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An optical fiber sensor for ultrathin layer sensing based on short-range surface plasmon polariton (SRSPP) is proposed, and the sensing characteristics are theoretically analyzed. Simulation results indicate that even for a detecting layer much thinner than the vacuum wavelength, a resolution as high as 3.7\times 10-6 RIU can be obtained. Moreover, an average thickness-detection sensitivity of 6.2 dB/nm is obtained, which enables the sensor to detect the thickness variation of the ultrathin layer up to tens of nanometers. The sensitive region of thickness could be adjusted by tuning the structure parameters.

An ultra-compact variable optical attenuator based on slow light photonic crystal waveguide with thermooptic effect is demonstrated. Along with power consumption of as low as 30.7 mW, a variable attenuation range of 10 dB is experimentally achieved by shifting the transmission spectrum at about 4.6 nm. The length of the proposed device is only 20 \mu m.

Two-dimensional (2D) slab photonic crystal waveguides (PCWGs) on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer were designed and fabricated. Full photonic band gap, band gap guided mode, and index guided mode were observed by measuring the transmission spectra. Mini-stop-bands in the PCWG were simulated with different structure parameters. Coupling characteristics of PCWG were investigated theoretically considering the imperfections during the fabrication process. It was found that suppressing power reservation effect can realize both short coupling length and high coupling efficiency.