Integrated liquid-core optical fibers for ultra-efficient nonlinear liquid photonics

Abstract

We have developed a novel integrated platform for liquid photonics based on liquid core optical fiber (LCOF). The platform is created by fusion splicing liquid core optical fiber to standard singlemode optical fiber making it fully integrated and practical -a major challenge that has greatly hindered progress in liquid-photonic applications. As an example, we report here the realization of ultralow threshold Raman generation using an integrated CS2 filled LCOF pumped with subnanosecond pulses at 1064nm and 532nm. The measured energy threshold for the Stokes generation is ∼ 1nJ, about three orders of magnitude lower than previously reported values in the literature for hydrogen gas. The integrated LCOF platform opens up new possibilities for ultralow power nonlinear optics such as efficient white light generation for displays, mid-IR generation, slow light generation, parametric amplification, all-optical switching and wavelength conversion using liquids that have orders of magnitude larger optical nonlinearities compared with silica glass. 42.65.Dr,

Temporal, spectral, and polarization dependence of the nonlinear optical response of carbon disulfide

“…It has been subject to many experimental studies utilizing time-resolved techniques such as optical Kerr effect (OKE) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8], degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) [9,10], and nonlinear interferometry [11], as well as frequency domain light scattering [12][13][14], third-harmonic generation [15], and Z-scan [16][17][18][19][20][21]. It is found in a wide array of NLO applications, including liquid-core optical fibers for nonlinear photonics applications [22,23], soliton propagation [24,25], supercontinuum generation [26], slow light [27], ultrafast time-resolved imaging [28], and all-optical switching [29]. In addition, it is commonly used as a reference material for nonlinear spectroscopy [15,30,31].…”

High‐aspect ratio microchannels fabricated in fused silica hollow fibres using Tesla coil

“…We believe that this low-cost technique can be employed simply for the development of many types of fibre-based optofluidic systems such as in-fibre dye lasers [12] in liquid core nonlinear optics [13] and in collection systems for in-fibre analysis and sorting of biological samples in solutions [14].…”

Analysis of Coupling Losses for All-Fiber Integration of Subwavelength Core Hybrid Optical Fibers

“…However, inspired by the great success of these silica fiber waveguides, there has been recent interest in exploring other materials in the fiber geometry to broaden the light transmission windows and access new functionalities [18]- [20]. Recently, hybrid optical fibers (HOFs) [21], [22] that incorporate materials such as semiconductors [23], [24], soft-glasses [19], and nonlinear liquids [25]- [27] have been investigated intensely. These HOFs generally have a solid or microstructured silica cladding with the new material incorporated in the core, with the most common materials for each fiber type being silicon, chalcogenide glasses and carbon disulfide, respectively.…”