Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences Technical Sciences

In this paper the overview of the recent study on the rare-earth activated waveguides performed in the Optoelectronic Department of IMiO is presented. We reported on the development of rare earth-doped fluorozirconate (ZBLAN) glass fibers that allow a construction of a new family of visible and ultraviolet fiber lasers pumped by upconversion. Especially the performance of holmium devices is presented. The properties of laser planar waveguides obtained by the LPE process and the growth conditions of rare earths doped YAG layers are presented. In this paper we present also the theoretical study of the nonlinear operation of planar waveguide laser, as an example the microdisk Nd:YAG structure is discussed. We derived an approximate formula which relates the small signal gain in the Nd:YAG active medium and the laser characteristics, obtained for whispering-gallery modes and radial modes, to the output power and real parameters of the laser structure

The paper describes the research on soft X-ray lasers with an active medium created using a gas puff target irradiated

with high-intensity laser pulses. The gas puff target in a form of an elongated gas sheet is produced by pulsed injection of

gas through a slit nozzle using a high-pressure electromagnetic valve. The method of generation of soft X-ray lasers using a

laser-irradiated gas puff target has been developed at the Institute of Optoelectronics. The collaborative experiments were

performed at various laser laboratories using high-intensity laser systems to irradiate the gas puff target and pump the X-ray

laser active medium. Results of these experiments are presented and discussed. Works aimed at increasing the efficiency of

X-ray lasers using a longitudinally irradiated gas puff target are also reviewed.

Strained layer InGaAs/GaAs SCH SQW (Separate Confinement Heterostructure Single Quantum Well) lasers were

grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE). Highly reliable CW (continuous wave) 980-nm, broad contact, pump lasers were

fabricated in stripe geometry using Schottky isolation and ridge waveguide construction. Threshold current densities of the

order of Jth ≈ 280 A/cm2 (for the resonator length L = 700 um) and differential efficiency η= 0.40 W/A (41%) from one

mirror were obtained. The record wall-plug efficiency for AR/HR coated devices was equal to 54%. Theoretical estimations

of above parameters, obtained by numerical modelling of devices were Jth ≈ 210 A/cm and η = 0.47 W/A from one mirror,

respectively. Degradation studies revealed that uncoated and AR/HR coated devices did not show any appreciable degradation

after 1500 hrs of CW operation at 35oC heat sink temperature at the constant optical power (50 mW) conditions.

The work presents a structural and functional model of a distributed low level radio frequency (LLRF) control, diagnostic and telemetric system for a large industrial object. An example of system implementation is the European TESLA-XFEL accelerator. The free electron laser is expected to work in the VUV region now and in the range of X-rays in the future. The design of a system based on the FPGA circuits and multi-gigabit optical network is discussed. The system design approach is fully parametric. The major emphasis is put on the methods of the functional and hardware concentration to use fully both: a very big transmission capacity of the optical fiber telemetric channels and very big processing power of the latest series of DSP/PC enhanced and optical I/O equipped, FPGA chips. The subject of the work is the design of a universal, laboratory module of the LLRF sub-system. The current parameters of the system model, under the design, are presented. The considerations are shown on the background of the system application in the hostile industrial environment. The work is a digest of a few development threads of the hybrid, optoelectronic, telemetric networks (HOTN). In particular, the outline of construction theory of HOTN node was presented as well as the technology of complex, modular, multilayer HOTN system PCBs. The PCBs contain critical sub-systems of the node and the network. The presented exemplary sub-systems are: fast optical data transmission of 2.5 Gbit/s, 3.125 Gbit/s and 10 Gbit/s; fast A/C and C/A multichannel data conversion managed by FPGA chip (40 MHz, 65 MHz, 105 MHz), data and functionality concentration, integration of floating point calculations in the DSP units of FPGA circuit, using now discrete and next integrated PC chip with embedded OS; optical distributed timing system of phase reference; and 1GbEth video interface (over UTP or FX) for CCD telemetry and monitoring. The data and functions concentration in the HOTN node is necessary to make efficient use of the multigigabit optical fiber transmission and increasing the processing power of the FPGA/DSP/PC chips with optical I/O interfaces. The experiences with the development of the new generation of HOTN node based on the new technologies of data and functions concentration are extremely promising, because such systems are less expensive and require less labour.

In the paper recent progress at VIGO/MUT (Military University of Technology) MOCVD Laboratory in the growth of Hg1-xCdxTe (HgCdTe) multilayer heterostructures on GaAs/CdTe substrates is presented. The optimum conditions for the growth of single layers and complex multilayer heterostructures have been established. One of the crucial stages of HgCdTe epitaxy is CdTe nucleation on GaAs substrate. Successful composite substrates have been obtained with suitable substrate preparation, liner and susceptor treatment, proper control of background fluxes and appropriate nucleation conditions. The other critical stage is the interdiffused multilayer process (IMP). The growth of device-quality HgCdTe heterostructures requires complete homogenization of CdTe-HgTe pairs preserving at the same time suitable sharpness of composition and doping profiles. This requires for IMP pairs to be very thin and grown in a short time.

Arsenic and iodine have been used for acceptor and donor doping. Suitable growth conditions and post growth anneal is essential for stable and reproducible doping. In situ anneal seems to be sufficient for iodine doping at any required level. In contrast, efficient As doping with near 100% activation requires ex situ anneal at near saturated mercury vapours. As a result we are able to grow multilayer fully doped (100) and (111) heterostructures for various infrared devices including photoconductors, photoelectromagnetic and photovoltaic detectors. The present generation of uncooled long wavelength infrared devices is based on multijunction photovoltaic devices. The technology steps in fabrication of devices are described. It is shown that near-BLIP performance is possible to achieve at ≈ 230 K with optical immersion. These devices are especially promising as 7.8–9.5 um detectors, indicating the potential for achieving detectivities above 109 cmHz1/2/W.

In recent years organic semiconductors have been given attention in the field of active materials for gas sensor applications. In the paper the investigations of the optoelectronic sensor structure of ammonia were presented. The sensor head consists of polyaniline and Nafion layers deposited on the face of the telecommunication optical fiber. The elaborated sensor structure in the form of Fabry-Perot interferometer is of the extremely small dimension – its thickness is of the order of 1 um. Many sensor structures of diffierent combinations of the polyaniline and Nafion layers were constructed and investigated. The optimal solution seems to be the structures with small number of polianiline layers (up to three).

Thin film solar cells based on multinary compound Cu(In,Ga)Se2 show record photovoltaic conversion efficiency approaching 20%. Investigation on defect physics in this compound is crucial for making further progress in the technology. In this work we present the results on photocapacitance (PC) and deep level optical spectroscopy (DLOS) for two types of cells – high efficiency Cu(In,Ga)Se2 cell with about 20% of gallium and pure gallium CuGaSe2 device. We show that PC and DLOS, employed as the techniques complimentary to deep level transient spectroscopy DLTS and admittance spectroscopy, are useful methods in providing information on defect levels in solar cells. In particular they are helpful in diffierentiating between levels belonging to the bulk of absorber and to the interface states. We tentatively assign some of the observed deep levels to InCu or GaCu antisites and Cu interstitials.

Two constructions of microfluidic structures are described in this paper. A fibre optic microcell for spectrophometric measurements and a microcell for fluorescence experiments were designed and tested. The structures were made of polymer optical fibres which were incorporated into polymeric material i.e. poly(dimethylsiloxane). The structures were tested as detectors in absorbance measurement (solutions of bromothymol blue with diffierent pH were used) and in fluorescence tests (solution of fluoresceine was used).

The double barrier separate confinement heterostructure (DBSCH) design aimed at reduction of vertical beam divergence and increase of catastrophic optical damage (COD) level for high power laser diodes (LDs) operation is presented. Insertion of thin, wide-gap barrier layers at the interfaces between waveguide and cladding layers of SCH gives an additional degree of freedom in design making possible more precise shaping of the optical field distribution in the laser cavity. By comparison with the large optical cavity (LOC) heterostructure design it has been shown that the low beam divergence emission of DBSCH LDs can be attributed to the soft-profiled field distribution inside the cavity. This ‘soft mode profile’ seems to determine narrow laser beam emission rather than the field distribution width itself.

The potential problem with the soft-profiled but relatively narrow (at half-maximum) mode distribution is a lower COD level. Widening of the mode profile by the heterostructure design corrections can increase it, but care must be taken to avoid excessive decrease of confinement factor (Γ). As a result it is shown that DBSCH design is possible, where the low beam divergence and high COD level is achieved simultaneously.

Wide stripe gain-guided LDs based on GaAsP/AlGaAs DBSCH SQW structures have been manufactured according to the design above. Gaussian-shaped narrow directional characteristics are in relatively good agreement with modelling predictions. Vertical beam divergences are 13–15◦ and 17–18◦ FWHM for design versions experimentally investigated. Threshold current densities of the order of 350–270 Acm-2 and slope efficiencies of 0.95 and 1.15 W/A have been recorded for these two versions, respectively. Optical power at the level of 1 W has been achieved. The version with lower beam divergence proves to be more durable. Higher optical power levels are to be obtained after heterostructure doping optimisation.