Photonic Integrated Circuit Based Temperature Sensor forOut-of-Autoclave Composite Parts Production Monitoring.

The use of composite materials has seen widespread adoption in modern aerospace industry. This has been facilitated due to their favourable mechanical characteristics, namely, low weight and high stiffness and strength. For broader implementation of those materials though, the out-of-autoclave production processes have to be optimized, to allow for higher reliability of the parts produced as well as cost reduction and improved production speed.

A Miniature Bio-Photonics Companion Diagnostics Platform for Reliable Cancer Treatment Monitoring in Blood Fluids.

In this paper, we present the development of a photonic biosensor device for cancer treatment monitoring as a complementary diagnostics tool. The proposed device combines multidisciplinary concepts from the photonic, nano-biochemical, micro-fluidic and reader/packaging platforms aiming to overcome limitations related to detection reliability, sensitivity, specificity, compactness and cost issues. The photonic sensor is based on an array of six asymmetric Mach Zender Interferometer (aMZI) waveguides on silicon nitride substrates and the sensing is performed by measuring the phase shift of the output signal, caused by the binding of the analyte on the functionalized aMZI surface.

High performance refractive index sensor based on low Q-factor ring resonators and FFT processing of wavelength scanning data.

We extend our previous simulation study and we present experimental results regarding our Fast Fourier Transform method for the calculation of the resonance shifts in biosensors based on micro-ring resonators (MRRs). For the simulation study, we use a system model with a tunable laser at 850 nm, an MRR with 1.5∙10 quality factor, and a detection system with 50 dB maximum signal-to-noise ratio, and investigate the impact on the system performance of factors like the number of the resonance peaks inside the scanning window, the wavelength dependence of the laser power, and the asymmetry of the transfer functions of the MRRs.

New set of design rules for resonant refractive index sensors enabled by FFT based processing of the measurement data.

It is still a common belief that ultra-high quality-factors (Q-factors) are a prerequisite in optical resonant cavities for high refractive index resolution and low detection limit in biosensing applications. In combination with the ultra-short steps that are necessary when the measurement of the resonance shift relies on the wavelength scanning of a laser source and conventional methods for data processing, the high Q-factor requirement makes these biosensors extremely impractical. In this work we analyze an alternative processing method based on the fast-Fourier transform, and show through Monte-Carlo simulations that improvement by 2-3 orders of magnitude can be achieved in the resolution and the detection limit of the system in the presence of amplitude and spectral noise.

Bandpass sampling in heterodyne receivers for coherent optical access networks.

A novel digital receiver architecture for coherent heterodyne-detected optical signals is presented. It demonstrates the application of bandpass sampling in an optical communications context, to overcome the high sampling rate requirement of conventional receivers (more than twice the signal bandwidth). The concept is targeted for WDM coherent optical access networks, where applying heterodyne detection constitutes a promising approach to reducing optical hardware complexity.

Serial 100 Gb/s connectivity based on polymer photonics and InP-DHBT electronics.

We demonstrate the first integrated transmitter for serial 100 Gb/s NRZ-OOK modulation in datacom and telecom applications. The transmitter relies on the use of an electro-optic polymer modulator and the hybrid integration of an InP laser diode and InP-DHBT electronics with the polymer board. Evaluation is made at 80 and 100 Gb/s through eye-diagrams and BER measurements using a receiver module that integrates a pin-photodiode and an electrical 1:2 demultiplexer.

Quaternary TDM-PAM as upgrade path of access PON beyond 10Gb/s.

A 20 Gb/s quaternary TDM-PAM passive optical network with chirped and non-linear optical transmitters is experimentally demonstrated. The migration from legacy TDM-PONs and the implications of using available 10 Gb/s components are analyzed. We show that a loss budget of 27.

Active plasmonics in WDM traffic switching applications.

With metal stripes being intrinsic components of plasmonic waveguides, plasmonics provides a "naturally" energy-efficient platform for merging broadband optical links with intelligent electronic processing, instigating a great promise for low-power and small-footprint active functional circuitry. The first active Dielectric-Loaded Surface Plasmon Polariton (DLSPP) thermo-optic (TO) switches with successful performance in single-channel 10 Gb/s data traffic environments have led the inroad towards bringing low-power active plasmonics in practical traffic applications. In this article, we introduce active plasmonics into Wavelength Division Multiplexed (WDM) switching applications, using the smallest TO DLSPP-based Mach-Zehnder interferometric switch reported so far and showing its successful performance in 4×10 Gb/s low-power and fast switching operation.

Generation of 40-GHz control signals from flag pulses for switching all-optical gates for use with optical packets.

We demonstrate an all-optical circuit capable of generating 40-GHz control signals from flag pulses that can be used to define the switching state of all-optical gates for use with optical packets. The circuit comprises a Fabry-Perot filter and a semiconductor optical amplifier, and with a single pulse it can generate 12 control pulses with 0.64-dB amplitude modulation.