In the last decade optical fibre tapers with micrometer diameter (often called microfibers) have been investigated for numerous applications ranging from sensing to wavelength convertors, telecom and optical manipulation. This paper reviews the various applications of microfibres. 1. Optical microfibres Although microfibers with diameters comparable to the wavelength have been manufactured for ...

Much of optics depends on objects being much larger than the wavelength of light: shadows of opaque objects are sharp only if free of diffraction effects, and ‘cat’s eye’ retroreflectors function only if they are large. Here, we show how to make theoretically arbitrarily small versions of these devices by exploiting the power of a negatively refracting lens to magnify objects that are smaller t...

In this article numerical methods used to model photonic devices are presented. In particular, the governing equations describing the problem, the coupling between electrical and optical fields, and the numerical algorithms used for computing solutions are discussed. As a computational example, we present the modeling of a semi-conductor optical amplifier employed as an all-optical demultiplexer.

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In long haul networks, the random birefringence induced in the optical fiber leads to a considerable Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD). Polarization Dependent Loss (PDL) mainly occurs in optical components and depends on the state of polarization of optical signals. The presence of PMD and PDL causes pulsewidth narrowing and the pulsewidth reduction depends on states of polarization at which t...

Micro-optical devices, e.g., micro lenses, micro mirrors, play an important role in high speed data, voice and video signal transmissions. In this study, a new method of fabricating micro optical devices was investigated. The method is different from traditional fabrication processes in the sense that that the micro optical elements were simultaneously machined in a process known as slow tool s...