In the Personal Network (PN) concept, the user with its Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) is the central element with transparent connections to remote resources using a large variety of services. A global service environment is established via WPAN access to a long-haul infrastructure network e.g. the optical fiber network. If the fiber reaches to the WPAN, wireless over optics transmissio...

The need to make manufacturing, operation, and support of airborne vehicles safer and more efficient forces engineers and scientists to look for lighter, cheaper, more reliable technologies. Light weight, immunity to EMI, fire safety, high bandwidth, and high signal fidelity have already made photonics in general and fiber optics in particular an extremely attractive medium for communication pu...

The increased need for speed and precision in a variety of communication networks has spurred the quest to develop high-speed, high-capacity, packet-switched, all-optical fiber networks. Networks face bottlenecks, among them the slowness of electronic switches. In a project that started in 1994, Micron Optics, Inc., a small company from Atlanta, GA, was awarded funds by the Advanced Technology ...

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) of 50mm (L) x 10mm (W) x 0.8mm (H). The Printed Circuit Assembly is composed of a set of case A ATC capacitors (American Technical Ceramic, New York) allowing a 63.7 MHz tuning and a 50 Ω matching. An active decoupling circuit was also included using a PIN diode (Temex DH 80106 PIN diode) driven by the MR system during RF pulse transmission. As for the optical modali...

We explore parallel fiber-optics and single-chip CMOS interface solutions to support broadband multimedia applications in a small workgroup environment. Initial implementation of a network interface card used in our testbed of Intel Pentium-based PCs is described. Feasibility of a CMOS bridge to parallel optics is demonstrated using an adapter chip implemented in 0.5 μm CMOS technology for a po...

Fiber-optics gyroscopes (“gyros”) are gaining importance as a means for improving dead-reckoning accuracy in mobile robots. In the past, the relatively high drift rate of moderately priced gyros presented the foremost technical limitation of these devices. More recently, fiber-optics gyros with very low drift rates have become available and affordable. Because of their low drift rate attention ...

We present the novel use of microstructured optical fibers not as “light-pipes”, but in a transverse geometry to manipulate the light propagating across the fiber. Fundamental and higher-order bandgaps were observed experimentally in this geometry using a number of techniques. The comparison of the measured spectra with photonic band structure and Finite-Difference Time-Domain simulations provi...

We propose a new stratified waveguide grating coupler (SWGC) to couple light from a fiber at normal incidence into a planar waveguide. SWGCs are designed to operate in the strong coupling regime without intermediate optics between the fiber and the waveguide. Two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain simulation in conjunction with microgenetic algorithm optimization shows that approximately...

Photonic crystal fibers and fiber lasers have been two of the most rapidly evolving areas of optics and photonics over the past few years. Recent developments in the field of photonic crystal fibers are enabling new ways to generate, transform, and deliver light, and have significant implications for fiber laser design and applications. We review the ways in which photonic crystal fibers are af...

A cloud of laser-cooled 85Rb atoms is coupled through a magnetic funnel into a miniature waveguide formed by four current-carrying wires embedded in a silica fiber. The atom cloud has a approximately 100 &mgr;m radius within the fiber and propagates over cm distances. We study the coupling, propagation, and transverse distribution of atoms in the fiber, and find good agreement with theory. This...