International Journal of Optics
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Acceptance rate21%
Submission to final decision103 days
Acceptance to publication17 days
CiteScore2.400
Journal Citation Indicator0.350
Impact Factor1.7

Advancements in Synthesis Strategies and Optoelectronic Applications of Bio-Based Photosensitive Polyimides

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International Journal of Optics publishes both fundamental and highly applied studies on the nature of light, its properties and behaviours, and its interaction with matter.

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Chief Editor, Professor Cerullo, leads the Ultrafast Spectroscopy group at the Department of Physics at the Polytechnic University of Milan. His research activity has mainly focused on the physics and applications of ultrashort pulse lasers.

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Research Article

Temperature-Dependent Electromagnetic Surface Wave Supported by Graphene-Loaded Indium Antimonide Planar Structure

In this study, the propagation characteristics of EM surface waves supported by the graphene-coated indium antimonide (InSb) planar waveguide have been investigated theoretically and numerically. The modeling of graphene has been performed by use of Kubo formalism whereas the relative permittivity of indium antimonide has been calculated using Drude’s model. The results for transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) polarized surface waves have been computed analytically and numerically. The major challenge is to model the atomically thick graphene sheet over the InSb grounded slab. To get the temperature-dependent characteristic equation for the electromagnetic surface waves, the surface current boundary conditions’ approach has been employed. The numerical results have been computed for both the TE and TM polarization states and reported that the TE does not support the propagation of surface waves. The dispersion relation, effective mode index, phase speed, propagation length, and field profile have been computed in Mathematica under TM polarization. The graphene and indium antimonide have been found active for low and high Terahertz regions, respectively. As temperature increases, the plasma frequency of the InSb increases due to this reason with the increase of temperature and the resonance frequency, leading to a shift in the dispersion curve. Moreover, with the increase of temperature, the effective wave number of transverse magnetic polarized surface waves also increases. Resultantly, the confinement of such surface waves supported by graphene-loaded InSb increases. It is shown that with the variation of temperature of indium antimonide, the surface waves propagating across the interface can be tuned in the Terahertz region and can be exploited for thermo-optical sensing, near-field communications waveguides, and graphene-based temperature sensor designing.

Research Article

The Propagation Properties of a Lorentz–Gauss Vortex Beam in a Gradient-Index Medium

Based on the Huygens–Fresnel integral and ABCD matrix, the propagation equation for the Lorentz–Gauss vortex beam (LGVB) in a gradient-index medium (GRIN) is rederived. The evolution of the intensity and phase distributions of an LGVB through a GRIN medium are numerically calculated as a function of the gradient-index parameter with changes in the incident beam parameters. The results showed that the propagation path and intensity distributions changed periodically with increasing propagation distance. In contrast, phase distributions change at multiples of or , depending on whether the values are odd or even, respectively. At the same time, the parameters of the gradient index determine the periodic values of the Lorentz–Gauss vortex beams during propagation, and as increased, the period of evolution decreased. The Lorentz–Gauss vortex beam propagating through the gradient index will develop from a square beam to a Gaussian vortex beam more quickly with an increase of . In addition, the topological charge affects the size of the dark spot at the center of the beam and the size of the beam, causing the phase distributions to change periodically in the medium. This study is beneficial for laser optics and optical communications.

Research Article

Effect of the Dispersion Orders on the Widths of the Coexistence Domain and Combs Spectra of Bright and Dark Solitons in Microresonators

Using the Lugiato–Lefever model, we base on the hysteresis approach to analyze the coexistence domain of bright and dark solitons in the zero, normal, and anomalous dispersion regimes. Our results also highlight that the fourth-order dispersion term affects the width of the frequency combs of both dark and bright solitons. It also allows the appearance of dispersive waves on the soliton spectra that disappear for high values of the fourth-order dispersion followed by the soliton destabilization into harmonic oscillations and oscillation packages.

Research Article

Design of Ultrasmall Plasmonic Logic Gates Based on Single Nanoring Dielectric-Metal-Dielectric Waveguide

This paper proposes a new configuration of dielectric-metal-dielectric (DMD) waveguides to design optical logic gates. Seven plasmonic logic gates, including NOT, OR, AND, NAND, NOR, XOR, and XNOR, are realized by one nanoring and four DMD plasmonic waveguides. To realize the logic gates, an ultrasmall size of 300 nm × 300 nm device is designed. The performance of the plasmonic logic gates is based on constructive and deconstructive interference between input and control ports. To evaluate the logic state of the output port, the threshold transmission limit is assumed to be 0.35. The transmission ratio, T, contrast ratio, CR, modulation depth, MD, insertion loss, IL, and contrast loss, CL, parameters measure the seven logic gates’ performance. A maximum T of 232% is obtained for AND, OR, and XNOR logic gates. Simulation results show that the dimensional parameters are optimized because of very high MD for all seven logic gates. Maximum values of CR and CL are obtained for the NOT gate. For the AND gate, a minimum IL value is achieved. The studied plasmonic logic gates can be employed in building blocks of all-optical signal-processing nanocircuits and nanophotonics devices. The finite element method (FEM) simulates the structure with COMSOL Multiphysics 5.4 software.

Research Article

Effect of Co-Doping on the Photoelectric Properties of the Novel Two-Dimensional Material Borophene

Borophene is a novel two-dimensional material with abundant crystal structure and photoelectric properties. We focus on the effect of co-doping on the electronic structure and optical properties of borophene using the first-principles method. The results show that the structure of Al and Ga co-doped borophene is obviously distorted because Al and Ga atoms have formed bonds with a bond length of 2.378 Å, and the two B atoms that bond together with Al and Ga are no longer formed bonds. However, it is also a two-dimensional planar structure after co-doping. After co-doping, the band gap width of the borophene system is narrowed from 1.409 eV to 1.376 eV, and the band gap is narrowed by 0.033 eV. Mulliken population analysis shows an obvious charge transfer between Al-B and Ga-B atoms in the co-doped borophene. The calculation of optical properties shows that the static dielectric constant ε1 (0) increases from 5.08 to 7.01, and ε2 (ω) is larger than that of the undoped sample in the low-energy range. Thus, the co-doping of Al and Ga can enhance the electromagnetic energy storage capacity and the visible light absorption ability. Although the reflectance of borophene is reduced by co-doping (the peak of the reflectivity can be decreased from 71% to 61% at E = 2.94 eV), it still presents metallic reflection characteristics. The static refractive index n0 can be increased from 2.25 to 2.65 by co-doping. The extinction coefficient shows strong band edge absorption at the low-energy range with an absorption edge of 0.85 eV. The light loss is limited to a very narrow energy range of approximately 7.30 eV, which indicates that borophene co-doped with Al and Ga can also be used as a light storage material. The optical conductivity reaches its maximum at E = 1.78 eV and 2.52 eV, which correspond to the light irradiation with a wavelength of 698 nm (red light) and 492 nm (cyan light), respectively. The results show that the Al-Ga co-doped borophene is sensitive to cyan light and red light, so it can be used to make photosensitive devices. The results can hopefully fill the gap in the application of borophene in semiconductor photoelectric devices and provide a theoretical basis for its application.

Research Article

Refractometric Sensing of Protein in Urine by the Photonic Crystal Fiber Biosensor in THz Regime

The presence of albumin in human urine is one of the confirmed early symptoms of kidney dysfunction. A precise urine protein identification process is very important to monitor the kidney’s proper functioning. To identify the presence of albumin in urine, a refractometric protein sensing approach in the photonic crystal fiber (PCF) environment has been introduced here. A PCF geometry with suspended cladding and a circular hollow core has been proposed and investigated in the terahertz (THz) spectrum for protein identification in the liquid samples. Three levels of albumin concentrations in urine (7–125 mg/dl, 250–500 mg/dl, and 1000 mg/dl) are considered to evaluate the sensing performances of the proposed PCF. The numerical investigations are performed on the COMSOL Multiphysics platform where the finite element method (FEM) figures out the numerical outcomes. The performances of the proposed PCF exhibit highly sensitive characteristics for albumin identification in the different albumin concentration levels of urine. The sensitivity shows more than 98.5% for all the tested concentration levels due to the strategic selection of geometrical parameters and proper optimization. Alongside, negligible confinement loss of 10−16 cm−1 is attained at the same operating point of 4.3 THz. Furthermore, dispersion profiles and practical implementation strategies are also investigated and discussed in detail.

International Journal of Optics
 Journal metrics
See full report
Acceptance rate21%
Submission to final decision103 days
Acceptance to publication17 days
CiteScore2.400
Journal Citation Indicator0.350
Impact Factor1.7
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