Optical fibers are described that include integrated Photovoltaic (PV) cells. One embodiment comprises a method of integrating a photon converter into an optical fiber. The method comprises acquiring an optical fiber having a core that is configured to convey light. The method further comprises cleaving the optical fiber to form a first length and a second length, and fabricating a photon converter onto an end of the first length of optical fiber, where the photon converter includes a void that allows the light through the core to traverse across the splice. The method further comprises splicing the end of the first length of the optical fiber to an end of the second length of the optical fiber.

Disclosed is a method and system for passively aligning optical fibers (4), a first waveguide array (62), and a second waveguide array (42) using chip-to-chip vertical evanescent optical waveguides (44) and (64), that can be used with fully automated die bonding equipment. The assembled system (2, 30, 60) can achieve high optical coupling and high process throughput for needs of high volume manufacturing of photonics, silicon photonics, and other applications that would benefit from aligning optical fibers to lasers efficiently.

Disclosed is a method and system for passively aligning optical fibers (4), a first waveguide array (62), and a second waveguide array (42) using chip-to-chip vertical evanescent optical waveguides (44) and (64), that can be used with fully automated die bonding equipment. The assembled system (2, 30, 60) can achieve high optical coupling and high process throughput for needs of high volume manufacturing of photonics, silicon photonics, and other applications that would benefit from aligning optical fibers to lasers efficiently.

Optical fibers are described that include integrated Photovoltaic (PV) cells. One embodiment comprises a method of integrating a photon converter into an optical fiber. The method comprises acquiring an optical fiber having a core that is configured to convey light. The method further comprises cleaving the optical fiber to form a first length and a second length, and fabricating a photon converter onto an end of the first length of optical fiber, where the photon converter includes a void that allows the light through the core to traverse across the splice. The method further comprises splicing the end of the first length of the optical fiber to an end of the second length of the optical fiber.

An optical coupler that provides evanescent optical coupling includes an optical fiber and a waveguide. The optical fiber has a glass core, a glass inner cladding surrounding the glass core, and a polymeric outer cladding surrounding the glass inner cladding. The glass core and glass inner cladding define for the fiber a glass portion, which can be exposed at one end of the fiber by removing a portion of the polymeric outer cladding. The glass portion has a glass-portion surface. The waveguide has a waveguide core and a surface, and can be part of a photonic device. The glass portion of the fiber is interfaced with the waveguide to establish evanescent coupling between the fiber and the waveguide. Alignment features are used to facilitate aligning the fiber core to the waveguide core during the interfacing process to ensure suitable efficiency of the evanescent coupling.

A waveguide spectrometer includes at least one substrate layer with at least one waveguide. Each waveguide extends from an inlet face proceeding partly through the substrate layer to a reflecting element. A multiplicity of photo detectors is arranged on a front side of the substrate layer, while the photo detectors are electrically connected to an electronic read out system. The spectrometer can be made lightweight and easier to produce by forming the waveguides as surface waveguides, each showing a longitudinal opening with a width to the front side of the substrate layer between the inlet face and the reflecting element. The photo detectors are in print distributed at the front side on top of the substrate layer at least partly overlapping the longitudinal opening along an overall length of sampled region and the electrical connection of the photo detectors with the electronic read out system is achieved by a multiplicity of printed electrical conductors.

There is provided a sensor fiber including an electrically insulating material having a fiber length. At least one transduction element is disposed along at least a portion of the fiber length and is arranged for exposure to an intake species. A photoconducting element is in optical communication with the transduction element. At least one pair of electrically conducting electrodes are in electrical connection with the photoconducting element. The pair of electrodes extend the fiber length.

A dual polarized waveguide device includes a first waveguide that defines a first linear signal propagation path, a second waveguide that defines a second linear signal propagation path that is parallel to the first linear signal propagation path, and a polarization selective coupling interface coupling the first and second waveguides, the polarization selective coupling interface being configured to enable horizontally polarized signals to pass between the first and second linear propagation paths and prevent vertically polarized signals from passing between the first and second linear propagation paths.

Optical fibers are described that include integrated Photovoltaic (PV) cells. The PV cells do not interfere with the optical signals that are transmitted along a core of an optical fiber. Further, the PV cells are able to convert light scattered from the core of the optical fiber into electricity. The PV cells may then be used to power remote optical amplifiers disposed along the optical fiber. For instance, the PV cells may be used to supplement or fully power the remote optical amplifiers. In one implementation, an apparatus includes an optical fiber and a PV cell. The optical fiber includes a first length and a second length that that are joined together at a splice. The optical fiber includes a core that conveys light, an inner cladding surrounding the core that is optically transparent, and an outer cladding surrounding the inner cladding that redirects scattered light from the core into the inner cladding. The PV cell is disposed at the splice between the first length and the second length of the optical fiber and includes a void that allows light from the core to traverse across the splice.

Waveguide combiners having a pass-through in-coupler grating are described herein. The waveguide combiners include at least one microdisplay and a stack of at least two waveguide layers. In one configuration of a waveguide combiner described herein, the green FOV and the blue FOV only propagate in a first waveguide and the red FOV only propagates in a second waveguide. In another configuration of a waveguide combiner described herein, the blue FOV, the red FOV, and the green FOV only propagate in the first waveguide, the second waveguide, and a third waveguide respectively. The waveguide combiners including the stack of waveguide layers reduces luminance non-uniformity, color non-uniformity, double-images, and other non-uniformities of the overlayed images from a first microdisplay and, in some embodiments, a second microdisplay.