SMF/FSO integrated dual-rate reliable and energy efficient WDM optical access network for smart and urban communities.

To handle the massive high-speed internet traffic, free space optics (FSO) or single-mode fiber (SMF) based fiber optic communication is being used everywhere across the world. These technologies are capable of providing huge bandwidth and transmitting the data at very high speed with low energy consumption. FSO is a very convenient technology to quickly expand the legacy network in the adverse geographical areas. However, its link performance is highly dependent of inconsistent weather conditions. SMF based fiber optic link has a very low loss and its performance is almost independent on the weather conditions. Though, the installation and maintenance of fibers are quite complex and costly. Individually, FSO or SMF links have their limitations and have to be integrated to leverage their benefits. In this paper, we integrated FSO/SMF links and compared the performance of the proposed architecture which is capable of providing high-speed dual-rate data transmission. The proposed architecture transmits data over either FSO or SMF or both links simultaneously and has 100% more reliability against any one of the link failures. In case of operational link failure (FSO/SMF), data may be switched to the alternative working link (SMF/FSO), simply by tuning the transmitted signal by 50 GHz. The proposed architecture is also reliable against the optical line terminal transceiver (TRx) failure as each user located in the network can be served by two transceivers (1 Gbps and 10 Gbps). The proposed architecture also supports the wavelength division multiplexing overlay transmission for broadcasting the common signal to all the available users in the networks. The architecture reduces ~ 27% of the energy consumption by utilizing the appropriate link of hybrid architecture and TRx according to weather conditions and traffic load. The integrated architecture looks attractive for providing energy-efficient, high speed, and reliable internet coverage to the areas where there is a difficulty of laying fibers and has frequent fiber faults. The architecture is useful for strengthening and boosting rural and urban development.

Influence of Temperature on Graphene/ZnO Heterojunction Schottky Diode Characteristics.

The paper reports development of graphene/ZnO heterojunction Schottky diode structure and its structural and electrical characterization. Graphene is grown on copper substrate using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and transferred on flexible substrate (indium Tin Oxide coated PET). The grown thin layer is characterized using scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy which confirm uniformity and high-quality graphene layer. The sputtered ZnO is deposited and characterized which confirms c-axis (002) orientation and uniform growth of ZnO film. Silver (Ag) as a top electrode has been deposited and I-V measurement has been done. The effect of operating temperature (300 K to 425 K) on I-V characteristics of the fabricated structure has been measured experimentally. The other diode parameters such as ideality factor and effective barrier height have been derived. The reliability of the heterojunction synthesized is proved by the diode ideality factor of 1.03 attained at 425 K. The excellent C-V characteristics (capacitance of 48pF) of the device prove that the device is an excellent candidate for application as supercapacitors. The fabricated structure can be utilized as an ultraviolet photodetector, solar cell, energy storage devices, etc.

Supercontinuum generation at 1.55 µm in As2S3 core photonic crystal fiber.

This paper proposes a design and mathematical study of As2S3 chalcogenide photonic crystal fiber (PCF) for broadband supercontinuum generation. The proposed design offers a large nonlinearity coefficient and ultra-flattened dispersion. The proposed design was analyzed using the full-vectorial finite element method. Through this method, it is shown that an ultra-broad supercontinuum spectrum of 0.8-4.5 µm is attained using an As2S3 core PCF design with 20 fs pump pulse width and a length of 10 mm, having 3 kW power at a -40 dB spectral and temporal intensity. The proposed octagonal PCF has shown a low zero dispersion wavelength at the pump wavelength of 1.55 µm.

General method of extreme surfaces for geometry optimization of the linear electro-optic effect on an example of LiNbO3:MgO crystals.

A general method for determining the global maximum of the linear electro-optic effect in crystalline materials based on the construction and analysis of extreme surfaces obtained as a result of the optimization procedure is proposed. The electrically induced optical path length changes for ordinary and extraordinary waves as well as the optical path difference for orthogonally polarized waves were used as the objective functions in the optimization. The objective functions were determined for units of the electric field and crystal thickness in the light pass direction. In the example of LiNbO3:MgO, it is shown that the maximal achievable given values of the optical path length change (global maxima) for ordinary and extraordinary waves are 119 pm/V and 277 pm/V, respectively. The global maximum of the optical path difference for orthogonally polarized waves is 269 pm/V (for 632.8 nm wavelength and at room temperature). These global maxima are exceeded by ∼1.5, 1.7, and 2.3 times the respective maximum values on direct cut crystals of LiNbO3:MgO and are ∼5%, 9%, or 11% larger than the global maxima for undoped LiNbO3 crystal. This ensures a possibility to increase the energy efficiency by ∼2.9 or 5.3 times in the case of using of LiNbO3:MgO crystals with optimal cuts as sensitive elements of electro-optic devices.