IFOCS

In-fiber optical cavities structures for telecommunications and sensing

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The proposed work is focused on in-fiber optical cavities structures (IFOCS), which are the “in-fiber” implementation of coupled multicavity structures. “In-fiber” optical devices are embedded in an optical fiber, and they are highly desirable because of their easy integration, high power handling, tolerance of harsh environments, flexible form factor, variable wavelength accommodation, low cost and scalable manufacturing.

The main aim of the proposed research consists of the study and research of the potential applications of IFOCS, focusing on the options for designing and fabricating tuneable devices and the combination of complementary structures , on the following fields:

• Optical communications (OC), using the multichannel capabilities of IFOCS.

• Fiber sensing (FS), using the fact that local perturbations in the fiber affect the local frequencies of the spectral responses.

• Microwave photonics (MP), where the discrete-time impulse response will be exploited for the photonic processing of microwave signals.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

EU-funded scientists are designing novel structures embedded in optical fibres that bode well for the development of fibre-optic sensors.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Optical devices embedded in fibres have become the mainstays of fibre-optic communication systems, providing important photonic functions.

Fibre Bragg gratings (FBGs) are an in-fibre implementation of distributed Bragg reflectors that offer an inexpensive all-fibre solution with low insertion loss.

By careful selection of the desired optical response and grating design, it is possible to apply transmissive FBGs in signal processing applications.

The EU-funded project 'In-fibre optical cavities structures for telecommunications and sensing' (IFOCS) aims to shed further insight into complex photonic signal processing.

Researchers will focus on multi-cavity resonant optical structures.IFOCS is based on a specially designed chirped FBG where the reflectors are spatially distributed.

Project partners studied and developed an analytical method for designing high-order optical cavity structures in different forms (linear or ring resonators and 1D grating structures).

They also studied FBG-based Gires-Tournois etalon structures that are all-pass optical cavity structures.

These are highly suitable in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) signal processing, as the phase shift largely depends on the wavelength of the light.A novel approach to pulse shaping using a phase-modulated FBG in transmission was designed that is energy efficient and less prone to grating fabrication errors.

The project team showed that phase-modulated FBGs provide transmission responses suitable for pulse shaping applications.

This offers important technological benefits as the coupling strength remains uniform in the grating and no additional elements such as the optical circulator are required.

This design also enables the introduction of a novel kind of a photonics processor, namely distributed interferometer.The developed design techniques in IFOCS enable transmissive distributed Bragg reflectors to be used in complex linear photonic processors, for applications in optical communications, fibre sensing or microwave photonics.