Structures for a polarizer and methods of fabricating a structure for a polarizer. A first waveguide core has a first tapered section, a second tapered section, and a section positioned along a longitudinal axis between the first tapered section and the second tapered section. The first tapered section and the second tapered section each narrow in a direction along the longitudinal axis toward the section. A second waveguide core has a first terminating end, a second terminating end, and a section that is arranged between the first and second terminating ends. The section of the second waveguide core is positioned either over or below the section of the first waveguide core.

Some embodiments are directed to optical conductors comprising one or more fibrillar organic supramolecular species including an association of triarylamines, methods of preparation and applications thereof as optical and plasmonic waveguides.

An integrated optical component includes at least one input waveguide, at least one output waveguide; a first slab waveguide having a first refractive index, n1. The first slab waveguide may be disposed between at least one of the input waveguides and at least one of the output waveguides. The integrated optical component may further include a second slab waveguide having a second refractive index, n2. The integrated optical component may also include a third cladding slab having a third refractive index, n3. The third cladding slab may be disposed between the first slab and the second slab. The thickness of the second slab waveguide and the thickness of the third slab waveguide are adjustable to reduce a birefringence of the integrated optical component.

A method for attaching at least one optical fiber to a chip includes the steps of: providing at least one nanowaveguide of a chip including at least one nanowaveguide end to be attached to at least one off-chip fiber respectively; forming at least one oxide taper over or adjacent to each of the at least one nanowaveguide end; cleaving at least one fiber end; aligning the chip so that an end face of each of the at least one oxide taper is mechanically aligned substantially adjacent to each corresponding cleaved fiber end; and fusing each of the at least one oxide taper with each of the at least one fiber end respectively to modally couple each of the nanowaveguides to each of the at least one fiber end via each of the oxide tapers. A device for attaching at least one optical fiber to a chip is also described.

The present invention relates to a method of fabricating a nanowire connected to an optical fiber, the method comprising the steps of: a) filling a micropipette with a material solution to form a nanowire; b) coaxially aligning the micropipette with the optical fiber at one end of the optical fiber such that a longitudinal axis of the optical fiber and a longitudinal axis of the micropipette are aligned in a line; c) forming a meniscus of the material solution to form the nanowire in the coaxially aligned state; and d) fabricating the nanowire by evaporating a solvent from the material solution to form the nanowire while lifting the micropipette in a state in which the meniscus is formed, in a direction away from the optical fiber. The method further comprises a step of a step of controlling a shape of the distal end of the nanowire by irradiating a laser to the nanowire fabricated.

The optical phased array may use a grating based emitter in order to emit light out of the plane of a PIC chip from an array of output waveguides. A longer grating allows for a larger aperture in the output waveguide dimension and allows for a small spot size. However, even for the relatively thick grating layers available in production foundries, the gratings still cause light to decay within less than 0.5 mm. To reduce the grating strength, some or all of the diffraction gratings may only be provided between the output waveguides, e.g. over trenches between the output waveguides, but not over top the output waveguides, whereby the periodicity only interacts with the weaker evanescent tails of the confined mode instead of the entire cross section of the output waveguides. By forming sufficiently narrow slots in the grating layer only down to the upper cladding layer, the diffraction gratings may be made extremely weak.

Tapered cavity structures disposed within a stratum may be configured as a spectral component splitters, a spectral component combiners, and various combinations thereof including a reflective mode of operation. The tapered cavities have an aperture at their wider and a tip at the narrower, and are dimensioned such that multi-spectral radiant energy admitted into the cavity via the aperture would depart the tapered cavity via its side periphery at a depth and/or direction dependent on its frequency and/or its polarization, and that a plurality of spectral components admitted to the cavities via the its peripheral side or sides will be mixed and emitted via the aperture. Reflective type structures where portions of radiant energy is selectively absorbed and other portions are reflected are also considered. Differing stratums are disclosed. Applications of the tapered cavities in a stratum are also disclosed.

Integrated-optics systems are presented in which an optically active device is optically coupled with a silicon waveguide via a passive compound-semiconductor waveguide. In a first region, the passive waveguide and the optically active device collectively define a composite waveguide structure, where the optically active device functions as the central ridge portion of a rib-waveguide structure. The optically active device is configured to control the vertical position of an optical mode in the composite waveguide along its length such that the optical mode is optically coupled into the passive waveguide with low loss. The passive waveguide and the silicon waveguide collectively define a vertical coupler in a second region, where the passive and silicon waveguides are configured to control the distribution of the optical mode along the length of the coupler, thereby enabling the entire mode to transition between the passive and silicon waveguides with low loss.

Integrated-optics systems are presented in which an active-material stack is disposed on a coupling layer in a first region to collectively define an OA waveguide that supports an optical mode of a light signal. The coupling layer is patterned to define a coupling waveguide and a passive waveguide, which are formed as two abutting, optically coupled segments of the coupling layer. The lateral dimensions of the active-material stack are configured to control the shape and vertical position of the optical mode at any location along the length of the OA waveguide. The active-material stack includes a taper that narrows along its length such that the optical mode is located completely in the coupling waveguide where the coupling waveguide abuts the passive waveguide. In some embodiments, the passive layer is optically coupled with the OA waveguide and a silicon waveguide, thereby enabling light to propagate between them.

The application relates to methods of analyzing luminescent species. A substrate is provided that has a plurality of zero mode waveguides having apertures that extend through an upper non-reflective layer that is disposed on a lower transparent layer of a substrate. The apertures have non-reflective oxide layers on the reflective side walls of the apertures, the side walls having a thickness of greater than 10 nm, and the oxide layer is formed by oxidizing the non-reflective layer. The volume within the oxide layer defines a solution volume, and the volume within the reflective walls defines a ZMW volume. Having such non-reflective layers on the walls of the ZMW usefully decouples the solution volume from the ZMW volume.