Tunable micro-cavities in photonic band-gap yarns and optical fibers

The vision behind this work is the fabrication of high performance innovative fiber-based optical components over kilometer length-scales. The optical properties of these fibers derive from their multilayer dielectric photonic band-gap structure that exhibits omnidirectional reflectivity. The theoretical tools needed to design, analyze and optimize such structures are introduced. We show that defect layers in these otherwise periodic structures act as optical micro-cavities that enable precise design of the fibers' spectral response. Fabrication of these composite fibers by thermal drawing of a macroscopic preform in the viscous state requires solving material selection challenges in order to identify pairs of materials with high refractive index contrast and similar thermo-mechanical properties. Operational wavelengths ranging from the UV to the IR are demonstrated and made possible by the wavelength scalability of the photonic band-gap structure and accurate knowledge of the materials' dispersion relation afforded by broadband spectroscopic ellipsometry. The fundamentals of this technique, which is used to characterize a number of dielectrics, semi-conductors and metals, are surveyed. Two fiber structures are then explored: fibers for external reflection and hollow-core transmission fibers.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Benoit, Gilles, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Yoel Fink.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36206

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/36206