PCF

PCF Research at NTU and A*STAR I2R

Jun Long obtained the Ph.D in EEE from NTU in 2018, under the supervision of Professor Perry Ping Shum. The thesis mainly focuses on PCF design and sensor applications. Dr. Lim has been researching on the PCF related fields with A*STAR I2R since 2011 as part of his Ph.d work at NTU.

  • Thesis highlight: Development of PCF sensors for sensing the changes in temperature (up to 1000 degree Celsius) and refractive index (a dimensionless number that describes how fast light travels through the material)

  • #DoYouKnow : Dr. Lim started research on fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor first in 2010 before embarking on the journey on PCF.

Introduction

Photonics Crystal Fiber (PCF) is a waveguide that transmits light either through its solid or hollow core. The core is surrounded by a microstructured cladding of air holes. The array of air holes runs along the optical fiber axis. The air holes may vary in different shapes and sizes depending on their design applications. PCF is a type of specialty optical fiber.


Photonics Crystal Fiber

PCF the state of the art

The PCF is the state of the art sensor in many emerging fields.


Types of PCF

  1. Solid core

  2. Hollow core


Types of PCF Sensor

  1. Sandwiched

  2. Interferometer

Applications

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Potential Applications

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How PCF is Made

Fiber drawing tower

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History

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Commercially Available PCF

Note: Disclaimer applies. This is not in any form of paid advertisement. For the avoidance of any doubt, all paid advertisement will be explicitly marked or labelled 'paid ads'; all other not marked or labelled are published as free good will.
  • Thorlabs, Inc. has hollow core PCF, endless single mode PCF and polarization-maintaining PCF [link]

PCF People


Notable PCF Researchers Globally

Kaiser

Knight

Bennett


PCF Scientist / Researcher in Singapore

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Photonics Organisation / Entities in Singapore

  • LUX Photonics Consortium [link]

  • The Photonics Institute, Nanyang Technological University

    • Centre for Optical Fibre Technology (COFT) [link]

    • Centre for OptoElectronics and Biophotonics (COEB) [link]

  • Optical Group, Institute for Infocomm Research, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)

  • Photonic Devices and Systems Group, Singapore University of Technology and Design [link]


PCF Publications

Highly cited PCF Basic Research

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Selected Publication from I2R PCF Research

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Selected Jun Long's PCF Research at I2R

Jun Long Lim, Dora Juan Juan Hu, Perry Ping Shum, and Yixin Wang, “Cascaded Photonic Crystal Fiber Interferometers for Refractive Index Sensing”, IEEE Photonic Journal, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 1163–1169, Aug. 2012. DOI: 10.1109/JPHOT.2012.2205911 [ResearchGate]

  • Abstract: We present a cascaded fiber device based on photonic crystal fiber (PCF) interferometers for refractive index (RI) sensing. The PCF modal interferometers have microbubbles at both sides of the splice regions. The microbubbles act as thick diverging lens that scatter light for efficient excitation of higher order cladding modes and attenuation of the core modes in the transmitted spectrum. Three resonance wavelengths are monitored, and their corresponding RI sensitivities are found to be 252, 187, and 207 nm/refractive index unit (RIU). The results, to our best knowledge, demonstrate that PCF interferometers with microbubbles are repeatable for high RI sensitivity, and the best crosstalk achievable is 0.295 nm/RIU.

  • This is an Open Access article

  • This paper is cited in the following papers:

    • Zhenfeng Gong, Ke Chen, Xinlei Zhou, Qingxu Yu, "Temperature-compensated refractive index sensor based on bent-fiber interference", Optical Fiber Technology, vol. 36, pp. 6, 2017.

    • Cuijuan Guo, Panpan Niu, Juan Wang, Junfa Zhao, Cheng Zhang, "Dual-point reflective refractometer based on parallel no-core fiber/FBG structure", Optical Fiber Technology, vol. 40, pp. 46, 2018.

    • Juan Ruan, Wei-Gang Zhang, Hao Zhang, Peng-Cheng Geng, Zhi-Yong Bai, "A tunable comb filter using single-mode/multimode/polarization-maintaining-fiber-based Sagnac fiber loop", Chinese Physics B, vol. 22, pp. 064216, 2013.

    • Xinpu Zhang, Wei Peng, "Bent-fiber intermodal interference based dual-channel fiber optic refractometer", Optics Express, vol. 23, pp. 7602, 2015.

    • Dora Juan Juan Hu, Rebecca Yen-Ni Wong, Perry Ping Shum, Selected Topics on Optical Fiber Technologies and Applications, 2018. DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.70713

    • Dong Wang, Jingkuo Tong, Baoquan Jin, Yu Wang, Mingjiang Zhang, "Optical fiber liquid refractive index sensor based on Fresnel reflection of anti-Stokes light", Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, vol. 279, pp. 140, 2018. CrossRef

    • Cheng Zhang, Shan Xu, Junfa Zhao, Hongqiang Li, Hua Bai, Changyun Miao, "Multipoint refractive index and temperature fiber optic sensor based on cascaded no core fiber-fiber Bragg grating structures", Optical Engineering, vol. 56, pp. 027102, 2017. DOI: 10.1117/1.OE.56.2.027102

    • Cheng Zhang, Liqing Wang, Changyun Miao, Dan Yang, Tiegen Liu, Shibin Jiang, Advanced Sensor Systems and Applications VIII, pp. 40, 2018. DOI: 10.1117/12.2322125

    • Mingjun Ding, Panpan Niu, Junfa Zhao, Cheng Zhang, "Dual-point refractive index measurement based on cascaded S fiber taper/FBG structures", Optik, 2019.



Dora Juan Juan Hu, Jun Long Lim, Meng Jiang, Yixin Wang, Feng Luan, Perry Ping Shum, Huifeng Wei, and Weijun Tong, “Long period grating cascaded to photonic crystal fiber modal interferometer for simultaneous measurement of temperature and refractive index ”, Optics Letters (OL), vol. 37, no. 12, pp. 2283–2285, Jun. 2012. DOI: 10.1364/OL.37.002283

  • Abstract: We propose and demonstrate a novel and simple dual-parameter measurement scheme based on a cascaded optical fiber device of long-period grating (LPG) and photonic crystal fiber (PCF) modal interferometer. The temperature and refractive index (RI) can be measured simultaneously by monitoring the spectral characteristics of the device. The implemented sensor shows distinctive spectral sensitivities of −30.82 nm/RIU−30.82 nm/RIU (refractive index unit) and 47.4 pm/°C47.4 pm/°C by the LPG, and 171.96 nm/RIU171.96 nm/RIU and 10.4 pm/°C10.4 pm/°C by the PCF modal interferometer. The simultaneous measurement of the temperature and external RI is experimentally demonstrated by the sensor. The temperature shift and RI shift calculated by the sensor matrix agree well with the actual temperature and RI change in the experiment.


J. L. Lim, D. J. J. Hu, P. P. Shum, and Y. Wang, “Design and Analysis of Microfluidic Optical Fiber Device for Refractive Index Sensing,” IEEE Photonic Technology Letters (PTL), vol. 26, no. 21, pp. 2130–2133, Nov. 2014. DOI: 10.1109/LPT.2014.2349433 [ResearchGate]

  • Abstract: In this letter, the microfluidic optical fiber devices composed of microchannel are modeled and thoroughly analyzed. The microchannel intersecting the fiber core allows direct infusion of surrounding substances for detection. The simulation results suggest that the dimension of the microchannel can significantly affect the detection sensitivity of the device. In addition, the off-center position of the microchannel also plays an important role in shaping the device performance. The optimized microfluidic device can be used for sensitive refractive index sensing and biosensing applications.

  • This paper is cited in the following papers:

      • Min Zhang, Songjing Li, "Design and analysis of a microfluidic colour-changing glasses controlled by shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators", Microsystem Technologies, 2017. DOI: 10.1007/s00542-017-3465-y

      • Min Zhang, Songjing Li, "Controllable liquid colour-changing lenses with microfluidic channels for vision protection camouflage and optical filtering based on soft lithography fabrication", SpringerPlus, vol. 5, 2016. DOI: 10.1186/s40064-016-2231-4


J. L. Lim*, Z. Xu*, D. J. J. Hu, Q. Sun, R. Y.-N. Wong, K. Li, M. Jiang, and P. P. Shum, “Investigation of temperature sensing characteristics in selectively infiltrated photonic crystal fiber,” Optics Express (OE), vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 1699–1707, Jan. 2016. DOI: 10.1364/OE.24.001699

  • Abstract: In this paper, we investigate and experimentally demonstrate the influences of distance between the silica core and the glycerin core of a selectively glycerin-infiltrated photonic crystal fiber (PCF) on the mode characteristics, as well as the temperature sensitivity. By comparing the simulation and experiment results of three single-void glycerin-infiltrated PCFs with the glycerin core being one period, two periods and three periods away from the silica core respectively, it reveals that the smaller distance between the silica core and the glycerin core does not affect the modes indices, but increases the intensities of modes in the glycerin core and thus enhances the temperature sensitivity. Consequently, the temperature sensitivity can be controlled and tuned by appropriately designing the structure parameters of glycerin-infiltrated PCF. Besides, the highest temperature sensitivity up to −3.06nm/°C is obtained in the experiment as the glycerin core is nearest to the silica core. This work provides insights into the design and optimization of the liquid-infiltrated PCF for sensing applications.

  • * denotes joint-first authorship

  • This is an Open Access article

References

  1. Lim, Jun Long (2018). Design and analysis of solid-core microstructured optical fiber sensors for sensing surrounding refractive index and surrounding temperature. Doctoral thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. [ResearchGate]

  2. Jun Long Lim, Dora Juan Juan Hu, Perry Ping Shum, and Yixin Wang, “Cascaded Photonic Crystal Fiber Interferometers for Refractive Index Sensing”, IEEE Photonic Journal, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 1163–1169, Aug. 2012. DOI: 10.1109/JPHOT.2012.2205911

  3. Dora Juan Juan Hu, Jun Long Lim, Meng Jiang, Yixin Wang, Feng Luan, Perry Ping Shum, Huifeng Wei, and Weijun Tong, “Long period grating cascaded to photonic crystal fiber modal interferometer for simultaneous measurement of temperature and refractive index ”, Optics Letters (OL), vol. 37, no. 12, pp. 2283–2285, Jun. 2012. DOI: 10.1364/OL.37.002283

  4. J. L. Lim, D. J. J. Hu, P. P. Shum, and Y. Wang, “Design and Analysis of Microfluidic Optical Fiber Device for Refractive Index Sensing,” IEEE Photonic Technology Letters (PTL), vol. 26, no. 21, pp. 2130–2133, Nov. 2014. DOI: 10.1109/LPT.2014.2349433

  5. J. L. Lim*, Z. Xu*, D. J. J. Hu, Q. Sun, R. Y.-N. Wong, K. Li, M. Jiang, and P. P. Shum, “Investigation of temperature sensing characteristics in selectively infiltrated photonic crystal fiber,” Optics Express (OE), vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 1699–1707, Jan. 2016. DOI: 10.1364/OE.24.001699 [A*OAR]

* denotes joint-first authorship

Read More on PCF

PCF Articles (Online)

PCF Books

Others

Notable PCF Funded Project in Globally

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Note: Data are sourced from online sources.

Notable PCF Funded Project in Singapore

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Note: Data are sourced from online sources.

Student Projects Mentored by Jun Long

  1. Highly Robust and Reliable Photonic Crystal Fiber Sensor (2016) [link]

MISC

Keywords

photonics crystal fiber, photonics crystal fibre, specialty optical fiber, specialty optical fibre, sensors, holey fiber, optical fiber, fiber optics, i2r pcf sensor, i2r sensor, i2r modeling, i2r science, i2r research, refractive index sensing, strain sensing, institute for infocomm research, nanyang technological university, icr, astar, ntu, singapore

Tags

#PCF #sensor #fos #photonics #singapore #limjunlong