator has wide applications in photonic signal processing and fiber-optic communication.

In visible light communication, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is an effective approach to improve the system speed. However, the nonlinearity of the light-emitting diode (LED) suppresses the transmission performance. The low-frequency part of the transmitted signal from LED suffers more from nonlinearity. Therefore, a pre-equalization scheme which suppresses the low frequency part of the OFDM signal and enhances the high frequency part can decrease the impact of LED nonlinearity. The experimental results show that the bit-error rate performance is largely enhanced by the pre-compensation.

In this Letter, we propose a color holographic zoom system based on a liquid lens. We use the spatial multiplexing method to realize color reconstruction. By controlling the focal lengths of the liquid lens and the encoded digital lens on the spatial light modulator panel, we can change the magnification of the reconstructed image very quickly, without mechanical parts and keeping the output plane stationary.

Two kinds of novel blue-emitting materials, anthracene-based derivatives, are synthesized by the Suzuki coupling reaction. It is worth noting that the maximum emission wavelengths of the two materials are 441 and 444 nm in tetrahydrofuran and 456 and 454 nm in film states, which are the typical blue fluorescence and the fluorescence quantum yields of them are 0.87 and 1.12 by using 9,10-diphenylanthracene (Φf=0.90) as a calibration standard. The full width at half maximum of them are 56, 55 nm in solution, respectively, presenting good color purity. Both of them display superior thermal properties and electrochemical properties. Scanning electronic microscope results show that the films of two compounds are continuous, compact, and smooth after 100°C for 3 h. These data indicate their potential to be prepared for high efficiency and long operation lifetime organic light-emitting diodes devices.

A novel structure, called a “freeform surface,” is integrated into a direct type light-emitting diode backlight. By applying the Taguchi method, the performance of this backlight is optimized. The Taguchi experiments are configured in L9(34) orthogonal arrays and are simulated via LightTool analysis software. After that, the influence of the design parameters on the luminance and uniformity are separately evaluated by analysis of variance (ANOVA). Next, the parameters are optimized, and a new backlight structure with desirable performance is designed at last. LightTool simulation shows that this new type of backlight is just 15 mm thick and has 310.3 nits luminance and 83.5% uniformity.

In this Letter, blue phosphorescence organic light-emitting diodes (PHOLEDs) employ structures for electron and/or hole confinement; 1,3,5-tris(N-phenylbenzimiazole-2-yl)benzene is used as a hole confinement layer and tris-(phenylpyrazole)iridium [Ir(ppz)3] is utilized for an electron confinement layer (ECL). The electrical and optical properties of the fabricated blue PHOLEDs with various carrier-confinement structures are analyzed. Structures with a large energy offset between the carrier confinement and emitting layers enhance the charge-carrier balance in the emitting region, resulting from the effective carrier confinement. The maximum external quantum efficiency of the blue PHOLEDs with the double-ECLs is 24.02% at 1500 cd/m2 and its luminous efficiency is 43.76 cd/A, which is 70.47% improved compared to the device without a carrier-confinement layer.

In this Letter, we propose a method of fabricating linear variable filters by ion beam etching with masking mechanisms. A triangle-shaped mask is designed and set between the ion source and sample. During the ion etching, the sample is moved back and forth repeatedly with a constant velocity for the purpose of obtaining the linearly varied thickness of the cavity. Combined with ion beam assistant thermal oxidative electron beam evaporation deposition technology, we finish the fabrication of linear variable filters, whose filtering range is from 500 to 580 nm. The measured results indicate that the transmittance and bandwidth at the peak wavelength are around 40% and 3 nm.

The formation of long plasma channels and laser-induced high-voltage discharges are demonstrated by focusing infrared picosecond laser pulses in air. Based on measurements of the channel conductivity, the maximum electron density in excess of 1014 cm 3 is estimated. The plasma channels are good conductors, through which long-air-gap high-voltage discharges are triggered. The breakdown voltages show large drops but the discharging paths are not well guided: in this, the plasma spots distributed along the channel might play an important role.

The spectral properties of entangled photon pairs generated via quasi-phased matching in spontaneous parametric down-conversion are proposed and demonstrated experimentally. A general mathematical model for evaluating the spectral properties is developed to obtain the spectrum shape and range of down-converted photons. The model takes into account the effects of phase mismatching due to non-ideal pumping and the relationship between crystal periodic modulation function and the incidence angle of the pump beam. The spectrum curve shape is determined by the discrete Fourier transform of a Gaussian pump beam and the integration of parametric down-conversion generated by an individual plane wave. An experiment is carried out with a PPLN non-linear crystal and dispersing optics, which shows a good consistency in their spectral ranges and shapes with our model predictions within the spectrum of 600–633 nm. This therefore illustrates that both the simulation model and the experimental process are reasonable. This novel method has potential applications in high-accuracy calibration in the wide spectrum using correlated photons.

In this Letter, a method for detecting the focused beam waist of lasers is proposed by using weak measurements based on the so-called weak-value amplification. We establish a propagation model to describe the quantitative relation between the beam waist and the amplified shift of the spin Hall effect of light (SHEL), which is sensitive to the variation of the beam waist. We experimentally measure the amplified shift corresponding to a different beam waist and the experimental data agrees well with theoretical calculation. These results confirm the rationality and feasibility of our method.

Facilitated with stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm for wavefront sensorless correcting aberrations, an adaptive optics (AO) confocal fluorescence microscopy is developed and used to record fluorescent signals in vivo. Vessels of mice auricle at 80, 100 and 120 μm depth are obtained, and image contrast and fluorescence intensity are significantly improved with AO correction. The typical 10%–90% rise-time of the metric value measured is 5.0 s for a measured close-loop bandwidth of 0.2 Hz. Therefore, the AO confocal microscopy implemented with SPGD algorithm for robust AO corrections will be a powerful tool for study of vascular dynamics in future.

Early detection and timely treatment of nerve injury is crucial for the repair of nerve function. One week following a crush injury, heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) is over-expressed along the entire length of the sciatic nerve. Herein, we present an approach to detect injured nerves by photoacoustic microscopy after labeling the injured nerve with HSP27 antibody-conjugated gold nanoparticles. The studies reveal that nanoprobe administration enabled the detection of injured nerves by photoacoustic microscopy, especially during the early stages within 3–7 days post injury. In conclusion, photoacoustic microscopy combined with antibody-conjugated nanoparticles holds potential for the early detection of nerve injury.

A terahertz (THz) broadband polarizer using bilayer subwavelength metal wire-grid structure on both sides of polyimide film is simulated by the finite-difference time-domain method. We analyze the effect of film -thickness, material loss, and lateral shift between two metallic gratings on the performance of the THz -polarizer. Bilayer wire-grid polarizers are fabricated by a simple way of laser induced and non-electrolytic plating with copper. The THz time-domain spectroscopy measurements show that in 0.2–1.6 THz frequency range, the extinction ratio is better than 45 dB, the average extinction ratio reaches 53 dB, and the -transmittance exceeds 67%, which shows great advantage over conventional single wire-grid THz polarizer.

We present the single-slit diffraction of the arbitrary vector fields with different parameters m, n, and f0 theoretically and experimentally. The single slit covers the polarization singularity in the center and therefore the influence of the polarization singularity on the diffraction fringes is analyzed. The experimental results which agree well with the simulation results show that the total intensity of the diffraction field is related only to the topological charge m, but the polarization distribution of the diffraction field is related to all the parameters m, n, and f0. Therefore, the diffraction patterns allow to determine all the parameters of the arbitrary vector fields.

We investigate terahertz radiation (T-rays) from a pentacene organic diode at room temperature. The quantum chemistry calculation for frequency-related Huang–Rhys factor of pentacene is also carried out. The results demonstrate that the T-rays can come from a bending vibration of pentacene skeleton after the energy of pentacene exciton transferring to the vibrational excited state via electron–phonon coupling. Frequency and natural bond orbital analytics of pentacene and its derivatives are performed in order to explain the result and develop new materials to get higher emission. This work provides a new way to produce T-rays with a simple device at room temperature.

In order to meet the requirements of vibration monitoring of large mechanical equipment, the authors design a novel three-dimensional (3D) high-frequency fiber Bragg grating (FBG) accelerometer. First, the operation principle of the sensor is introduced; the theoretical calculation and finite element analysis are performed about its structural parameters in this paper. Second, an FBG demodulation method for vibration signal is studied and a compensation method is put forward to measure the error caused by fluctuation of the light source and line loss. Finally, sensing properties such as amplitude frequency characteristics, sensitivity of the sensor, crosstalk coefficient, space acceleration measurement are tested, and the compensation method for measurement error is validated. The results show that the operating frequency bandwidth of the transducer is 10500 Hz, sensitivity is about 1400 mv/g, crosstalk coefficient is larger than 20.6 dB, and the maximum measurement error of space acceleration is 4.8%, the compensation error is less than 5%. Hence, the sensor is used to monitor the vibration state of mechanical equipment.

A graded metallic grating structure acts as a wave trapping system. Different frequencies of THz waves are trapped at different positions along this structured metal surface grating. The real wave propagation speed of such a system is reduced gradually from the light speed in vacuum to zero, which is demonstrated by calculation and simulation. Different frequencies of THz waves are propagated at a designed propagation speed by a partial graded grating according to the practical demand.

We fabricate white phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (PHOLEDs) with three dopants and double emissive layer (EML) to achieve color stability. The white PHOLEDs use FIrpic dopant for blue EML (B-EML), and Ir(ppy)3:Ir(piq)3 dopants for green:red EML (GR-EML) with N,N.'-dicarbazolyl-3, 5-benzene (mCP) as host material. Thicknesses of B-EML and GR-EML are adjusted to form a narrow recombination zone at two EML's interface and charge trapping happens in EML according to wide highest occupied molecular orbital and/or lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy band gap of mCP and smaller energy band gap of dopants. The total thickness of both EMLs is fixed at 30 nm in the device structure of ITO (150 nm)/MoO3 (2 nm)/N,N'-diphenyl-N,N'-bis(l-naphthyl-phenyl)-(l,l'-biphenyl)-4, 4'-diamine (70?nm)/mCP:Firpic-8.0% (12?nm)/mCP:Ir(ppy)3-3.0%:Ir(piq)3-1.5% (18 nm)/2',2',2''-(1,3,5-benzinetriyl)-tris(1-phenyl-1-H-benzimidazole) (30 nm)/8-hydroxyquinolinolato-lithium (2 nm)/Al (120 nm). White PHOLED shows 18.25 cd/A of luminous efficiency and white color coordinates of (0.358 and 0.378) at 5000 cd/m2 and color stability with slight CIEXY change of (0.028 and 0.002) as increasing luminance from 1000 to 5000 cd/m2.

The widespread use and application of in-plane switching liquid crystal displays (IPS-LCDs) is limited by their slow response. In this letter, a fast-response IPS-LCD with a protrusion structure is proposed. The gray-to-gray response time of the IPS-LCD is reduced by 20% to 30%. The difference in cell gap induced by the protrusion accounts for the faster response. Moreover, the viewing angle and gamma shift of the proposed IPS-LCD are simulated and found to be better than that of conventional IPS-LCDs.

High-performance blue organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are developed. A concept of using multiple-emissive layer (EML) configuration is adopted. In this letter, bis(2-methyl-8-quinolinolate)-4-(phenylphenolato)Al (BAlq) and 9,10-di(naphtha-2-yl)anthracene (ADN), which serve n- and p-type EMLs, respectively, are used to evaluate and demonstrate the multi-EML concept for blue OLEDs. The thickness effect of individual EMLs and the number of EMLs, e.g., triple and quadruple EML components, on the power efficiency of blue OLEDs are systematically investigated. To illustrate the point, the total thickness of the emissive region in different blue OLEDs are kept contact at 30 nm for comparison. The power efficiency of blue OLEDs with a quadruple EML structure of BAlq/ADN/BAlq/ADN is about 40% higher than that of blue OLEDs having a single EML unit. The Commission Internationale deL'eclairage color coordinates of multi-EML OLEDs have values that represent the average of blue emissions from individual EMLs of BAlq and ADN.

The backscattering characteristics of optical microfiber (OM) are experimentally studied by controlling heating temperature and cooling method during the OM fabrication process. OM samples with various reflectances from 0.1% to 1% are achieved. An OM with waist length of 5 mm, waist diameter of 1 \mu m, and approximately 0.5% reflectance is used as the end reflector of a fiber Fabry-Perol (F-P) interferometer. A piezoelectric ceramic transducer (PZT) fiber phase modulator is used to test the sensing performance of the fiber F-P interferometer. Experimental results verify that the OM with low reflectance can be used as a reflector in the F-P interferometer.

We demonstrate by finite-difference time-domain simulations that a one-dimensional (1D) photonic crystal (PC) structure between glass substrate and indium tin oxide layer can improve the light extraction efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes. The extraction efficiency depends on the emitters' positions varying laterally in a unit cell of PC. The highest efficiency is obtained when the emitters are under higher refractive index strips. Efficiency decreases when the emitters shift to lower refractive index strips. Simulations for both transverse magnetic and transverse electric modes indicate that when emitters are close to the middle of the higher refractive index strips, the guided wave transmits with less divergence and inhibited reflection because of the guiding effect of higher refractive index strips. A modified method that considers the position effects is proposed to calculate the extraction efficiency more precisely.

The design of a two-dimensional (2D) microscanner actuated electrostatically is presented, and a silicon-oninsulator (SOI) micromachining process is utilized to fabricate the sample. The microscanner can oscillate at inherent frequencies of 1146 and 360 Hz around two rotational axes, generating maximum twisting angles of ±10o and ±5.3o under two 10-V square waves, respectively. A monochromatic laser projection system based on Lissajous pattern is demonstrated using the developed microscanner, revealing an image resolution of 168 \times 56 at 20 frames per second.

A subwavelength plasmonic waveguide filter with symmetric grating distribution is proposed by using the metal-insulator-metal (MIM) structure. By cascading two gratings with different widths in a period, we can increase the number of pass bands, as well as the transmittance of each band up to ~70% compared with gratings with the same width. Such a device can find applications in various optical systems as wavelength demultiplexing component.

We design a T-Shaped wavelength division de-multiplexer in two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal based on the coupling resonance characteristics. In this structure, three high effective and relative narrow bandwidths optical wavelengths (1 310, 1 440, and 1 550 nm) are obtained by changing the radius of the ring and cavity rods. The method of the finite-difference time-domain is used to investigate the characteristics of the coupling resonance characteristics of the ring and the cavity. The calculation results show that transmission rates of these three wavelengths are all reach up to 95% and achieve with 5-nm mean value of bandwidth.

The Gaussian doping is used to optimize the performance of InP/InGaAs uni-traveling-carrier photodiode (UTC-PD) in this letter. The UTC-PD structure is modeled with drift-diffusion approach and the comparisons of the characteristics for four UTC-PDs with different doping schemes in absorption layer are made. According to the comparison, one optimized UTC-PD where the InP collection layer is partly replaced by a depleted InGaAs using Gaussian doping on top of lightly constant background doping in the absorption layer is presented, with f3dB of 79 GHz, which is more than 1.9 times higher than that with the constant doping in the absorption layer.

An optical delay line of coupled resonator optical waveguide (CROW) compensated by photonic crystal waveguide (PhCW) is proposed. In the structure, etching the periodic holes around the waveguide of the ring resonator waveguide does not increase the size of the CROW. Theoretical studies and numerical models indicate that through careful design, CROW and PhCW exhibit different group velocity dispersion (GVD) properties at a certain frequency range. Optical signal can not only be compensated in terms of GVD, but can also be delayed with longer time period. Due to the propagation mode mismatch of the two structures, optical loss becomes inevitable.

Two types of 1 \times 2 multi-mode interference (MMI) splitters with splitting ratios of 85:15 and 72:28 are designed. On the basis of a numerical simulation, an optimal length of the MMI section is obtained. Subsequently, the devices are fabricated and tested. The footprints of the rectangular MMI regions are only 3 \times 18.2 and 3 \times 14.3 (\mu m). The minimum excess losses are 1.4 and 1.1 dB. The results of the test on the splitting ratios are consistent with designed values. The devices can be applied in ultra-compact photonic integrated circuits to realize the "tap" function.

A back-illuminated mesa-structure InGaAs/InP charge-compensated uni-traveling-carrier (UTC) photodiode (PD) is fabricated, and its saturation characteristics are investigated. The responsivity of the 40-\mu m-diameter PD is as high as 0.83 A/W, and the direct current (DC) saturation current is up to 275 mA. The 1-dB compression point at the 3-dB cutoff frequency of 9 GHz is measured to be 100 mA, corresponding to an output radio frequency (RF) power of up to 20.1 dBm. According to the calculated electric field distributions in the depleted region under both DC and alternating current (AC) conditions, the saturation of the UTC-PD is caused by complete field screening at high optical injection levels.

Low-voltage silicon (Si)-based light-emitting diode (LED) is designed based on the former research of LED in Si-based standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The low-voltage LED is designed under the research of cross-finger structure LEDs and sophisticated structure enhanced LEDs for high efficiency and stable light source of monolithic chip integration. The device size of low-voltage LED is 45.85\times 38.4 (\mu m), threshold voltage is 2.2 V in common condition, and temperature is 27 oC. The external quantum efficiency is about 10^{-6} at stable operating state of 5 V and 177 mA.

To decrease the performance difference between the actual microscanning thermal imager and the theoretical value, a germanium lens (placed at a certain angle between the infrared focal plane array and infrared lens) dip angle model of flat optical component microscanning is introduced in this letter. The model is the basis for choosing the dip angle of the germanium lens, which is used in the microscanning thermal imager. In addition, the actual dip angle of the germanium lens is chosen according to the model, the infrared lens parameters of the thermal imager, and the germanium lens parameters of manufacture and installation. Only in this manner can the optimal performance of the microscanning thermal imager based on the flat optical component be obtained. Results of the experiments confirm the accuracy of the conclusions above.

We investigate guided modes in the asymmetric waveguide structure with a left-handed material (LHM) layer surrounded by air and metal. A graphical method is proposed to determine the guided modes. New properties of the oscillating and surface guided modes, such as absence of the fundamental mode, coexistence of the oscillating and surface guided modes, fast attenuation of the surface guided modes, and mode degeneracy, are analyzed in detail. We also investigate dispersive characteristics of the metal-LHM-air optical waveguide. The propagation constant increases with decreasing slab thickness for the first-order oscillating mode, which is different from that in traditional metal-cladding waveguides.

A novel optical excitation and detection apparatus was used to investigate the characteristics of silicon micro-resonators, which was activated into vibration by a laser beam irradiation. The beam diameter of the excitation light was less than 10 'mu'm. The vibration amplitude of the resonator was detected by the interferometer with high resolution of 0.1 nm and measurement repeatability of less than 3 nm. The resonant frequency of the micro-resonator was obtained to be 8.75 kHz with full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 0.18 kHz. It is shown that the method is useful and reliable for measuring micro-displacement and micro-vibration of minute objects with nanometer accuracy.