Patent Grant
6993221
This invention relates generally to a method and system for inducing a refractive index change into optical media such as optical fibers and waveguides, and particularly to a method of fabricating Bragg gratings therein.
The fabrication of many photonic devices has been achieved through exposure of transmissive and absorbing materials to intense laser radiation in order to change the optical properties of said materials. For example, UV-induced photosensitivity of germanium doped silica glasses has been exploited in order to create permanent refractive index changes in the photosensitive Ge-doped silica cores of single mode optical fibers and waveguides as opposed to the undoped cladding. By creating a spatial intensity modulation of the UV exposure either by using a two-beam interference technique as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,950 by Glenn et al. or by using a phase mask as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,588 by Hill et al., Bragg grating structures can be produced in the photosensitive core of the waveguide.
As disclosed by Glenn et al., permanent periodic gratings are provided or impressed into the core of an optical fiber by exposing the core through the cladding to the interference fringe pattern generated by two coherent beams of ultraviolet laser light that are directed against the optical fiber symmetrically to a plane normal to the fiber axis. The material in the fiber core is exposed to the resultant interference fringe intensity pattern created by the two overlapping UV beams creating permanent periodic variations in the refractive index along the length of the UV photosensitive core of the waveguide. The resultant index variations are oriented normal to the waveguide axis so as to form the Bragg grating.
A more popular method of photo imprinting Bragg gratings is taught by Hill et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,588 where an interference fringe pattern is generated by impinging a single UV light beam onto a transmissive diffractive optic known as a phase mask. The waveguide to be processed is placed immediately behind the phase mask and is exposed to the generated interference fringe pattern leading to the formation of the Bragg grating structure. In these prior art examples, optical fibers or waveguides having a Ge doped photosensitive core are irradiated with UV light at a predetermined intensity and for a predetermined duration of time sufficient to obtain a substantially permanent Bragg grating structure within the core of said waveguide.
These prior art gratings provide a useful function, however they suffer from some limitations in terms of the amount of induced index change that is possible. In order for some Bragg grating structures to be written in a standard telecommunications single mode optical fiber, the optical fiber often needs to be photosensitized to UV light by exposing such an optical fiber to hydrogen or deuterium gas at elevated pressures and temperatures as taught by Atkins et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,287,427 or by hydrogen flame brushing as taught be Bilodeau et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,548. After exposure, the UV written structures need to be annealed at elevated temperatures in order to remove any remaining interstitial hydrogen or deuterium present in the waveguide core. As taught by Erdogan et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,620,496, this annealing step is often implemented in order to stabilize by accelerated aging, the induced index change. These extra processing steps to the optical fiber or waveguide complicate the manufacturing of photonic devices and reduce yield.
Another method for creating permanent photoretractive index changes in glasses employs the use of intense UV beams with fluences or energy/unit-area per laser pulse densities that approach those required to produce macroscopic damage of the glass. Askins et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,400,422 teach a method for producing permanent photoretractive index changes in the photosensitive cores of Ge-doped optical fibers with single high intensity UV laser pulses. The high intensity portions of the interference fringes created by two crossed UV beams split from a single UV beam create localized damage at the core-cladding interface within the fiber. Because the process for inducing index change is one of structural change due to localized physical damage to the glass, rather than due to UV photoinduced color center formation, the induced index change is more robust and does not decrease with elevated temperature. Thus, annealing steps as taught by Erdogan et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,620,496 are not required. In fact Askins et al. disclose that gratings produced in this way cannot be removed by annealing until the fiber or waveguide approaches the material's glass transition temperature. The drawback of this approach for induction of index change is that the Bragg gratings produced in this fashion have relatively low refractive index modulations (Δn=10−5) and are mechanically weak since the effective refractive index change results from periodic localized damage at the core-cladding interface. Since the damage mechanism is based on an intensity threshold process, the spectral quality of the resulting Bragg grating is often poor.
Recently processes that employ high-intensity laser pulses in the femtosecond pulse duration regime for creating permanent changes in the refractive indices of glasses have been explored by several groups of researchers. K. M. Davis et al. disclose a technique for inducing index change in bulk glasses with ultra-high peak power femtosecond infra-red radiation in Opt. Lett 21, 1729 (1996). The creation of waveguides in bulk glasses using this technique is taught by Miura et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,538 while the modification or trimming of existing waveguide structures is taught by Dugan et al. in U.S. patent application No. 20030035640. The physical process that appears to cause the refractive index change in the materials is due to the creation of free electrons through non-linear absorption and multi-photon ionization of bound charges, followed by avalanche ionization and localized dielectric breakdown as these free electrons are accelerated by the intense but short time duration laser field. Also, this leads to a localized melting and restructuring of the material and a concurrent increase in the index of refraction. Work performed in this field has used laser pulses that are tightly focused to near-diffraction limited spot sizes generating extremely high intensities of light, approximately 1014 W/cm2, in order to initiate non-linear absorption processes in the materials. While this allows for high-resolution spatial localization of the refractive index change, it involves point-by-point scanning of the ultra-short-time-duration laser along the length of the optical fiber or waveguide as disclosed by Fertein et al. Appl. Opt. 40 (21), 3506 (2001). This is a great disadvantage for writing retroreflective Bragg grating structures but is suitable for writing long-period Bragg grating structures which, instead of coupling light from the forward-propagating guided mode into a retro-reflecting guided mode, couple light energy traveling along the fiber in a forward-propagating guided mode into light that propagates into forward-propagating cladding modes where the light is at least partially attenuated. There are several prior-art examples of long-period grating fabrication. The point-by-point writing method is taught by Hill et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,104,209 using a slit-amplitude mask. A variation on the amplitude mask technique is taught by Tam in U.S. Pat. No. 6,208,787 where a plano-convex array of cylindrical microlenses is used to focus portions of an incident UV beam onto on optical fiber. Another technique for fabrication of long-period fiber gratings with an electric arc is taught by Kosinski et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,050,109.
In order to photo imprint retroreflective Bragg structures into the core of optical fibers or waveguides using high-intensity femtosecond time duration radiation, it is advantageous to generate an interference fringe pattern originating from a single femtosecond laser pulse either using a holographic technique or a diffractive optic. Kawamura et al. in Appl. Phys. Lett. 78 (8), 1038 (2001) disclose an apparatus for producing a hologram using a two-beam laser interference exposure process, comprising the steps of using a femtosecond laser having a pulse width of 10 to 900 femtoseconds and a peak output of 1 GW or more that is capable of generating a pulse beam at or close to the Fourier transform limit. The beam from the laser is divided into two beams using a beam splitter, controlled temporally through an optical delay circuit and spatially using plane and concave mirrors each having a slightly rotatable reflection surface to converge the beams on a surface of or within a substrate for recording a hologram at an energy density of 100 GW/cm2 or more with keeping each polarization plane of the two beams in parallel so as to match the converged spot of the two beams temporally and spatially, whereby a hologram is recorded irreversibly on the substrate formed of a transparent material, semiconductor material or metallic material. The volume hologram is optionally layered so as to provide a multiplex hologram recording that is permanent unless it is heated to a temperature to cause the structural change in the atomic arrangement of the substrate in which the hologram is inscribed. The authors teach this method in US Pat. Appl.20020126333.
Maznev et al. Opt. Lett. 23 (17), 1378 (1998) disclose a technique for generating interference fringes with femtosecond pulses by overlapping two femtosecond beams that originate from a single beam which passes through a diffractive optical element. This method is taught by the authors in U.S. Pat. No. 6,204,926. Miller et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 6,297,894, teach a similar method for utilizing a diffractive optic to generate an interference fringe pattern in order to induce refractive index changes in materials using femtosecond time duration laser radiation. An exemplary embodiment of the invention of Miller et al. comprises a femtosecond laser source for providing light to a diffractive optical element. Light propagating from the diffractive optical element is incident on a curved mirror, which acts to focus the light into a lens or another curved mirror and then into a target.
It is an objective of this invention to overcome the aforementioned limitations within the prior art systems of inducing refractive index change in optical fibers and waveguides using femtosecond time duration laser radiation. Additionally, it would be beneficial to provide a simple method of producing high quality FBGs that are robust and are not subject to annealing.
The invention provides a method for inducing a spatially modulated refractive index pattern in an optical waveguide, comprising:
The invention also provides a method for inducing a spatially modulated refractive index pattern in a photosensitive material, comprising:
The invention is now described with reference to the drawings in which:
a is a representative top view of an optical fiber being written to using the apparatus of
b is a representative side view of an optical fiber being written to using the apparatus of
a is a diagram illustrating the response of a phase mask for producing a first order resonance Bragg grating in a target waveguide;
b is a diagram illustrating the response of a phase mask for producing a higher order resonance Bragg grating in a target waveguide;
Referring to
Unfortunately, the technique taught by Miller is very sensitive to the alignment of the various optical components. The technique taught by Miller et al. is an interferometric technique. It incorporates a diffractive optic to split a beam to produce a plurality of beams. The optical pathlengths of the diffracted beams should be the same length within a tolerance corresponding to the physical presence of the electromagnetic radiation ie. approximately 30 μm for 125 femtosecond laser pulses. Although not impossible, it is often difficult to provide such highly accurate pathlengths, even with costly equipment. Consequently, when such a technique is used to produce a Bragg grating in an optical fiber even a small misalignment in any of the optical components almost certainly results in a poor grating. Indeed, the “pulse-to-pulse” stability of the optical system as taught by Miller et al. should be very consistent or the fringe contrast produced by the overlapping beams is “washed out”. Indeed, small vibrations and air currents are sufficient to reduce the “pulse to pulse” stability in an optical system as taught by Miller et al. Additionally, the filtering characteristics such as apodization, chirp, and phase-shifts are difficult to image remotely. Therefore, it would be difficult to incorporate the teachings of Miller et al. in a system for producing Bragg grating structures in optical fiber.
As a person of skill in the art will be aware, the relatively short duration of a femtosecond laser pulse provides a laser pulse that is not monochromatic. Additionally, a person of skill in the art will be aware that a diffractive element, such as a phase mask, angularly deflects light according to the wavelength of the light. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,297,894 issued to Miller et al. beginning at column 2 line 49, states that, “Providing a hybrid technique of utilizing standard phase masking techniques in combination with using ultra short high power femto-second pulses is problematic, since close coupling a phase mask to create an interferometric pattern in a sample is not feasible; the mask will experience optical damage due to the high peak intensity of light required at the sample position. Hence . . . the mask must be located remotely . . . ”. Embodiments of the invention presented hereinbelow demonstrate that the reasoning of Miller et al. need not be the case. Further, the prior art of Miller et al. states that remotely locating the phase mask will protect it from optical damage but will not produce interference fringes because of the dispersive spreading of the high spectral content ultra short laser pulse. Ultra short duration pulses of light having long wavelengths are known to have very high intensity and consequently it was reasoned that this type of pulse would damage a phase mask positioned in close proximity to a target of such a pulse.
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
As a person of skill in the art will be aware, the invention need not be limited to the writing of Bragg gratings within the waveguide core of an optical fiber. In some cases it is preferable to provide a tap by writing a grating within the cladding of the optical waveguide without providing a set of interference fringes in the core. A person of skill in the art will easily envision the modification of embodiments of the invention for use in a wide variety of applications. For example, the invention is equally applicable to planar waveguide structures and buried waveguide structures. This technique is also useable for producing to photoinduced index modulations in materials that are not waveguides, for example photoresist patterning, direct patterning of glasses, semiconductor materials, nonlinear crystalline materials such as LiNO3. Such surface and volume holograms are optionally used for optical encoding and data storage. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,538 the creation of bulk waveguides in glasses, Bragg structures are optionally incorporated as the waveguide is being generated using a technique according to the invention. Similarly, optical taps are generated by writing a Bragg structure at an angle to the optical axis of a fiber to produce a radiation tap as described by Hill et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,385,369. Such gratings are well suited for use in an “eye safe” free space optical computer link modem, for example.
The invention, as described with reference to
In the embodiment of the invention shown in
Referring to
Pitch=mλBragg/nEffective a.
where λBragg is the desired resonant wavelength of retro-reflective intra-mode coupling in the fiber, nEffective is the effective index of the coupled modes at λBragg and m is the order number of the Bragg grating and m>1. For the purposes of this document, the desired resonant wavelength will also be referred to as the design wavelength. Because the photosensitive process is non-linear, imprinting a grating supporting higher order Bragg resonances is highly beneficial when such a grating is resonant at the Bragg resonance of interest. The fabrication of second order Bragg grating structures has been disclosed by Xie et al. Opt. Comm. 101, 85 (1993). If the phase mask is zero-order nulled, the induced pitch in the fiber is half that of the phase mask. If the phase mask is not precisely etched to produce a good zero-order nulling effect, the induced pitch in the fiber will be the same as the mask. Since higher order gratings are being used precise etch depth of the phase mask is not as critical.
Referring to
Clearly, the use of a higher order phase mask permits more variation in the physical positioning of the target waveguide when it receives a diffracted pulse. Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
The embodiment of the invention described with reference to
Due to the rapid but short-lived multi-photon ionization process, very high index variations are possible without prior sensitization of the fibers or waveguides with, for example, hydrogen or deuterium. In addition, the highly localized index changes produced by the interference fringes from the phase mask are similar to single shot damage gratings in that the refractive index change is permanent up to the glass transition temperature of the fiber. Thus, in a process according to the invention, high spectral quality gratings with very high index modulations are easily produced. Beneficially, these gratings are also robust at high temperatures. Such a process need not include a step of photosensitization of the fiber nor a step of removal of the fiber jacket. These advantages make such a process particularly well suited to high volume manufacturing as it reduces the need for additional processing steps. Additionally, since the index changes produced are relatively high a very high quality Bragg grating is produced.
A wide variety of alternative embodiments of the invention are easily envisioned by a person of skill in the art. For example, other embodiments of the invention feature an amplitude mask instead of a diffractive optical element. If the amplitude mask is provided sufficiently close to the target waveguide then a grating is produced absent diffraction of the electromagnetic radiation.
Numerous other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to one of skill in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, a person of skill in the art will be aware that the technique according to the invention is optionally combined with the teachings of Miura et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,538, and Dugan et al. in US Patent Application No. 20030035640. Miura et al. teach the writing of waveguide in bulk glasses while Dugan et al. teach the modification or trimming of existing waveguide structures with ultrafast radiation. Specifically, the techniques taught by the invention, and the techniques of Miura et al. are optionally combined to provide a Bragg grating in a photosensitive material. For example, it is known to use sapphire fiber for high power beam delivery in industrial and medical applications. Typically the fibers are multimode with core diameters no smaller than 150 microns. Since this fiber is typically a single crystal, it is extremely difficult to draw it down to a 5 micron diameter where it would act as a single mode fiber. Since the sapphire fiber has a very high glass transition temperature (2000° C.) it has sometimes been used for high temperature sensing applications. Using a phase mask according to the techniques described with reference to the invention in combination with the method of Miura et al, a refractive index induced core is optionally written in the center and along the length of the sapphire fiber. The resulting device provides a high temperature stress-temperature sensor based on retro-reflecting Bragg gratings. There are similar fiber grating sensors in standard fiber that are used at lower temperatures in the oil and gas industry. This new sensor is optionally incorporated into smart skin structures that are exposed to high temperatures, for example the Space Shuttle.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/456,184 filed Mar. 21, 2003.
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4807950 | Glenn et al. | Feb 1989 | A |
| 5104209 | Hill et al. | Apr 1992 | A |
| 5287427 | Atkins et al. | Feb 1994 | A |
| 5363239 | Mizrahi et al. | Nov 1994 | A |
| 5367588 | Hill et al. | Nov 1994 | A |
| 5400422 | Askins et al. | Mar 1995 | A |
| 5495548 | Bilodeau et al. | Feb 1996 | A |
| 5579427 | Rusanov et al. | Nov 1996 | A |
| 5620496 | Erdogan et al. | Apr 1997 | A |
| 5647039 | Judkins et al. | Jul 1997 | A |
| 5978538 | Miura et al. | Nov 1999 | A |
| 6050109 | Kosinski et al. | Apr 2000 | A |
| 6112553 | Poignant et al. | Sep 2000 | A |
| 6204926 | Maznev et al. | Mar 2001 | B1 |
| 6208787 | Tam | Mar 2001 | B1 |
| 6297894 | Miller et al. | Oct 2001 | B1 |
| 6347171 | Tatah et al. | Feb 2002 | B1 |
| 6404956 | Brennan et al. | Jun 2002 | B1 |
| 6456762 | Nishiki et al. | Sep 2002 | B1 |
| 6768850 | Dugan et al. | Jul 2004 | B2 |
| 6836592 | Mead et al. | Dec 2004 | B2 |
| 20020126333 | Hosono et al. | Sep 2002 | A1 |
| 20030035640 | Dugan et al. | Feb 2003 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 2 281 787 | Mar 1995 | GB |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20040184731 A1 | Sep 2004 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60456184 | Mar 2003 | US |
