Thermal Poling of Twin - hole Fibers

Thermal Poling of Twin-hole Fibers Jiawen Zhang Master of Applied Science Graduate Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Toronto 2008 We developed a poling system that allows simultaneous inducing and characterizing second-order nonlinearity (SON) in fibers. The SON in fibers is induced via heating the fiber to an elevated temperature while applying an external voltage across the core of the fiber. The induced SON in fibers is characterized by measuring the electro-optical coefficient of the fiber using a fiber Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI). Using this poling system, we characterized in real time the evolution of the SON induced in a twin-hole fiber during thermal poling and thermal erasure. A SON of ∼0.1pm/V was recorded in the fiber. We developed a charge dynamics model, involving a fast charge carrier Na and a slow charge carrier H, to simulate the mechanism of fiber thermal poling. Good agreement between the simulated results using the model and our experimental observation in poling a twin-hole fiber was achieved.