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[EN] We experimentally demonstrate the first polymer optical fiber Bragg gratings inscribed with only one Nd: YAG laser (266 nm) pulse. The gratings have been inscribed in a single-mode poly (methyl methacrylate) optical fiber, with a core doped with benzyl dimethyl ketal for photosensitivity enhancement. One laser pulse with a duration of 8 ns and energy of 72 mu J is adequate to introduce a refractive index change of 0.5 x 10(-4) in the fiber core. The stability of the gratings has been confirmed and the strain and temperature sensitivity measurements demonstrate their tunable properties. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement., FEDER funds through the COMPETE 2020 Programme, National Funds through FCT Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the projects UID/CTM/50025/2013 and UID/EEA/50008/2013. C. Marques acknowledges the financial support from FCT through the fellowship SFRH/BPD/109458/2015.

Here, we show that immobilizing ensembles of gold nanospheres within tailored areas on the open side of an exposed-core microstructured fiber yields a monolithic, highly sensitive plasmon-based refractive index sensor. The nanoparticle densities (average nanoparticle diameter: 45 nm) on the small-core fiber (core diameter: 2.5 mu m) are controlled electrostatically, yielding densities of 4 nanoparticles/mu m(2). Refractive index sensitivities of 200 nm/RIU for aqueous analytes at high fringe contrast levels (-20 dB) have been observed. Our concept presents an easy-to-use, efficient, and multiplex-compatible sensing platform for rapid small-volume detection with the capacity for integration into a bioanalytic, optofluidic, or microfluidic system. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

A new type of fiber optic relative humidity (RH) sensor based on an agarose coated silica microsphere resonator is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Whispering gallery modes (WGMs) in the micro resonator are excited by evanescent coupling using a tapered fiber with ~3.3 µm waist diameter. A change in the relative humidity of the surrounding the resonator air induces changes in the refractive index (RI) and thickness of the Agarose coating layer. These changes in turn lead to a spectral shift of the WGM resonances, which can be related to the RH value after a suitable calibration. Studies of the repeatability, long-term stability, measurement accuracy and temperature dependence of the proposed sensor are carried out. The RH sensitivity of the proposed sensor depends on the concentration of the agarose gel which determines the initial thickness of the deposited coating layer. Studies of the micro- resonators with coating layers fabricated from gels with three different Agarose concentrations of 0.5%, 1.125% and 2.25 wt./vol.% showed that an increase in the initial thickness of the coating material results in an increase in sensitivity but also leads to a decrease of quality factor (Q) of the micro resonator. The highest sensitivity achieved in our experiments was 518 pm/%RH in the RH range from 30% to 70%. The proposed sensor offers the advantages of a very compact form factor, low hysteresis, good repeatability, and low cross sensitivity to temperature.

We report the fabrication of the first extruded hollow core optical fiber with a single ring of cladding holes, and its use in a chemical sensing application. These single suspended ring structures show antiresonance reflection optical waveguiding (ARROW) features in the visible part of the spectrum. The impact of preform pressurization on the geometry of these fibers is determined by the size of the different hole types in the preform. The fibers are used to perform Raman sensing of methanol, demonstrating their potential for future fiber sensing applications. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

We describe the generation of powerful dispersive waves that are observed when pumping a dual concentric core microstructured fiber by means of a sub-nanosecond laser emitting at the wavelength of~1064 nm. The presence of three zeros in the dispersion curve, their spectral separation from the pump wavelength, and the complex dynamics of solitons originated by the pump pulse break-up, all contribute to boost the amplitude of the dispersive wave on the long-wavelength side of the pump. The measured conversion efficiency towards the dispersive wave at 1548 nm is as high as 50%. Our experimental analysis of the output spectra is completed by the acquisition of the time delays of the different spectral components. Numerical simulations and an analytical perturbative analysis identify the central wavelength of the red-shifted pump solitons and the dispersion profile of the fiber as the key parameters for determining the efficiency of the dispersive wave generation process., Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures

Directional mode coupling in an asymmetric holey fiber coupler is demonstrated both numerically and experimentally for the first time. The holey fiber mode couplers have interesting spectral characteristics and are also found to exhibit increased dimensional tolerances. Following a design based on numerical investigations, a dual-core polymer holey fiber coupler for LP01 and LP11 mode multiplexing was fabricated via a drilling and drawing technique. The measurements are compared with the simulation results. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

International audience; Very large mode area, active optical fibers with a low high order mode content in the actively doped core region were designed by removing the inner cladding symmetry. The relevance of the numerical approach is demonstrated here by the investigation of a standard air-silica Large Pitch Fiber, used as a reference. A detailed study of all-solid structures is also performed. Finally, we propose new kinds of geometry for 50 μm core, all-solid microstructured fibers enabling a robust singlemode laser emission from 400 nm to 2200 nm.

We present a semi-analytic numerical model to estimate the transverse modal instability (TMI) threshold for photonic crystal rod amplifiers. The model includes thermally induced waveguide perturbations in the fiber cross section modeled with finite element simulations, and the relative intensity noise (RIN) of the seed laser, which seeds mode coupling between the fundamental and higher order mode. The TMI threshold is predicted to ~370 W – 440 W depending on RIN for the distributed modal filtering rod fiber.

We achieved efficient frequency conversion from a 1064 nm subnanosecond pulse pump to a dispersive wave (DW) centered around 1535 nm in a microstructured double core fiber. We experimentally observed that at the output of a 4 m span of fiber almost half of the input pump power was transferred to a 100 nm band around the peak of the DW. Such outstanding conversion efficiency is an outcome of the fiber dispersion curve exhibiting a large normal peak around 1515 nm, which allows for the resonant energy transfer into the DW directly from the solitons which are generated nearby the pump wavelength.

We present experimentally feasible designs of a dual-core microstructured polymer optical fiber (mPOF), which can act as a highly sensitive, label-free, and selective biosensor. An immobilized antigen sensing layer on the walls of the holes in the mPOF provides the ability to selectively capture antibody biomolecules. The change of the layer thickness of biomolecules can then be detected as a change in the coupling length between the two cores. We compare mPOF structures with 1, 2, and 3 air-holes between the solid cores and show that the sensitivity increases with increasing distance between the cores. Numerical calculations indicate a record sensitivity up to 20 nm/nm (defined as the shift in the resonance wavelength per nm biolayer) at visible wavelengths, where the mPOF has low loss.

We report fabrication of the lead silicate microstructured fibers (MOFs) with core holes as small as 20nm, the smallest holes fabricated within the core of an optical fiber to date. We show that light confinement and average mode intensity within such holes are strongly dependent on the hole size. Light confinement within 80nm and 250nm core hole within the fabricated MOFs has been experimentally characterized using Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy (SNOM). Refereed/Peer-reviewed

The significance of full vectorial pulse propagation through emerging waveguides has not been investigated. Here we report the development of a generalised vectorial model of nonlinear pulse propagation due to the effects of Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) in optical waveguides. Unlike standard models, this model does not use the weak guidance approximation, and thus accurately models the modal Raman gain of optical waveguides in the strong guidance regime. Here we develop a vectorial-based nonlinear Schrödinger Eq. (VNSE) to demonstrate how the standard model fails in certain regimes, with up to factors of 2.5 enhancement in Raman gain between the VNSE and the standard model. Using the VNSE we are able to explore opportunities for tailoring of the modal Raman gain spectrum to achieve effects such as gain flattening through design of the optical fiber.