Thin-film VCSEL and optical interconnection layer fabrications for fully embedded board level optical interconnects

textSemiconductor technology has been splendid evolved. As a consequence of, massive data traffic is required in system level. However copper based interconnection reached the upper limit of data transfer rate and can not provide enough bandwidth for high performance system. Copper based interconnection in long haul application was replaced to optical fiber. Optical interconnection in system level is generally considered as an alternative to provide high bandwidth. However, unlike long haul application, optical interconnection in system level encountered many problems such as compatibility, robustness and packaging difficulty. The compatibility to current electrical board system and packaging difficulty must be solved. This dissertation describes a fully embedded board level optical interconnection, which can solve many problems, components fabrication and hybrid integration with electrical layers. Thin-film VCSEL array and flexible optical waveguide are demonstrated. The optical interconnection layer integrated with thin-film VCSEL and photo-detector arrays is demonstrated.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Organic lasers: recent developments on materials, device geometries, and fabrication techniques

MCG acknowledges financial support through the ERC Starting Grant ABLASE (640012) and the European Union Marie Curie Career Integration Grant (PCIG12-GA-2012-334407). AJCK acknowledges financial support by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research through a NanoMatFutur research group (BMBF grant no. 13N13522).Organic dyes have been used as gain medium for lasers since the 1960s, long before the advent of today’s organic electronic devices. Organic gain materials are highly attractive for lasing due to their chemical tunability and large stimulated emission cross section. While the traditional dye laser has been largely replaced by solid-state lasers, a number of new and miniaturized organic lasers have emerged that hold great potential for lab-on-chip applications, biointegration, low-cost sensing and related areas, which benefit from the unique properties of organic gain materials. On the fundamental level, these include high exciton binding energy, low refractive index (compared to inorganic semiconductors), and ease of spectral and chemical tuning. On a technological level, mechanical flexibility and compatibility with simple processing techniques such as printing, roll-to-roll, self-assembly, and soft-lithography are most relevant. Here, the authors provide a comprehensive review of the developments in the field over the past decade, discussing recent advances in organic gain materials, which are today often based on solid-state organic semiconductors, as well as optical feedback structures, and device fabrication. Recent efforts toward continuous wave operation and electrical pumping of solid-state organic lasers are reviewed, and new device concepts and emerging applications are summarized.PostprintPeer reviewe

Challenges in the Fabrication of Biodegradable and Implantable Optical Fibers for Biomedical Applications

The limited penetration depth of visible light in biological tissues has encouraged researchers to develop novel implantable light-guiding devices. Optical fibers and waveguides that are made from biocompatible and biodegradable materials offer a straightforward but effective approach to overcome this issue. In the last decade, various optically transparent biomaterials, as well as different fabrication techniques, have been investigated for this purpose, and in view of obtaining fully fledged optical fibers. This article reviews the state-of-the-art in the development of biocompatible and biodegradable optical fibers. Whilst several reviews that focus on the chemical properties of the biomaterials from which these optical waveguides can be made have been published, a systematic review about the actual optical fibers made from these materials and the different fabrication processes is not available yet. This prompted us to investigate the essential properties of these biomaterials, in view of fabricating optical fibers, and in particular to look into the issues related to fabrication techniques, and also to discuss the challenges in the use and operation of these optical fibers. We close our review with a summary and an outline of the applications that may benefit from these novel optical waveguides

PHOTOTHERMAL AND PHOTOCHEMICAL STRATEGIES FOR LIGHTINDUCED SHAPE-MORPHING OF SOFT MATERIALS

Engineering materials with the capability to transform energy from photons into mechanical work is an outstanding technical challenge with implications across myriad disciplines. Despite decades of work in this area, comprehensive understanding of how to prescribe shape change and work output in photoactive systems remains limited. To this end, this dissertation explores strategies to assemble photothermal and photochemical moieties in soft material systems to fabricate photoaddressable devices capable of specific shape changes upon illumination. Chapters 2 and 3 describe a methodology for spatially patterning plasmonic nanoparticles in liquid crystal elastomer fibers and sheets to specify local photothermally-induced strain profiles. Using this platform, devices capable of deployment into specific 3D configurations in response to both waveguided light and flood illumination are demonstrated. Next, to circumvent the inherent limitation of approaches based on photothermal effects, two new strategies for shape programming azobenzene-containing materials are explored for athermal photoactuation. In Chapter 4, a new material platform is presented that uses azobenzene incorporated into the backbone of polymers to modulate crystallinity on-demand via photoisomerization for next-generation shape memory systems. Next, host-guest cyclodextrin-azobenzene systems are shown in Chapter 5 to enable robust, re-programmable shape changes in hydrogels. Lastly, in Chapter 6 an outlook for the future of the field and an identification of areas in need of further study are presented

From acrylates to silicones: A review of common optical fibre coatings used for normal to harsh environments.

The full realisation of optical fibres in devices such as sensors is reliant on the stability of their polymer coating under in-service conditions. Depending on the application, resistance to several environmental factors may be required, such as high or low humidity level, temperature, pressure, or exposure to aggressive solids, liquids or gases. Changes in mechanical or chemical properties as a result of harsh environments can lead to stresses in the coating and subsequent deterioration of the physical or optical properties of the optical fibre. A variety of coating materials are available on the global market, offering optical fibre manufacturers a plethora of options. This review provides a comparison among four most utilised, commercially available types of coating material: conventional and specialty acrylates, polyimides and silicones. It details the history of their development, reported physiochemical properties and some of their main limitations in the context of optical fibre coating applications

Development of an optrode for characterization of tissue optical properties at the neural tissue-electrode interface

Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)The use of implantable neural probes has become common, both for stimulation and recording, and their applications range from chronic pain treatment to implementation of brain machine interfaces (BMI). Studies have shown that signal quality of implanted electrodes decays over time mainly due to the immune response. Characterization of the tissue-electrode interface is critical for better understanding of the physiological dynamics and potential performance improvement of the electrode itself and its task. This work describes the fabrication of an implantable electrode with optical measurement capabilities for providing means to characterize the tissue-electrode interface using optical spectroscopy. The electrode has a set of waveguides embedded in its shanks, which are used to inject white light into tissue and then collect the light reflected from the tissue surrounding the shanks. The collected light was analyzed with a spectrometer and the spectra processed to detect changes in optical properties, information that allows to track physiological changes. It is believed that the immune response can be correlated to changes in scattering as more cells are recruited to the injury site. The increased cell density in local injury/implantation sites increases the amount of scattering due to the increased number of cell nuclei and membranes that light encounters in its path. Investigation of scattering and absorption coefficients in such interface and their change over time can provide useful data for modeling and determining physiological parameters like blood oxygenation while the actual shape of the acquired spectra might highlight particular phenomena that can be indicative of scaring process or hemorrhaging. Validation of this system was done using optical phantoms based on polystyrene spheres and solutions with various concentrations of fat emulsion, which yielded scattering coefficients similar to those of brain tissue. Results suggest that the developed optrodes are able to detect differences between samples with different scattering coefficients. Improvements of fabrication process are discussed based on experimental results and future work includes attempting to perform fluorescence measurements of voltage reporters for optogenetic applications. The ultimate goal of this project was to create a novel device that is capable of satisfying the unmet need of tissue characterization at the implanted electrode interface as well as a tool for the optogenetics field suitable for greater depths than those a microscope can achieve

Optogenetic Brain Interfaces

The brain is a large network of interconnected neurons where each cell functions as a nonlinear processing element. Unraveling the mysteries of information processing in the complex networks of the brain requires versatile neurostimulation and imaging techniques. Optogenetics is a new stimulation method which allows the activity of neurons to be modulated by light. For this purpose, the cell-types of interest are genetically targeted to produce light-sensitive proteins. Once these proteins are expressed, neural activity can be controlled by exposing the cells to light of appropriate wavelengths. Optogenetics provides a unique combination of features, including multimodal control over neural function and genetic targeting of specific cell-types. Together, these versatile features combine to a powerful experimental approach, suitable for the study of the circuitry of psychiatric and neurological disorders. The advent of optogenetics was followed by extensive research aimed to produce new lines of light-sensitive proteins and to develop new technologies: for example, to control the distribution of light inside the brain tissue or to combine optogenetics with other modalities including electrophysiology, electrocorticography, nonlinear microscopy, and functional magnetic resonance imaging. In this paper, the authors review some of the recent advances in the field of optogenetics and related technologies and provide their vision for the future of the field.United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, Pacific Grant/Contract No. N66001-12-C-4025)University of Wisconsin--Madison (Research growth initiative; grant 101X254)University of Wisconsin--Madison (Research growth initiative; grant 101X172)University of Wisconsin--Madison (Research growth initiative; grant 101X213)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (MRSEC DMR-0819762)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF CAREER CBET-1253890)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH/NIBIB R00 Award (4R00EB008738)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH Director’s New Innovator award (1-DP2-OD002989))Okawa Foundation (Research Grant Award)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (1DP2OD007265))National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF CAREER Award (1056008)Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (Fellowship)Human Frontier Science Program (Strasbourg, France) (Grant No. 1351/12)Israeli Centers of Research Excellence (I-CORE grant, program 51/11)MINERVA Foundation (Germany