Polymer Fibers for Nonlinear Optics

The goal of our research is to build an ultrafast all-optical switching device. Such a device would be the first step towards ultrafast switching-systems for the information highway and all-optical computing applications. Our work is motivated by the demonstration of an all-optical switch in a silica optical fiber, While this device displays all essential switching functions, the small material nonlinearity requires fibers of l km lengths, resulting in long latency periods. because we have the ability to make polymer fibers with optical nonlinearities that are three orders of magnitude large, we can make sub-meter length devices. In our first year, we have worked out the preliminaries required to make such a device which includes optimization of the fiber drawing process, characterization of crucial material properties, and the design of optical switches that take advantage of the polymer fibers nonlinearity. We have demonstrated the fabrication of fibers with cores that are less than 10 micrometers in diameter, have shown that these can support single mode light-guiding required for optimum device operation, and have designed and build a Sagnac interferometer experiment that is being used to characterize material nonlinearity. This experiment will be eventually converted to an all-optical switch by replacing bulk components with fibers.