Here we present the fabrication of a solid-core microstructured polymer optical fiber (mPOF) made of polycarbonate (PC), and report the first experimental demonstration of a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) written in a PC optical fiber. The PC used in this work has a glass transition temperature of 145°C. We also characterize the mPOF optically and mechanically, and further test the sensitivity of th...

Optical fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) are key devices for optical communication and sensors. FBGs are based on a periodic variation in the refractive index of the fiber core and allow for the reflection of a narrowband signal centered at a specific Bragg wavelength. Over the last two decades, FBGs have been manufactured mainly by modifying the core refractive index using interferometric or point-b...

The optical transmission and reflection in between two metalized optical fiber tips is studied in the optical near-field and far-field domains. In addition to aluminum-coated tips for near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM), specifically developed gold-coated fiber tips cut by focused ion beam are investigated. Transverse transmission maps of subwavelength width clearly indicate optical n...

Oscillators operating in field applications are subject to much more strenuous environmental effects than those in the laboratory. These environmental effects, such as vibration and temperature fluctuation, have a great impact on the performance of the oscillators; however, many applications require this laboratory-level performance in situ. Opto-electronic oscillators (OEOs) have emerged in re...

Fiber-optic communication systems are light wave systems that employ optical fibers for information transmission to increase several orders of magnitude the bit rate distance product. However the performance of optical fiber communication system is limited by fiber dispersion. Dispersion compensation is the most important and challenging aspect of the optical fiber communication to maintain a h...

All-optical data processing is expected to play a major role in future optical communications. The fiber nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM) is a valuable tool in optical signal processing applications. This paper presents an overview of our recent advances in developing NOLM-based all-optical processing techniques for application in fiber-optic communications. The use of in-line NOLMs as a ge...

A rapid and reproducible fiber-optic immunosensor for Escherichia coli O157:H7 (E. coli O157:H7) was described. The biosensor consisted of a flow cell, an optical fiber with a thin Ni layer, and a PC linked fluorometer. First, the samples with E. coli O157:H7 were incubated with magnetic beads coated with anti-E. coli O157:H7 antibodies and anti-E. coli O157:H7 antibodies labeled cyanine 5 (Cy5...

A new method to fabricate an integrated optical fiber micro-sphere with a diameter within 100 µm, based on the optical fiber tapering technique and the Taguchi method is proposed. Using a 125 µm diameter single-mode (SM) optical fiber, an optical fiber taper with a cone angle is formed with the tapering technique, and the fabrication optimization of a micro-sphere with a diameter of less than 1...