Refine
Year of publication
- 2019 (28) (remove)
Document Type
- Conference Proceeding (20)
- Article (8)
Institute
- Forschungszentrum Mikrotechnik (28) (remove)
Language
- English (28)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (28)
Keywords
- silicon nitride (3)
- integrated photonics (2)
- AWG design (1)
- Ablation efficiency (1)
- Arrayed waveguide gratings (1)
- Biodegradable polymers (1)
- Burst mode (1)
- CMOS-Compatible (1)
- Copper (1)
- Electric potential (1)
Introducing 3D sub-micrometer technologies based on polymers opened new possibilities of design and fabrication of photonic devices and components in 3D arrangement. 3D laser lithography is direct writing process based on two photon polymerization exhibiting high accuracy and versatility, where numerous resists and even polymer ceramic mixtures can be used. We present design and simulation of polymer based photonic components with a focus on arrayed waveguide gratings (AWG) based on optical multiplexers/demultiplexers and optical splitters. All optical components were designed for 1550 nm operating wavelength, applying two commercial photonics tools. This study creates a basis for the design of optical components in 3D arrangement, which will be fabricated by 3D laser lithography.
Lead–magnesium niobate lead titanate (PMN-PT) has been proven as an excellent material for sensing and actuating applications. The fabrication of advanced ultra-small PMN-PT-based devices relies on the availability of sophisticated procedures for the micro-machining of PMN-PT thin films or bulk substrates. Approaches reported up to date include chemical etching, excimer laser ablation, and ion milling. To ensure an excellent device performance, a key mandatory feature for a micro-machining process is to preserve as far as possible the crystalline quality of the substrates; in other words, the fabrication method must induce a low density of cracks and other kind of defects. In this work, we demonstrate a relatively fast procedure for the fabrication of high-quality PMN-PT micro-machined actuators employing green femtosecond laser pulses. The fabricated devices feature the absence of extended cracks and well-defined edges with relatively low roughness, which is advantageous for the further integration of nanomaterials onto the piezoelectric actuators.
Investigations on mechanical stability of laser machined optical fibre tips for medical application
(2019)
Light delivery is a challenging task, when it comes to medical applications. The light is guided through optical fibers from the light source towards the treatment region. In case of interstitial light application, the light has to be decoupled from the fibre and spread to the surrounding tissue. To reach larger tissue volumes, this can be either obtained by adding a scattering volume to the tip of the fibre, or by directly modifying the optical fibre itself in order to break the total reflection within the fibre core. Such modifications can be either on the fibre surface itself or internally in the fibre core. One approach to obtain the fibre structuring could be laser induced surface roughening using an ultrafast laser source. While using volume scattering as diffusor at the fibre tip is currently the gold standard for non-thermal applications (< 0.3W/cm), the decoupling of high power laser intensities for thermal treatment options is still challenging. Structuring the fibre core itself usually is related with a loss of mechanical stability. As fibre breakage and potential loss within the human body can have serious consequences, the mechanical stability is one of the quality criterion in diffuser manufacturing. Therefore, investigations about the mechanical stability of laser manufactured optical fibre diffusers are needed.
In order to evaluate the mechanical stability, a 4-point as well as a 2-point breaking test were developed. Different fibre diffusers, based on volume or surface scattering, were manufactured using fs-laser ablation techniques and its breaking strengths were investigated.
It could be shown that for surface fibre modifications, the mechanical stability reduces with increasing defect depth. The stability significantly drops when the laser ablation was performed in the thermal energy range. Volume scattering modified fibres only showed a slight reduction in stability compared to un-machined fibres.
In conclusion, internal fibre modification seems to be the most promising method to establish optical fibre diffusers, which are capable of several watts of emission power, while preserving its mechanical strength.
Production and tribological characterization of tailored laser-induced surface 3D microtextures
(2019)
We present the technological verification of a size-optimized 160-channel, 50-GHz silicon nitride-based AWG-spectrometer. The spectrometer was designed for TM-polarized light with a central wavelength of 850 nm applying our proprietary “AWG-Parameters” tool. For the simulations of AWG layout, the WDM PHASAR photonics tool from Optiwave was used. The simulated results show satisfying optical properties of the designed AWG-spectrometer. However, the high-channel count causes a large AWG size with standard design approaches. To solve this problem we designed a special taper enabling the reduction of AWG structure by about 15% while keeping the same optical properties. The AWG design was fabricated and the measured spectra not only confirm the proposed size-reduction but also the improvement of optical properties of the size-optimized AWG.