In this study, we present a miniaturized, tuneable light source achieved through the integration of a piezo-actuated Fabry-Pérot Interferometer (FPI) with a broadband light source. Our experimental setup combines the tuneable FPI with a white light source, allowing us to investigate the spectral properties of the emitted light under varying applied voltages. We develop and validate a theoretical model to analyze the optical performance of the system, focusing on parameters such as transmission and spectral resolution. We explore the impact of thickness variations in the coated multilayer structure on the achievable spectral resolution. To enhance the versatility of our miniaturized light source, we propose a novel configuration that combines six distinct FPI modules. Our findings contribute to the advancement of compact, broadband, tuneable light sources, with potential applications in various fields such as spectroscopy, imaging, and optical sensing.
More than 10 years ago, the Photonics Explorer Kit (PEK) was developed for secondary schools to inspire the next generation towards photonics in Europe and beyond. It is widely used by physics teachers in their classrooms and during optics outreach activities, such as International Day of Light events by many optics-related organizations, SPIE and Optica student chapters. Nearly 4.000 PEKs, used by 200.000 students annually, have already been distributed worldwide and aim to delegate the impact of light and light technologies in schools, universities, companies and beyond. In this article, we want to demonstrate the multiuse of this educational kit and the positive impact we will make in the future.
We demonstrate the automatic thermal alignment of photonic components within an integrated optical switch. The WDM optical switch involves switching elements, wavelength de-multiplexers, interleavers and monitors each one needing independent control. Our system manages rerouting of channels coming from four different directions, each carrying 12, 200GHz spaced, wavelengths into eight add/drop ports. The integrated device includes 12 interleavers, which can act either as optical de-interleavers to split the optical signal into odd and even channels or as optical interleavers that recombine the odd and even channels coming from the switching matrix. Integrated Ge photodiodes are placed in key positions within the photonic integrated circuit (PIC) are serve for monitoring. An electronic integrated circuit (EIC) drives the photonic elements by means of dedicated heating circuits (824 on-board heater control cells, 768 for the switching elements and 56 for the interleavers and the mux/de-mux) and reads out the Ge diodes photocurrent through TIAs. We applied a stochastic optimization algorithm to align the spectral response of the interleavers to the ITU grid. We exploit the thermo-optic effect to shift the interleavers pass-band in a desired spectral position. The interleavers are provided with dedicated metallic heaters that can be operated in order to tune the interleaver response, which is typically misaligned due to fabrication inaccuracies. The experimental setup is made of a tunable laser coupled with one input port of optical switch. The optimization algorithm is implemented via a software to drive the EIC till finding the best heating configuration (on the two branches of the interleaver) on the basis of the monitor diode-feedback. This way, the even and odd wavelengths input in the interleaver are directed toward the wanted lines within the switching matrix. Our method has been used for aligning the micro-ring based switching elements in the PIC as well. In that case, the integrated Ge photodiodes have been used to align the photonic components in the PIC in order to enable different pathways for the routing or the broadcasting operation of the optical switch. With no bias applied to the heaters of the switching elements, the optical signal is expected to be maximum at the through port. When the micro-ring heaters are biased, the feedback controller finds the best set of heating values that minimize the optical power at the through port of the switching node. This way, the optical signal is coupled in the drop port and the node is enabled for switching. The algorithm, implemented in LabVIEW, converges over multiple instances and it is robust against stagnation. This work aims at enabling the automatic reconfiguration/restoration of the whole WDW optical switch.
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