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Integrated liquid crystal photonic bandgap fiber devices

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Abstract

Liquid crystal photonic bandgap (LCPBG) fibers provide a versatile and robust platform for designing optical fiber devices, which are highly tunable and exhibit novel optical properties for manipulation of guided light. We review the research progress on design, fabrication and development of integrated LCPBG fiber devices.

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Correspondence to Lei Wei.

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Kaiwei Li received his B.E. degree in mechanical engineering from Jilin University, Changchun, China, in 2009, and Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China, in 2014. Now he is a Research Fellow in School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interest includes optical micro/nanofiber biochemical sensors, optical fiber SPR sensors and mid-IR fiber sensors. He is now working on novel mid-IR fiber sensors for biochemical applications.

Ting Zhang is currently a Research Fellow in School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He received his B.E. degree in materials science and engineering from Xi’an University of Technology, China, in 2009, and Ph.D. degree in condensed matter physics from Beijing Normal University, China, in 2014. After that, he had been a Research Fellow for one year at Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests focus on photonics, optoelectronic, thermoelectric and thermal transport based on nanostructures and nanomaterials, and flexible devices for energy harvest and storage.

Nan Zhang received her B.S. degree from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China, in 2012. She is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her main research interest is to develop specialty optical fiber based surface enhanced Raman scattering sensing platforms.

Mengying Zhang is a Ph.D. student of School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). She received her B. Eng. degree in 2014 from NTU with First Class Honors Degree. She began Ph.D. study in August 2014. Her research area is in miniaturized sensing devices based on optical fibers. Her current work is on optical fiber based surface plasmon resonance sensors.

Jing Zhang received her B.S. degree in optoelectronics engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), China, in 2012. She received the Master degree in information system and technology from Université Paris-Sud and Supélec, France, in 2014. She is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her current project includes the thermal and scalable fabrication of infiber multi-material microspheres based on microfluidics and fiber biosensor based on whispering gallery mode in active microspheres.

Tingting Wu received her Master degree in electronic and information engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, China, in 2014. From 2013 to 2014, she was with School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, as an exchange student. She is now a Ph.D. student in School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her current research interests include silicon photonics, nonlinear optics and 2D materials based device.

Shaoyang Ma received her B.S. degree in electronic science and technology and M.S. degree in physical electronics from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Since January 2015, she has been a Ph.D. student in School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests lies in multi-fuctional and multi-material micro- and nano-fibers including but not limited to thermoelectric and piezoelectric fibers fabricated by electrospinning method.

Junying Wu received her B.E. degree in safety engineering from Shenyang Institute of Aeronautical Engineering, China. Now she is a project officer in School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research interest includes optical micro/nanofiber, biochemical sensors. She is now working on novel mid-IR fiber sensors for biochemical application.

Ming Chen received his B.E. degree in information science from Shandong University, Jinan, China, in 2009 and Ph.D. degree in electronic science and technology from Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, in 2014. From 2014 to 2015, he was a postdoctoral fellow in Northwestern University, Evanston, USA. He is currently a Research Fellow with School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interests include III-nitride semiconductor lasers, vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, light emitting diodes, InP-based quantum cascade lasers and fiber devices.

Yi He received his M.S. degree in 2009 at Southwest University of Science and Technology, China. He completed his Ph.D. in 2014 at University of Science and Technology of China. In 2015, he joined the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore as a research fellow. His current research interests are focused on the construction of multifunctional optical fiber devices and their biological applications.

Lei Wei received his B.E. degree in electrical engineering from Wuhan University of Technology, China, in 2005; and Ph. D. degree in photonics engineering from Technical University of Denmark, Denmark, in 2010. Then he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral associate. In 2014, he joined the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore as a Nanyang Assistant Professor. His main research interests are fiberbased optoelectronic devices, multimaterial fibers, bio-fiber interfaces, and in-fiber energy generation and storage.

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Li, K., Zhang, T., Zhang, N. et al. Integrated liquid crystal photonic bandgap fiber devices. Front. Optoelectron. 9, 466–482 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12200-016-0558-7

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