This paper reviews our recent work on fabrication, optical characterization and lasing application of semiconductor nanowires, with brief introduction of related work from many other groups.

In the last few years, there has been growing interest in the research of helical metamaterials due to the advantages of giant circular dichroism, broad operation bands, and compact structures. However, most of the researches were in the cases of single-, circular-helical metamaterials, and normal incidences. In this paper, we reviewed recent simulation works in the helical metamaterials with the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, which mainly included the optical performances of double-, three-, four-helical metamaterials, performances of elliptical-helical metamaterials, and the polarization properties under the condition of oblique incidences. The results demonstrate that the double-helical metamaterials have operation bands more than 50%, which is broader than those of the single-helical structures. But both of them have low signal-to-noise ratios about 10 dB. The three- and four-helical metamaterials have significant improvement in overall performance. For elliptical-helixes, simulation results suggest that the transmitted light can have elliptical polarization states. On the condition of oblique incidences, the novel property of tunable polarization states occurred in the helical metamaterials, which could have much broader potential applications such as tunable optical polarizers, tunable beam splitters, and tunable optical attenuators.

Germanium (Ge) pin photodiodes show clear direct band gap emission at room temperature, as grown on bulk silicon in both photoluminescence (PL) and electroluminescence (EL). PL stems from the top contact layer with highly doped Ge because of strong absorption of visible laser light excitation (532 nm). EL stems from the recombination of injected carriers in the undoped intrinsic layer. The difference in peak positions for PL (0.73 eV) and EL (0.80 eV) is explained by band gap narrowing from high doping in n⁺-top layer. A superlinear increase of EL with current density is explained by a rising ratio of direct/indirect electron densities when quasi Fermi energy level rises into the conduction band. An analytical model for the direct/indirect electron density ratio is given using simplifying assumptions.

An all-optical second-order temporal differentiator using a mechanically-induced long-period fiber grating (MI-LPFG) with a single π-shift was demonstrated. The MI-LPFG was created by pressing a fiber between two periodically grooved plates with a π-shift located at the 3/4 length from the input end of LPFG. The coupling coefficient (κ) can be adjusted by changing the pressure applied on the fiber. The experimental results show that the transfer function of the proposed MI-LPFG can be adjusted to have a transfer function as an ideal second-order differentiator. The differential performance of the designed differentiator to a Gaussian pulse is also analyzed.

A simple (2×2) pixelated flexible infrared nanosensor array based on carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) was fabricated through a simple and low-cost flame method. By integrated with a micro controller unit, the sensor array could detect power density of incident infrared light in real-time. The mechanism for the superior infrared sensing property of the flexible sensor array based on CNP was also studied in detail in this work.

All-optical high-speed binary data pattern recognition is one of the key technologies in network security applications. A serial pattern recognition scheme is presented, which can detect and locate a specified random target pattern within an input data sequence at high bit-rate. The logic operation principle is presented using logic equations. The logic AND/XNOR gates and a re-circulating loop at 10.65–42.6 Gbit/s are successfully demonstrated using three semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) based gates. The experiments have successfully demonstrated the random pattern recognition up to 256-bits at 42.6 Gbit/s.

In this work, transient electroluminescence (EL) (brightness-voltage waveform curve) was utilized to investigate the working mechanism of alternating-current biased organic light-emitting diodes (AC-OLEDs). In lower frequency domain, injection potential barrier was the dominant effect to determine the luminescence intensity; with increased frequency, the influence of capacitance effect becomes dominant, which can be confirmed according to the investigations on stable EL of the AC-OLEDs. The results indicate that transient and stable EL can agree with each other perfectly. Besides, the stable EL reveals that the thinner device can take more effective capacitance effect.`

In this paper, we proposed quantum dot (QD) based structure for implementation of white light emitting diode (WLED) based on InGaN/GaN. The proposed structure included three layers of InGaN QD with box shapes and GaN barriers. By using of single band effective mass method and considering strain effect, piezoelectric and spontaneous polarizations internal fields, then solving Schr?dinger and Poisson equations self consistently, we obtained electron and hole eigen energies and wave functions. By evaluating dipole moment matrix elements for interband transitions, the output intensity was calculated due to the interband transition between two energy levels with highest emission probability. We adjusted QDs dimensions and material compositions so that the output light can be close to the ideal white light in chromaticity diagrams. Finally, effects of temperature variations on output spectrum and chromaticity coordinates were studied. We demonstrated that temperature variations in the range of 100 to 400 K decrease output intensity, broaden output spectral profile and cause a red shift in three main colors spectrums. This temperature variation deviates (x, y) are coordinated in the chromaticity diagram, but the output color still remains close to white.

In this paper, vanadium oxide thin film of TCR of -3.5%/K has been deposited by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering method. The property of this VO_x has been investigated by X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) in detail. XRD test indicates that this film is composed of V₂O₃, V₃O₅ and VO₂.VO_x microbolometer with infrared (IR) absorbing structure is fabricated based on porous silicon sacrificial layer technology. Optimized micro-bridge structure is designed and carried out to decrease thermal conductance and this structure shows good compatibility with micromachining technology. This kind of bolometer with 74% IR absorption of 8–14 μm, has maximum detectivity of 1.09×10⁹ cm·Hz^1/2/W at 24 Hz frequency and 9.8 μA bias current.

We proposed an arrayed waveguide granting (AWG) based 10 Gbps full duplex wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network (WDM-PON) utilizing a return-to-zero differential phase shift keying (RZ-DPSK) modulation technique for down-link direction and then re-modulation of the downlink (DL) signal for the uplink (UL) direction using intensity modulation technique (OOK) with a data rate of 10 Gbps per channel. A successful cost effective colorless WDM-PON full duplex transmission operation for a data rate of 10 Gbps per channel, with a channel spacing of 60 GHz over a distance of 25 km without any optical amplification and dispersion compensation is achieved within low power penalty.

We proposed and demonstrated the generation and transmission of 10-Gbps return-to-zero ON/OFF keying (RZ-OOK) signal using a new technique without pulse carving at transmitter. The new technique is characterized by a 3 dB built-in gain with better tolerance for chromatic dispersion in standard single mode fiber (SSMF). Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is used as chromatic dispersion compensating device to investigate the tolerance of the proposed scheme. The simulation model of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) based on OptiSystem.v.8.0 is presented. Simulation results show that there are error free transmission performance in a distance of 600 km with negligible power penalty and improved receiver sensitivity compared to conventional pulse carving approach.

Based on the construction method of systematically constructed Gallager (SCG)(4, k) code, a new improved construction method of low density parity check (LDPC) code is proposed. Compared with the construction method of SCG(4, k) codes improved before, the proposed construction method has some advantages, such as saving storage space and reducing computation complexity in the hardware implementation. And then LDPC(5929, 5624) code with 5.42% redundancy is constructed by the proposed method. The simulation results and analysis show that the constructed LDPC(5929, 5624) code has better error-correction performance, lower redundancy and lower decoding complexity than those of a classic Reed-Solomon (RS)(255, 239) code. Therefore, LDPC(5929, 5624) code, constructed by the proposed construction method on LDPC codes, can better suitable for optical transmission systems.

In this article, we calculated and modeled the gain of In_0.53Ga_0.47As/InP avalanche photodiode (APD) based on a device mechanism and carrier rate equations using transfer matrix method (TMM). In fact, a distributed model was presented for calculating impact ionization (I²) and relating different sections of the multiplication region. In this proposed model, recessive equations were used, and device gain is considered proportional to the number of output photo-electrons and photo-holes. By comparison of simulated results with experimental data available in literature, it has been demonstrated the capability of the developed model as a powerful tool for simulating APDs’ behavior and interpreting their experimentally measured characteristics.

This paper studied the influence of return to zero-differential phase-shift-keying (RZ-DPSK) data format on techniques of pre-, post- and pre/post combination dispersion compensation for faithful transmission of optical signal at 80 and 100 Gbits/s channel bit rate via simulation. The purpose of this study was to find out the dispersion compensation techniques for optimal transmission with the interaction effects of self-phase modulation (SPM) and amplifier spontaneous emission (ASE) for RZ-DPSK encoded optical data. By the simulation method, it was found out that the RZ-DPSK data format can be allowed with a transmission distance of about 700 km of standard single mode fiber (SMF) at 100 Gbits/s, and it can be provided with farther transmission distance of more than 1000 km at 80 Gbits/s with the combination of the pre- and post-compensation technique. To efficiently suppress the effect of ASE and improve optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR), the bandwidth frequency of optical receiver filter was found to be at least equal to bit rate.

We proposed and demonstrated an all-optical format conversion from return-to-zero quadrature phase shift keying (RZ-QPSK) to non-return-to-zero QPSK (NRZ-QPSK) at 40 Gb/s using a half bit delay interferometer (DI). Due to the constructive interference in the DI, the format conversion was achieved with the phase information preserved. Q penalty for the format conversion was less than 1.8 dB for I and Q data.

Long period fiber gratings (LPFGs) with different spectral characteristics were fabricated with 1 kHz, 50 fs laser pulses. The contrast of resonant rejection band can be significantly increased by a proper amount of axial stress along a fiber during laser writing or post-processing with lower energy density laser irradiation. Variations of focal condition, pulse energy of laser irradiation and the number of grating periods lead to the generation of resonance rejection band of LPFGs from single-peak to multi-peak plus larger out-of-band loss. The out-of-band loss is primarily caused by Mie scattering from the laser processed cites, and it can be reduced by decreasing the duty cycle of grating pitch instead of lowing down the actual power of laser irradiation.

Local radiative density of optical states (LDOS) offers a tool to control the radiative rate of spontaneous emission from molecules, atoms, and quantum dots, which is proportional to LDOS. This paper presents that LDOS how to make the population of excited-state decay exponentially in time, and how these dynamics can be affected. By adopting the plane-wave expansion method, properties of an inverse-opal photonic crystal are studied with the help of photonic dispersion relations. Results in this paper show that the LDOS is radically modified in photonic crystal, and the rate of spontaneous emission can be described by the functions of position in the crystal and orientation of transition dipole moment.

In this paper, the waveforms in time domain and frequency domain of two kinds of optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) sensing systems are compared, which use common fiber Bragg grating (FBG) and chirped grating, respectively. The results show that chirped fiber grating with about 3 nm of full width at half maximum (FWHM) is helpful to reduce frequency noise evidently and makes the characteristic frequency distinct. OFDR distributed sensing system with chirped grating also offers longer available time, which makes it convenient to measure slow time-varying signal. Such OFDR distributed sensing system is supposed to be more suitable to be applied in bridge health monitoring, and it will improve the accuracy and reliability of the measurement.