Team for electro-optical and acousto-optical microstructures

Projects

The Acousto and Electro-Optics Team was situated within the School of Physical Sciences at the University of Kent at Canterbury. It’s main interests were components and materials for the manipulation of light, both in guided wave and in “bulk-optic” form. It investigated a number of areas:

  • Poled ferroelectrics for the realisation of electro-optic and acousto-optic modulators in both guided wave and bulk-optic form
  • Deposition of thin films of e.g. Zinc Oxide for in-fibre and waveguiding phase and amplitude modulators
  • Poled optical fibres for photonic components such as in-fibre zero insertion loss modulators and all-dielectric electric field sensors
  • Acousto-optic devices for advanced signal processing applications such as training and execution of large scale neural networks
  • The use of carbon dioxide lasers as a means of machining optical fibres for making tapers, couplers and associated acousto-optic devices

Facilities

A clean room facility, comprising of 2 rooms with different classes was available:

Class 10k clean room:

  • Thin film deposition
  • Thermal evaporator
  • RF/DC sputterer with in-situ ellipsometry equipment
  • E-beam evaporator
  • Indiffusion
  • Tube furnace

Class 1k clean room:

  • Class 100 laminar flow benches
  • Photolithography
  • Spin coater
  • Mask aligner
  • Optical microscope
  • Inspection
  • Surface profiler
  • Optical microscope

The following fabrication facilities were also available:

  • Thermo-compression wire bonder
  • Ferroelectric E-field poling rig
  • Dicing saw
  • Crystal and glass polishing equipment

In addition it had access to RF, microwave and optical design facilities (Planar and lens), RF and optical spectrum analysers, fast (GHz) scopes, optical and scanning electron microscopy, planar optical mask design and generation.

Thus it had facilities for design and fabrication of a wide range of optical guided wave components, these facilities were available for hire.

List of selected publications:

* D Faccio, A Busacca, W Belardi, V Pruneri, PG Kazansky, TM Monro, DJ Richardson, B Grappe, M Cooper, CN Pannell, “Demonstration of thermal poling in holey fibres”, Electronics Letters, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp 107-108, 2001.
* H Gnewuch, NK Zayer, CN Pannell, “Full electrical characterisation of aperiodic acoustic gratings by an enhanced d-function model: Theory and Experiment”, accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control.

2000
* V Lecoeuche, DJ Webb, DA Jackson, CN Pannell, “Transient response in high-resolution Brillouin-based distributed sensing using probe pulses shorter than the acoustic relaxation time”, Optics Letters, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp 156-158, 2000.
* H Gnewuch, NK Zayer, CN Pannell, “Crossed-field excitation of an acoustic superlattice with matched boundaries: Theory and experiment”, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, Vol. 47, No. 6, pp 1619-1622, 2000.
* H Gnewuch, NK Zayer, CN Pannell, PGR Smith, GW Ross, “Broadband monolithic acousto-optic tuneable filter using periodically poled LiNbO3”, Optics Letters, Vol. 25, No. 5, pp 305-307, 2000.
* JH Lehman, AM Radojevic, RM Osgood, CN Pannell, “Fabrication and evaluation of a freestanding pyroelectric detector made from single-crystal LiNbO_3 film”, Optics Letters, Vol. 25, No. 22, pp 1657-1659, 2000.
* V Lecoeuche, MW Hathaway, DJ Webb, DA Jackson, CN Pannell, “20-km distributed temperature sensor based on spontaneous brillouin scattering”, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Vol. 12, No. 10, pp 1367-1369, 2000.
* YJ Rao, MR Cooper, DA Jackson, CN Pannell, “Simultaneous measurement of displacement and temperature using in-fibre-Bragg-grating-based extrinsic Fizeau sensor”, Electronics Letters, Vol. 36, No. 19, pp 1610-1612, 2000.
* YJ Rao, MR Cooper, DA Jackson, CN Pannell, “Absolute strain measurement using an in-fibre-Bragg-grating-based Fabry-Perot sensor”, Electronics Letters, Vol. 36, No. 8, pp 708-709, 2000.

1999
* NK Zayer, PJ Henderson, AJC Grellier, CN Pannell, “In situ substrate temperature measurements during radio frequency sputtering of ZnO thin film using fiber Bragg grating”, Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A-Vacuum surfaces and films, Vol.17, No.3, pp 871-876, 1999.
* YJ Rao, H Gnewuch, CN Pannell, DA Jackson, “Electro-optic electric field sensor based on periodically poled LiNbO3”, Electronics Letters, Vol.35, No.7, pp 596-597, 1999.
* V Lecoeuche, DJ Webb, DA Jackson, CN Pannell, “25 km Brillouin based single-ended distributed fibre sensor for threshold detection of temperature or strain”, Optical Communications, Vol. No. 1-4, pp 95-102, 1999.
* NK Zayer, CN Pannell, M Durkin, M Zervas, “In fibre amplitude modulation at GHz frequencies using elasto-optic effect in a fibre Bragg grating”, Electronics Letters, Vol. 35, No. 22, pp 1969-1970, 1999.
* NK Zayer, R Greef, K Rogers, AJC Grellier, CN Pannell, “In-situ ellipsometry monitoring of sputtered ZnO films for piezoelectric transducers”, Thin Solid Films, Vol. 352, No. 1-2, pp 179-184, 1999.
* GE Rush, AV Chadwick, CN Pannell, RL Bilsborrow, “The location of silver dopants in Lead Halide single crystals”, Radiation Effects & Defects in Solids, Vol. 149, pp 315-321, 1999.
* MW Hathaway, NE Fisher, DJ Webb, CN Pannell, DA Jackson, LR Gavrilov, JW Hand, L Zhang, I Bennion, “Combined ultrasound and temperature sensing using a fibre Bragg grating”, Optical Communications, Vol. 171, Nos.4-6, pp 225-231, 1999.

1998
* NE Fisher, DJ Webb, CN Pannell, DA Jackson, L Gavrilov, J Hand, L Zhang, I Bennion, “Ultrasonic field and temperature sensor based on short in-fibre Bragg gratings”, Electronics Letters, Vol. 34, pp 1139-1140, 1998.
* NE Fisher, DJ Webb, CN Pannell, DA Jackson, L Gavrilov, J Hand, L Zhang, I Bennion, “Ultrasonic hydrophone based on short in-fibre Bragg gratings”, Applied Optics, Vol. 37, No. 34, pp 8120-8128, 1998.
* V Lecoeuche, DJ Webb, CN Pannell, DA Jackson, “Brillouin based distributed fibre sensor incorporating a mode- locked Brillouin fibre ring laser “, Optics Communications, Vol.152, No.4-6, pp.263-268, 1998.
* AJC Grellier, NK Zayer, CN Pannell, “Heat transfer modelling in CO2 laser processing of optical fibres”, Optics Communications, Vol.152, No.4-6, pp.324-328, 1998.
* H Gnewuch, CN Pannell, GW Ross, PGR Smith, H Geiger, “Nanosecond response of Bragg deflectors in periodically poled LiNbO3”, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Vol.10, No.12, pp.1730- 732, 1998.

1997
* A Lawrow, CN Pannell, M Negoita, PstJ Russell, J Webjorn, “Focused acoustic wave acousto-optic device using a planar domain-inverted lithium niobate transducer”, Optics Communications, Vol. 144, No. 4-6, pp 161-164, 1997.
* CN Pannell, J Dhliwayo, DJ Webb, “Accuracy of parameter estimation from noisy data, with application to resonance peak estimation in distributed Brillouin sensing”, Measurement Science & Technology, Vol. 9, No.1, pp 50-57, 1997.
* NE Fisher, J Surowiec, DJ Webb, CN Pannell, DA Jackson, L Gavrilov, J Hand, L Zhang, I Bennion, “In-fibre Bragg gratings for ultrasonic medical applications”, Measurement Science and Technology, Vol. 8, p 1050, 1997.

1996
* MP Roe, B Wacogne, CN Pannell, “High-efficiency all-fiber phase modulator using an annular zinc oxide piezoelectric transducer”, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Vol. 8, No. 8, pp 1026-1028, Aug 1996.

1995
* PG Kazansky, PstJ Russell, L Dong, CN Pannell, “Pockels effect in thermally poled silica optical fibers”, Electronics Letters, Vol. 31, No.1, pp 62-63, 1995.
* B Wacogne, MP Roe, CN Pannell, “Deposition, evaluation and application of sputtered zinc oxide thin films”, International Journal of Optoelectronics, Vol.10, No.1, pp.9-18, 1995.