Dynamic “Meta”-optical fibers for in-fiber imaging

Optical fibers have been used extensively in biomedical imaging for both illumination and imaging, mainly because they are thin and flexible. Optical fibers can deliver light from bulky light sources to remote locations, such as internal organs that are accessible noninvasively through natural openings or minimally invasively through tissues. In some imaging systems, the optical fibers also collect an optical signal from the measurement region and deliver it to the detector. Applications of optical fibers include light therapy, surgical instruments, diagnostic devices, endoscopy, optical spectroscopy, x-ray imaging, dental handheld devices, and many others. Four different types of waveguides, namely, solid-core fibers, liquid light guides, hollow waveguides, and photonic crystal fibers, have been developed and used for biomedical applications. Solid-core fibers and liquid light guides direct light by total internal reflection (TIR), whereas the light-guiding principle for hollow waveguides involves only reflection. A hollow waveguide consists of a hollow tube coated internally with a thin metal layer and a dielectric layer. The light is guided by the reflection at the inner surfaces. Hollow waveguides are simple and low cost; they can transmit wavelengths over a large range and can transmit high laser power without any damage to the waveguide. The disadvantages of hollow waveguides include a large attenuation and lack of flexibility. Hollow waveguides are usually used in the mid-IR region for medical applications. Liquid light guides are semiflexible hollow tubes filled with a liquid that is transparent in the wavelength range of interest. They are ideal for visible and UV light applications. Unlike optical fiber bundles, liquid light guides do not suffer from packing-fraction losses. Their advantage over solid-core fibers is that they are easier to manufacture. Liquid light guides have been used in some medical applications as laser- and light-beam delivery conduits.

The monitoring of sub nano-liter pendant liquid droplets, during their evaporation from the cleaved facet of a standard optical fiber, is proposed and demonstrated. The combined reflections of incident light from the two boundaries, between fiber and liquid and between liquid and air, give rise to interference fringes as the fluid evaporates. The analysis of the fringe pattern allows for the reconstruction of the instantaneous size and evaporation rate of the droplets. These, in turn, provide information regarding the properties of the liquid itself, and the surface to which it is applied. The sensor readout is validated against direct video observation of evaporating droplets. Several examples illustrate the potential of the proposed sensor. Evaporation dynamics measurements identify the ethanol contents in binary ethanol-water mixtures with 2% certainty. The evaporation dynamics are modified by the application of a hydrophobic self-assembled monolayer coating to the tip of the fiber. Ten different organic solvents are accurately classified by clustering analysis of their evaporation data, collected using bare and coated fibers. Potential applications of the sensors could include quality control of water, beverages and oils, recognition of flexible fuel blends and fuel dilutions, mobile point-of-care diagnostics, and laboratory analysis of surface treatments.

A compact all-fiber plasmonic Airy-like beam generator is demonstrated. A single slit and a 1D groove array were fabricated by focused ion beam milling on the gold deposited end facet of a single-mode optical fiber. The single slit excites the surface plasmonic polaritons (SPPs), which are decoupled into free space by the groove array. The phase of decoupling SPPs is adjusted by the grooves position. Experimental generation of the single Airy-like beam has good consistency with theoretical predictions. The transverse acceleration and nondiffraction properties are observed. The interference of double Airy-like beams in the free space is also analyzed. The presented plasmonic Airy-like beam generator is of importance to realize all-fiber optical trapping, beam shaping, and fiber integrated devices.

We introduce a nano-optical platform based on Bloch surface waves (BSWs) capable of exploiting the entire cleaved end facet of a multicore optical fiber. Interconnecting various fiber cores with BSWs directly at the end of a multicore fiber opens the perspective of highly compact complex optical functionalities for the design of "lab on fiber" devices. In counterpart, optical fibers provide a unique opportunity to obtain turnkey nano-optical functions addressing a vast application domain ranging from telecommunications to medical sensing. To show the full potential of our platform, we demonstrate a multiplexing function between three fiber cores.

The need for miniaturized biological sensors which can be easily integrated into medical needles and catheters for in vivo liquid biopsies with ever-increasing performances has stimulated the interest of researchers in lab-on-fiber (LOF) technology. LOF devices arise from the integration of functional materials at the nanoscale on the tip of optical fibers, thus endowing a simple optical fiber with advanced functionalities and enabling the realization of high-performance LOF biological sensors. Consequently, in 2017, we demonstrated the first optical fiber meta-tip (OFMT), consisting of the integration of plasmonic metasurfaces (MSs) on the optical fiber end-face which represented a major breakthrough along the LOF technology roadmap. Successively, we demonstrated that label-free biological sensors based on the plasmonic OFMT are able to largely overwhelm the performance of a standard plasmonic LOF sensor, in view of the extraordinary light manipulation capabilities of plasmonic array exploiting phase gradients. To further improve the overall sensitivity, a labelled sensing strategy is here suggested. To this end, we envision the possibility to realize a novel class of labelled LOF optrodes based on OFMT, where an all-dielectric MS, designed to enhance the fluorescence emission by a labelled target molecule, is integrated on the end-face of a multimode fiber (MMF). We present a numerical environment to compute the fluorescence enhancement factor collected by the MMF, when on its tip a Silicon MS is laid, consisting of an array of cylindrical nanoantennas, or of dimers or trimers of cylindrical nanoantennas. According to the numerical results, a suitable design of the dielectric MS allows for a fluorescence enhancement up to three orders of magnitudes. Moreover, a feasibility study is carried out to verify the possibility to fabricate the designed MSs on the termination of multimode optical fibers using electron beam lithography followed by reactive ion etching. Finally, we analyze a real application scenario in the field of biosensing and evaluate the degradation in the fluorescence enhancement performances, taking into account the experimental conditions. The present work, thus, provides the main guidelines for the design and development of advanced LOF devices based on the fluorescence enhancement for labelled biosensing applications.

Researchers at the University of Adelaide, Australia, and the Islamic University of Technology, Bangladesh, report the optimum design for a porous photonic crystal fibre capable of terahertz frequency transmission. Photonic crystal fibres (PCFs), also known as micro-structured optical fibres (MOFs), are a new class of optical fibre. The significance of PCFs is their remarkable optical properties, such as providing single mode operation, high birefringence, and controllable chromatic dispersion characteristics, which are not obtainable using conventional optical fibres. As a result, PCFs are used extensively in different medical imaging applications, for example, in Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). OCT is an imaging technology that allows non-invasive cross-sectional imaging of biological tissue. Bringing such techniques into the terahertz domain will be assisted by the development of PCFs that operate in the terahertz regime. There are different types of PCFs, including solid core PCF, hollow core PCF and porous core PCF. A solid core PCF experiences large material loss, which is a property that makes these PCFs unsuitable for terahertz signal transmission. In a hollow core PCF, the loss is greatly reduced, but such fibres operate over a narrow frequency range. To overcome the described disadvantages of solid core and hollow core fibres, porous core fibres were introduced. A porous core fibre contains a number of micro-structured air holes in the core. The advantage of the porous structure is that the fibre global parameters, including air hole size, pitch distance (centre-to-centre distance between air holes), core diameter and shape of air holes can be tuned as required for different applications. Thus, for porous fibre PCFs, the effective material loss, birefringence, dispersion, confinement loss, numerical aperture and other modal properties can be obtained by design. Nowadays, PCFs are used in the field of sensing, biomedical imaging, time domain spectroscopy, security, detecting DNA hybridisation and bio-sensing, skin cancer and breast cancer detection, and in communication applications. However, there are no previously reported articles on terahertz PCFs with sufficient numerical aperture (NA) to be used for OCT applications. In this issue of Electronics Letters, Saiful Islam and colleagues propose a terahertz PCF with high birefringence, high NA, and near zero dispersion variation. The measured high birefringence is reported to be due to the elliptical-shaped asymmetrical structure of the air holes inside the core. The asymmetrical structure of air holes created a refractive index difference between the polarisation modes, thus generating birefringence. The observation of high NA is reported to be due to the high birefringence and high modal effective area. Moreover, flattened dispersion is reported due to the waveguide structure and chosen materials that the waveguide was formed of. The kagome-based PCF has the advantage that it has a significantly lower confinement loss than other PCF structures. Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy set-up in the National T-Ray lab at the University of Adelaide. Saiful Islam at the University of Adelaide. The reported simulations in this Letter have allowed for rapid design optimisation that can now be experimentally tested. The major challenge of a PCF design is to anticipate difficulties in fabrication. Thus, the fabrication possibilities of a PCF must be addressed. For accuracy, obtaining correct parameters to describe the structural and optical properties of the fibre, such as refractive index, material absorption loss, relative permittivity and relative permeability, is of great importance. S. Islam states that ‘‘Our PCF design was produced with ease of fabrication in mind, allowing future realisation. Thus, applications in THz-OCT, chemical sensing, and multichannel communications are envisaged.’’ S. Islam and colleagues are currently using photonic crystal fibres to design chemical sensors for skin cancer detection. Non-invasive breast cancer detection is possible via detecting the presence of certain protein markers in human saliva. The authors are also designing sensors to detect hazardous chemicals for security applications. ‘‘We are planning to extend our PCF designs with the use of graphene or gold coasting to exploit surface plasmons for enhanced sensing’’, explains S. Islam. In practice, PCFs are limited to reasonably simple geometries due to difficulties in fabrication. However, emerging techniques exploiting developments in 3D printing are promising methods to overcome current limitations. S. Islam predicts that ‘‘It is possible that in the next decade will we begin to see more sophisticated PCFs with remarkable properties that are not deemed practical in today's technology.’’

By introducing microfluidic plugs into interior fiber microchannels, we have developed a new category of active, tunable optical fiber. The positions and optical properties of the fluidic plugs can be directly controlled by utilizing actuators and pumps located on the fiber surface, thereby allowing the propagation characteristics of certain optical fiber modes to be usefully adjusted. These hybrid microfluidic/silica waveguides preserve the advantages of conventional, passive optical fiber, while at the same time providing versatile tuning capabilities. Examples of variable narrow and broadband all-fiber filters are described here. These fluidic fiber devices have the potential to be important technologies for next generation optical networks.

Disordered optical fibers show novel waveguiding properties, enabled by the transverse Anderson localization of light, and are used for image transport. The strong transverse scattering from the transversely disordered refractive index structure results in transversely confined modes that can freely propagate in the longitudinal direction. In some sense, an Anderson localization disordered fiber behave like a large-core multimode optical fiber, with the advantage, that most modes are highly localized in the transverse plane, so any point in the cross section of the fiber can be used for localized beam transport. This property has been used for high-quality transportation of intensity patterns and images in these optical fibers. This review covers the basics and the history of the transverse Anderson localization in disordered optical fibers and captures the recent progress in imaging applications using these optical fibers.

The realization of advanced optical fiber probes demands the integration of materials and structures on optical fibers with micro- and nanoscale definition. Although researchers often choose complex nanofabrication tools to implement their designs, the migration from proof-of-principle devices to mass production lab-on-fiber devices requires the development of sustainable and reliable technology for cost-effective production. To make it possible, continuous efforts are devoted to applying bottom-up nanofabrication based on self-assembly to decorate the optical fiber with highly ordered photonic structures. The main challenges still pertain to “order” attainment and the limited number of implementable geometries. In this review, we try to shed light on the importance of self-assembled ordered patterns for lab-on-fiber technology. After a brief presentation of the light manipulation possibilities concerned with ordered structures, and of the new prospects offered by aperiodically ordered structures, we briefly recall how the bottom-up approach can be applied to create ordered patterns on the optical fiber. Then, we present un-attempted methodologies, which can enlarge the set of achievable structures, and can potentially improve the yielding rate in finely ordered self-assembled optical fiber probes by eliminating undesired defects and increasing the order by post-processing treatments. Finally, we discuss the available tools to quantify the degree of order in the obtained photonic structures, by suggesting the use of key performance figures of merit in order to systematically evaluate to what extent the pattern is really “ordered”. We hope such a collection of articles and discussion herein could inspire new directions and hint at best practices to fully exploit the benefits inherent to self-organization phenomena leading to ordered systems.

A metasurface-on-fiber light-sheet generator for biological imaging

For the past two decades, fiber optics technology has been under development in the Army, Navy, and Air Force for applications, which range from fiber optic payout dispensers for air, land, and marine vehicles to fiber optic sensors for vehicle-navigation and environmental sensing and monitoring. Teleoperated weapon systems have been designed to provide the soldier with operator standoff capability, non-line-of-sight targeting, precision kill capability, with unmatched bandwidth. The Government/industry team conducted tremendous research efforts in developing a reliable fiber optic dispenser design, which is part of the data transmission link between a launch platform and a weapon. This paper reviews the advanced fiber optic technology, which includes automated fiber winding, and pack mechanics and payout dynamics models for producing stable fiber optic payout dispensers and thermally symmetric fiber optic gyroscope coils for operations in military environments. Also, non-destructive fiber optic techniques for measuring distributed strain and temperature in wound fiber packs will be discussed. The findings of the novel technique adopted for fiber pack quality verification are also discussed. Finally, the results of research efforts that are underway to develop low cost, high performance, miniature fiber optic gyroscopes for use in tactical weapon systems are presented.

Optical fibers are finding increasing application in feedback and control systems, medical, industrial, illumination and imaging applications, discrete, as well as distributed sensors and networks. In addition to a course in optical fiber principles and components, a fiber optic systems and applications course designed for both electronics and optical engineering technology students has been created at the Oregon Institute of Technology, in the Laser Optical Engineering Technology (LOET) Department. The systems and applications course is designed to illustrate the benefits of using fibers in communications and sensing, as well as to provide hands-on exposure to concepts of test, measurement, and calibration of fiber-optic components and instrumentation. In the laboratories of both courses, optical fiber sensor experiments are used to teach such concepts as selection and testing of components, design and assembly of transducers, system integration, testing, characterization, and optimization. These two mandatory courses provide an excellent introduction to optical fiber technology and applications. The courses exist primarily due to an NSF-OIT grant, however, companies have made significant contributions of hardware to the program. As a result, over $350 K of fiber optics components and instrumentation now are available for senior-students' use, to develop unique, year-long projects.

The use of ultra wide-band ultrasonic fiber optic sensors in biomedical ultrasonic and optoacoustic applications is an open alternative to conventional piezoelectric transducers. As they are non-metallic and non-electric sensors, they can be combined with MRI in a multimodal imaging technique and can be made from biocompatible materials opening the possibility for the fabrication of an optoacoustic endoscope. The acoustic sensitivity of the intrinsic fiber optic interferometric sensors depends strongly of the material which is composed of. In this work we characterize and compare experimentally the intrinsic ultrasonic sensitivities of three optical fibers: a single-mode silica optical fiber, a singlemode polymer optical fiber and a multimode graded-index perfluorinated polymer optical fiber. All these optical fibers can be used to construct an intrinsic interferometric optical fiber sensor for ultrasonic and optoacoustic applications with frequencies in the range from 100kHz to 10MHz.

Besides being the premier telecommunications medium, optical fibers now are finding increasing applications in feedback and control systems, discrete, integrated and distributed sensor networks, medical, industrial, illumination, and imaging applications. The increasing diversity of fiber applications suggests that conventional communications courses in fiber optics require augmentation so that students learn a wider range of applications of fiber technology. A fiber optic systems and applications course designed for both electronics and optical engineering technologists has been created at the Oregon Institute of Technology, in the Laser Optical Engineering Technology Department. The course is designed to illustrate the benefits of using fibers in communications and sensing, as well as to provide hands-on exposure to concepts of test, measurement, and calibration of fiber-optic components and instrumentation. The laboratory course consists of 5 lab stations: (1) optical fiber attenuation and it's impact on bit error rate, (2) wavelength division multiplexing, (3) the fiber optic gyroscope, (4) test, measurement, and calibration, and, (5) wavelength shifting of a thermoelectrically cooled diode laser. The 10 week course barely scratches the surface of optical fiber technology and applications. Additional experiments and courses may be developed, further exploring the range of fiber technology and applications.

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