Fabrication and optical characterization of silica optical fibers containing gold nanoparticles.

Gold nanoparticles have been used since antiquity for the production of red-colored glasses. More recently, it was determined that this color is caused by plasmon resonance, which additionally increases the material's nonlinear optical response, allowing for the improvement of numerous optical devices. Interest in silica fibers containing gold nanoparticles has increased recently, aiming at the integration of nonlinear devices with conventional optical fibers.

Increased sensitivity in fiber-based spectroscopy using carbon-coated fiber.

Carbon-coated optical fibers are used here for reducing the luminescence background created by the primary-coating and thus increase the sensitivity of fiber-based spectroscopy systems. The 2-3 orders of magnitude signal-to-noise ratio improvement with standard telecom fibers is sufficient to allow for their use as Raman probes in the identification of organic solvents.

Ytterbium-doped fibers fabricated with atomic layer deposition method.

We report on a new fabrication method of producing ytterbium doped fibers by atomic layer deposition (ALD) in combination with the conventional modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) technique. An MCVD soot-preform with a porous layer of SiO(2) is coated with layers of Yb(2)O(3) and Al(2)O(3) prior to sintering, using the gas-phase ALD method. An SEM/EDS material analysis study shows that the dopants successfully penetrate the full thickness of 320 µm of the soot layer.

Wide wedge-shaped depletion region in thermally poled fiber with alloy electrodes.

A twin-hole fiber was provided with Au-Sn alloy electrodes and thermally poled at 255 masculineC with 4.3 kV applied during 155 minutes. An electric field 6X107 V/m was recorded.