Future optical data transmission modules will require the integration of more than 10,000 x 10,000 input and output channels to increase data transmission rates and capacity. This level of integration, which greatly exceeds that of a conventional diffraction-limited photonic integrated circuit, will require the use of waveguides with a mode confinement below the diffraction limit, and also the ...

There is a need for stable gel materials for phantoms used to validate optical computerized tomography (CT) scanners used in conjunction with radiation-induced polymerizing gel dosimeters. Phantoms based on addition of light-absorbing dyes to gelatine to simulate gel dosimeters have been employed. However, to more accurately simulate polymerizing gels one requires phantoms that employ light-sca...

We report the fabrication and the optical characterization of a hybrid tunable integrated optical filter. It consists of a diffused ion-exchanged channel waveguide on a borosilicate glass substrate with a cover of the same glass to form a gap filled with a holographic grating. The grating morphology, called POLICRYPS (POlymer LIquid CRYstal Polymer Slices), is made of alternating stripes of pol...

We propose a combination of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and optical microscopy for the investigation of particle uptake by cells. Positively and negatively charged polymer microcapsules were chosen as model particles, because their interaction with cells had already been investigated in detail. AFM measurements allowed the recording of adhesion forces on a single-molecule level. Due to the mi...

Gold nanoparticles quench the fluorescence of cationic polyfluorene with Stern-Volmer constants (KSV) approaching 1011 M-1, several orders of magnitude larger than any previously reported conjugated polymer-quencher pair and 9-10 orders of magnitude larger than small molecule dye-quencher pairs. The dependence of KSV on ionic strength, charge and conjugation length of the polymer, and the dimen...

We achieve the fabrication of plasmonic meta-atoms by utilizing a novel, modular approach to nanoparticle self-assembly that utilizes polymer templating to control meta-atom size and geometry. Ag nanocubes are deposited and embedded into a polymer thin-film, where the polymer embedding depth is used to dictate which nanocube faces are available for further nanocrystal binding. Horizontal and ve...

The geometric and electronic structure of condensed phase organic conducting polymer PEDOT:PSS blends has been investigated by periodic density functional theory (DFT) calculations with a generalized-gradient approximation (GGA) functional, and a plane wave basis set. The influence of the degree of doping of the PEDOT polymer on structural and optical parameters such as the reflectivity, absorb...

A highly porous optical-fiber cladding was developed for evanescent-wave fiber sensors, which contains sensor molecules, maintains guiding conditions in the optical fiber, and is suitable for sensing in aqueous environments. To make the cladding material (a poly(ethylene) glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) polymer) highly porous, a microsphere templating strategy was employed. The resulting pore network...

Soft lithography molding is a promising technique for patterning polymer integrated optical devices, however the presence of a background residue has the potential to limit the usefulness of this technique. We present the soft lithography technique for fabricating polymer waveguides. Several effects of the background residue are investigated numerically, including the modal properties of an ind...

9 We report a simple fabrication technique of polymer microfibers with high surface smoothness and length uni10 formity using a molten polymethylmethacrylate in conjunction with direct drawing technique. With the aid of 11 fabricated polymer microfibers, we successfully demonstrate a new splicing technique via a two-step process. The 12 fabricated microfibers with diameter of 1.5 μm and length ...