1,721,601 research outputs found
Microfluidic and bio-applications of optical microfibres
No full textThis paper reviews the application of optical microfibers to microfluidics and bio-sensing
Inspection of electrical wires for insulation faults and current surges using sliding temperature sensor based on optical Microfibre coil resonator
No full textWe present a compact and robust temperature sensor based on an optical microfiber coil resonator packaged around a Teflon tube. The probe can efficiently slide along electrical wires to map the local temperature for locating insulation faults and reporting high current surges. A temperature responsivity of 95 pm/°C up to ~80 °C was demonstrated. This sensor is potentially low cost and simple to fabricate, making it attractive for domestic and industrial applications
Optical microfiber physical sensors
No full textOptical microfibers allow to produce compact physical sensors with enhanced performance. In this talk I will review some of the physical sensors based on optical microfibres developed at the University of Southampton which include, amongst others, a bubble detector, a thermometer, and a vibration sensor
Optical fibre nanowires and microwires: a review
No full textOptical fibre nanowires and microwires offer a variety of enabling properties, including large evanescent fields, flexibility, configurability, high confinement, robustness and compactness. These distinctive features have been exploited in a wealth of applications ranging from telecommunication devices to sensors, from optical manipulation to high Q resonators. In this paper I will review the fundamentals and applications of nanowires and microwires manufactured from optical fibres
A review of optical fibre nanowires and microwires
No full textUntil 2003, the use of glass micro- and nano-wires (MNW) for optical applications has been limited by surface roughness and inhomogeneity. In the last few years, novel fabrication techniques have allowed the manufacture of MNW with a transmission loss sufficiently low to be used for optical applications. MNW have attracted increasing interest because of their exceptional optical and mechanical propertie
The ultimate strength of silica nanowires
No full textSilica nanowires (SN) manufactured from optical fibers using a top-down approach have in the recent years attracted much attention because of their use for photonic applications and sensors. Until 2003, surface roughness and inhomogeneity appear to have limited the use of SNs for optical applications.SN and sub-wavelength wires offer a number of unique optical and mechanical properties, including: 1) Large evanescent fields; 2) High nonlinearity; 3) Extreme flexibility and configurability; and 4) Low-loss interconnection to other optical fibers and fiberised components. In fact SN are fabricated by adiabatically stretching optical fibers and thus preserve the original dimensions of the optical fiber at their input and output allowing the manipulation of a single nanowire without the expensive instrumentation typical of the nanoscience and nanotechnology worlds
Large photosensitivity in wet tin-phosphosilicate fibres
No full textLarge refractive index modulations have been induced in a wet tin phosphosilicate fibre under KrF excimer laser illumination. Comparison with dry and loaded tin-phosphosilicate fibres show that considerable photosensitivity increase can be achieved without any burdensome loss increase
The second life of optical fiber tapers
No full textSince 2003, when the first paper on optical fiber nanowires was published, optical fiber tapers (OFTs) have attracted an increasing interest. This talk will discuss the OFT properties and newly-discovered applications. The former include: 1) Robustness: OFTs exhibit an extraordinarily high ultimate strength, allowing for relatively easy-handling with conventional optical tools or even by hand. 2) Large evanescent fields: at diameters considerably smaller than the wavelength, the fraction of power propagating in the evanescent field outside the OFT physical boundary can be considerable. This has been exploited in the manufacture of high-Q resonators. 3) Strong confinement: at diameters comparable to the wavelength, the beam waist diameter is minimized, allowing observation of strong nonlinear effects such as third harmonic and supercontinuum generation or nonlinear optical switching. The confinement at the diffraction limit is limited only by loss and can occur over lengths several orders of magnitude longer than the conventional Rayleigh length (typically few microns). 4) Configurability: OFTs preserve the original optical fiber size at their input/output pigtails, thus they can be easily connected to other fiberized devices with negligible insertion losses. 5) Flexibility: the stress limit for bending is proportional to the moment of inertia, thus to the power of the OFT radius. Low-loss loops with few microns radii can be easily achieved. 6) Functionalization: silica is possibly the most widespread substrate in bioapplications, thus can be easily functionalized for binding specific bio compounds. Applications include a variety of sensors (including current, refractometric, temperature, biological concentrations) and devices (mode filtering, mode selection, resonators, polarization controllers)
An updated review of nanotechnologies for the space elevator tether
No full textThe space elevator tether requires an extraordinary specific ultimate strength (ratio between ultimate strength and density) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been identified as the ideal candidate because of their astonishing strength. This paper reviews CNT manufacture and measured strengths
Hydrogen loading in tin-phosphosilicate fibres: a method to achieve enhanced thermal stability in fibre-Bragg-grating based devices
No full textEnhanced photosensitivity has been observed in hydrogen-loaded tin-phosphosilicate fibres by using a 248nm excimer laser. Isothermal measurements up to 860 K demonstrated significant advantages over fibre gratings written in conventional H-loaded fibres. Gratings written in this fibre require a considerably shorter post-fabrication thermal annealing in order to satisfy the stability requirements of telecom components
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