We theoretically investigate nonlinear optimization of periodic phase modulation for suppression of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in single-mode optical fibers. We use nonlinear multi-parameter Pareto optimization to find modulations that represent the best trade-off between SBS and optical linewidth, as measured by its RMS value. The optimization uses a temporal-amplitude-domain finite-difference Brillouin solver with noise initiation to find the best phase modulation patterns in the presence of coherent so-called cross-interactions. These can be important in short fibers, when the period is large enough to make the frequency-domain separation of the modulated signal comparable to, or smaller than, the Brillouin gain linewidth. We calculate the SBS threshold for the optimized modulation patterns and find that smaller spectral line-spacing improves the SBS threshold for the same linewidth. By contrast, whereas the maximum modulation depth and modulation frequency influences the range of accessible linewidths, they do not significantly alter the threshold for a given linewidth. We investigate the dependence on fiber length and find that while shorter fibers have a higher threshold, the increase is smaller than the often-assumed inverse dependence on length. Furthermore, we find that optimized formats are superior in terms of SBS threshold as well as in terms of linewidth control, compared to random modulation.
We investigate the use of an arbitrary waveform generator to phase-modulate a laser source and externally broaden its linewidth. Through nonlinear optimization in a computer, we find modulation signals that produce top-hat-shaped optical spectra of discrete lines with highest total power within a limited bandwidth and limited peak spectral power density. The required modulation bandwidth is comparable to the targeted optical bandwidth. Such spectra are attractive for suppressing stimulated Brillouin scattering in optical fiber. Experimentally, we generate 15 lines in a 0.5 GHz optical linewidth. However, the method can also be used to generate other optical spectra.
Microfluidics has emerged rapidly over the past 20 years and has been investigated for a variety of applications from life sciences to environmental monitoring. Although continuous-flow microfluidics is ubiquitous, segmented-flow or droplet microfluidics offers several attractive features. Droplets can be independently manipulated and analyzed with very high throughput. Typically, microfluidics is carried out within planar networks of microchannels, namely, microfluidic chips. We propose that fibers offer an interesting alternative format with key advantages for enhanced optical coupling. Herein, we demonstrate the generation of monodisperse droplets within a uniaxial optofluidic Lab-in-a-Fiber scheme. We combine droplet microfluidics with laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) detection achieved through the development of an optical side-coupling fiber, which we term a periscope fiber. This arrangement provides stable and compact alignment. Laser-induced fluorescence offers high sensitivity and low detection limits with a rapid response time making it an attractive detection method for in situ real-time measurements. We use the well-established fluorophore, fluorescein, to characterize the Lab-in-a-Fiber device and determine the generation of $$\sim$$
∼
0.9 nL droplets. We present characterization data of a range of fluorescein concentrations, establishing a limit of detection (LOD) of 10 nM fluorescein. Finally, we show that the device operates within a realistic and relevant fluorescence regime by detecting reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) products in the context of COVID-19 diagnostics. The device represents a step towards the development of a point-of-care droplet digital RT-LAMP platform.
Shear horizontal guided waves are attractive for structural health monitoring applications in view of the non-dispersive behaviour of the fundamental mode, possibly higher frequencies of operation and a less complex multi-modal structure. One of the key issues with the deployment of shear horizontal guided waves of modes for structural health monitoring applications is the general non-availability of techniques to sense this family of modes effectively. This article demonstrates the detection of fundamental shear horizontal waves in an aluminium plate by placing a fibre Bragg grating along a direction perpendicular to that of propagating guided elastic waves. In order to uniquely identify the three fundamental plate-guided modes, we map the experimentally measured group velocities as detected by the fibre Bragg grating to theoretically obtained group velocity dispersion curves. We find that the experimentally measured group velocity values using time-of-flight measurements from a perpendicularly placed fibre Bragg grating are in agreement with the theoretical curve for the [Formula: see text] mode. Possible extension of these results to feature-guided modes is also discussed.
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