The disclosure describes vacuum cell assemblies that integrate a vacuum envelope with a photonic integrated circuit (PIC). Walls of the vacuum envelope are coupled to the PIC, such as through anodic bonding, so that the PIC forms at least one wall of the vacuum envelope and provides an optically accessible medium and surface for transmitting and distributing light into various cavities of the vacuum envelope through one or more nonplanar waveguides. A surface of the PIC may include a material that is compatible with a material of the walls of the vacuum envelope, such as a silicon-based vacuum envelope bonded to a silicon nitride or amorphous silicon surface of the PIC. Each waveguide may include a bridge structure that forms a planar surface for tightly bonding with the vacuum envelope and preserves properties of the transmitted light between opposing sections of the waveguide.

An implantable optical sensor (1) comprising a substrate (2) and at least one optical microstructure (3) for evanescent field sensing integrated with the substrate (2), the at least one optical microstructure (3) being positioned to form an optical interaction area (4) on a part of a surface (5) of the substrate (2), the optical assembly (1) further comprising a thin protective layer (6) covering at least the optical interaction area (4), the thin protective layer (6) being in a predetermined material with corrosion-protection characteristics and having a predetermined thickness, so as not to affect the evanescent field sensing.

A holographic waveguide LIDAR having a transmitter waveguide coupled to a beam deflector and a receiver waveguide coupled to a detector module. The transmitter waveguide contains an array of grating elements for diffracting a scanned laser beam into a predefined angular ranges. The receiver waveguide contains an array of grating elements for diffracting light reflected from external points within a predefined angular range towards the detector module.

Disclosed herein are embodiments of sensor devices comprising a sensing component able to determine the presence of, detect, and/or quantify detectable species in a variety of environments and applications. The sensing components disclosed herein can comprise MOF materials, plasmonic nanomaterials, redox-active molecules, a metal, or any combinations thereof. In some exemplary embodiments, optical properties of the plasmonic nanomaterials and/or the redox-active molecules combined with MOF materials can be monitored directly to detect analyte species through their impact on external conditions surrounding the material or as a result of charge transfer to and from the plasmonic nanomaterial and/or the redox-active molecule as a result of interactions with the MOF material.

An integrated photonic device for wavelength division multiplexing comprises: a wavelength-splitting/combining component configured to be re-used for both splitting a single signal to be split, wherein the signal to be split comprises plural wavelengths, to plural split signals, wherein each of the plural split signals is related to a unique wavelength band, and combining plural signals to be combined, wherein each of the plural signals to be combined is related to a unique wavelength band, to a single combined signal, wherein the wavelength-splitting/combining component comprises at least one output channel for providing an output signal and at least one response channel for receiving a response input signal from a light interaction induced by the output signal, wherein the output channel and the response channel are connected to different ports of the wavelength-splitting/combining component.

A chamberless smoke detector includes a source laser, a grating coupler, a transmitting optical phase array, a receiving optical phase array, and a processing unit.

A photoacoustic apparatus, comprising: at least one optical amplifier, configured to produce light; at least one photonic integrated circuit, configured as a tunable light filter; light guiding means, wherein the at least one optical amplifier, at least one photonic integrated circuit and light guiding means are configured as an optical cavity to produce laser light having an optical path within the optical cavity; and at least one acoustic sensor configured to detect sound produced by analyte introduced into the optical path of the laser light.

An electronic device may have a display overlapped by an image transport layer such as a coherent fiber bundle or layer of Anderson localization material. The image transport layer may have an input surface that receives an image from the display and a corresponding output surface to which the image is transported. The input surface and output surface may have different shapes. During fabrication of the image transport layer, a peripheral portion of the image transport layer may be laterally indented to form a peripheral recess. Electrical components such as optical and radio-frequency components may be mounted in the recess and may be overlapped by peripheral portions of the image transport layer and/or may be mounted under the display.

An optical circuit includes one or more input waveguides, a plurality of output waveguides, and a reflector structure. At least a portion of the reflector structure forms an interface with the one or more input waveguides. The portion of the reflector structure has a smaller refractive index than the one or more input waveguides. An electrical circuit is electrically coupled to the optical circuit. The electrical circuit generates and sends different electrical signals to the reflector structure. In response to the reflector structure receiving the different electrical signals, a carrier concentration level at or near the interface or a temperature at or near the interface changes, such that incident radiation received from the one or more input waveguides is tunably reflected by the reflector structure into a targeted output waveguide of the plurality of output waveguides.

A general purpose sensor architecture integrating a surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrate, a diffractive laser beam delivery substrate and a diffractive infrared detection substrate is provided that can be used to implement a low-cost, compact lab-on-a-chip biosensor that can meet the needs of large-scale infectious disease testing. The sensor architecture can also be used in any other application in which molecules present in the liquid, gaseous or solid phases need to be characterized reliably, cost-effectively and with minimal intervention by highly skilled personnel.