We have demonstrated fluorescent liquid-core/air-cladding (LA) waveguides suitable for use as integrated optofluidic light sources. These waveguides were fabricated by conventional soft lithography using poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). Two-phase stratified flows of air and ethylene glycol with fluorescent dye were generated along the PDMS channel. Compared to the liquid-core/liquid-cladding (L(2...

We fabricate and measure a microfluidic variable optical attenuator, which consists of an optical waveguide integrated with a microfluidic channel. An opening is introduced in the upper cladding of the waveguide in order to facilitate the alignment and bonding of the microfluidic channel. By using fluids with different refractive indices, the optical output power is gradually attenuated. We obt...

Reliable and efficient power generation is a major global issue due to both political and environmental concerns. Nevertheless many critical components, particularly the blades of the low pressure (LP) side of power generating steam turbines, are subjected to failure due to severe erosion at the leading edges. Since taking machines off-line for maintenance and removal of damaged blade for repai...

Reproducible, precise cleaving of optical fibres is of great importance to the fibre laser and telecommunications industries. We present a novel approach to the end-face processing of optical fibres using a 9.6 µm CO2 laser to produce flat, smooth and symmetric fibre end-face profiles with no rounding or melting at the edges of the fibre. As a demonstration, precision cleaving of a 4...

Photonic sensors signal processors and communication technologies have emerged as viable alternatives to electronics. Fibre optic sensors have advanced to an extent that they can be readily made use of in many applications. The different types of fibre optic sensors, components used in optical fibre sensing, sensor design and analysis, distributed\ multiplexed sensor schemes and the roles of op...

An optical transducer using an integrated optics polymer nanowire is proposed. The nanoimprint technique is used to fabricate an OrmoComp nanowire with 1.0 μm width and 0.5 μm height, but the resulting sidewalls are not perfectly vertical. Maximum sensitivity is achieved by enhancing the evanescent field in the cladding region. The possible mode fields and power confinement of the nanowire are ...

A depressed cladding waveguide with record low loss of 0.12 dB/cm is inscribed in YAG:Nd(0.3at.%) crystal by femtosecond laser pulses with an elliptical beam waist. The waveguide is formed by a set of parallel tracks which constitute the depressed cladding. It is a key element for compact and efficient CW waveguide laser operating at 1064 nm and pumped by a multimode laser diode. Special attent...

We propose a simple analytical theory for low-index core photonic bandgap optical waveguides based on an antiresonant reflecting guidance mechanism. We identify a new regime of guidance in which the spectral properties of these structures are largely determined by the thickness of the high-index layers and the refractive-index contrast and are not particularly sensitive to the period of the cla...

Chirped cladding is proposed as a novel tailoring tool to simultaneously attain wider transmission window and reduced temporal dispersion in an all-solid Bragg-like microstructured optical fiber as compared to its perfectly periodic cladding counterpart. This design route for photonic bandgap microstructured fibers could be exploited as an additional degree of freedom for bandgap engineering. A...

Alkali vapours, such as rubidium, are being used extensively in several important fields of research such as slow and stored light nonlinear optics quantum computation, atomic clocks and magnetometers. Recently, there is a growing effort towards miniaturizing traditional centimetre-size vapour cells. Owing to the significant reduction in device dimensions, light-matter interactions are greatly ...