Reducing polarization-dependent loss of silicon-on-insulator fiber to chip grating couplers

For many telecommunication applications, low polarization-dependent loss (PDL) operation is mandatory. On the silicon-on-insulator photonic wire platform, this can be achieved using polarization diversity configurations. However, as we show here, when using two-dimensional grating couplers for near vertical fiber input and output, the low PDL bandwidth is limited. We propose and demonstrate the use of a phase shifter in one of the arms of the polarization diversity circuit to effectively reduce PDL (0.15-dB PDL is shown) and increase the low PDL bandwidth

Bringing Optical Communications to the General Public: an Innovative Bachelor Thesis

The United Nations “International year of light 2015” strives to highlight the importance of optical technologies in our everyday lives. Fibre optic communication is one such technology: the growth of internet and its associated services are enabled by the vast transmission bandwidth provided by optical networks. However, the general public is not well aware of the optical and electronic fundamentals of the underlying transmission systems. Here we present the development of a bachelor thesis in Telecommunication Engineering in which a small-scale fibre-optic link is built and the electronics required to transmit music over this link are implemented. The resulting system demonstrates, in a very intuitive way, how information is transmitted over an optical fibre.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Photonic Reflectometer on Silicon-on-Insulator

A photonic reflectometer on Silicon-on-Insulator is designed and experimentally characterized. The reflectometer is a six-port device, composed of multimode interference couplers (MMIs). We propose a design approach for high-performance MMIs, and describe a minimum phase technique to characterize both the MMIs and the reflectometer. Furthermore, a single-etch fibre-to-chip grating coupler is demonstrated

The European Network of Clinical Legal Education: The Spring Workshop 2015

As the clinical movement gains momentum across Europe, this article explores the issues experienced by clinicians which both promote and hinder the development of clinical programmes. The article discusses the issues raised by clinicians during the course of the Workshop, in particular, addressing the resistance clinical programmes can face from the legal profession and the academy

Colorless devices and reception techniques for polarization multiplexed communications

Future optical networks call for flexible, high performance and low cost coherent optical receivers. We present here several advances towards such receivers, including integrated optical couplers with ultra-broad bandwidth, as well as novel reception techniques and architectures that will enable high performance coherent reception without filtering and polarization splitting elements.Universidad de Málaga - Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Spanish Ministry of Science under project TEC2013-46917-C2-1-

Comparing the fundamental limit of detection for interferometric and resonant biosensors with coherent phase read-out

We compare the limit of detection of coherently interrograted photonic biosensors, using both interferometric and resonant architectures.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Towards photonic biosensing using a three-port mach-zehnder interferometer in a silicon nitride platform

Integrated photonics enables sensitive and label-free optical biosensors for the detection of chemical and biological substances and is therefore promising for future lab-on-chip solutions. In this article we present our current development of silicon nitride based integrated photonic biosensing devices working at telecom wavelengths. Our approach of three-port based interferometric sensing circumvents the issues of conventional Mach-Zehnder interferometers, providing a constant sensitivity, and allowing to use a fixed wavelength sensing scheme. Preliminary experimental results show that the fabricated devices work as expected from simulations.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

LITES: Rotational Raman Spectra of Air Molecules Measured by High-Resolution-Spectroscopy Lidar

© 2021 Optical Society of America. Published by The Optical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/We present first measurement from a new lidar facility that has been designed and built at the University of Hertforshire since 2012. LITES (Lidar Innovations for Technologies and Environmental Sciences) allows for testing, developping and measuring a multitude of, e.g. climate-change relevant parameters of atmospheric particulate pollution and photo-chemically reactive trace gases. The core of LITES consists of a lidar spectroscopy instrument. In this first contribution we present the design and specifications of this instrument, its performance and potential applications. We show first examples of measurements of range-resolved pure rotational Raman spectra and rotational-vibrational Raman spectra of air molecules with a spectral resolution better than 5 cm-1. We also present day-time temperature profiles obtained from pure rotational spectroscopic lidar signals. In future work we want to explore the potential to what extent measurements of range-resolved Raman spectrums with our multi-channel high-resolution spectrometric lidar can lead to a vertically resolved chemical characterization of aerosols and trace gases.Peer reviewe