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This research effort was a feasibility study of the concept of an all-optical micro motor with a rotor driven by a traveling wave. The wave was a result of a photo induced surface deformation of a photosensitive material produced by a traveling holographic grating. Two phases modulated coherent optical beams were used to generate the grating in two types of photosensitive materials. The materials that were studied were photorefractive crystals and thin polymer films. Theoretical studies were performed on lithium niobate giving predictions of deformations of the order of nanometers. The experimental deformation size was also on the order of nanometers. The deformations were deep enough to provide conditions for the implementation of the all-optical motor using lithium niobate. We also were able to align micron-size dielectric particles along the holographic gratings by means of the periodic electric forces generated by the grating. These forces can also move the particles along the surface if the grating is moving. We then turned our attention on thin films and obtained a deformation visible on the order of 100 microns. An experimental breadboard demonstration of a prototype was done in the summer of 2001 at Glenn Research Center (GRC). The demonstration included the movement of clocks mechanical workings by an optically driven motor based on a polymer film. The application of this technology can be adapted to government as well as industrial uses. One such project is to make a chemical sensor for the detection of hazardous chemicals. The thin polymer film is highly suited for this purpose since a marker dye could be easily placed on the film in order to detect chemical compounds. This system could be a self-regulating chemical monitoring system used on launches of the space shuttle or locations where hazardous chemicals are present. The project provided support for two black minority graduate students targeting MS and PhD degrees in Applied Optics.

An all-optical micromotor with a rotor driven by a traveling wave of surface deformation of a stator being in contact with the rotor is being studied. Instead of an ultrasonic wave produced by an electrically driven piezoelectric actuator as in ultrasonic motors, the wave is a result of a photo-induced surface deformation of a photosensitive material produced by an incident radiation. A thin piezoelectric polymer will deform more easily LiNbO3 or metal when irradiated with light. The type of photosensitive material studied are piezoelectric polymers with and without coatings for connecting electrodes. In order to be considered as a possible candidate for micromotors, the material should exhibit surface deformation produced by a laser beam of the order of 10 microns. This is compared to the deformations produced by static holographic gratings studied in photorefractive crystals of LiNbO3 using high vertical resolution surface profilometer Dektak 3 and surface interferometer WYKO. An experimental setup showing the oscillations has been developed. The setup uses a chopped beam from an Argon ion laser to produce the deformation while a probe beam is reflected by the thin film into a fiber which is then detected on an oscilloscope. A ramp voltage signal generator will drive the piezoelectric film in another experiment to determine the resonance of the film. A current is generated when light is incident upon the film and this current can be measured. The reverse process has already been demonstrated in other piezoelectric actuators. Changing voltage, polarity, and frequency of the signal can easily generate vibrations similar to those when light is incident on the film. This can be compared to the effects of laser interaction with light absorbing fluids such as solutions of 2,9,16,23-Tetrakis(phenylthio)-29H, 31 H-phthalocyanine in chlorobenzene in capillary tubes, The possibility of using a liquid with the piezoelectric film would be a novel idea for a micromotor since the interaction of a single low power focused laser beam at 633 nm with such fluid produced an intensive circular motion.

Single-arm double-mode double-order optical waveguide interferometer utilizes interference between two propagating modes of different orders. Sensing effect results from the change in propagation conditions of the modes caused by the environment. The waveguide is made as an open asymmetric slab structure containing a dye-doped polymer film onto a fused quartz substrate. It is more sensitive to the change of environment than its conventional polarimetric analog using orthogonal modes (TE and TM) of the same order. The sensor still preserves the option of operating in polarimetric regime using a variety of mode combinations such as TE(sub 0)/TM(sub 0) (conventional), TE(sub 0)/TM(sub 1), TE(sub 1)/TM(sub 0), or TE(sub 1)/TM(sub 1) but can also work in nonpolarimetric regime using combinations TE(sub 0)/TM(sub 1) or TE(sub 0)/TM(sub 1). Utilization of different mode combinations simultaneously makes the device more versatile. Application of the sensor to gas sensing is based on doping polymer film with an organic indicator dye sensitive to a particular gas. Change of optical absorption spectrum of the dye caused by the gaseous pollutant results change of the reactive index of the dye-doped polymer film that can be detected by the sensor. As an indicator dyes, we utilize Bromocresol Purple doped into polymer poly(methyl) methacrylate, which shows a reversible growth of the absorption peak neat 600 nm after exposure to wet ammonia. We have built a breadboard prototype of the sensor with He-Ne laser as a light source and with a single mode fiber input and a multimode fiber output. The prototype showed sensitivity to temperature change of the order of 2 C per one full oscillation of the signal. The sensitivity of the sensor to the presence of wet ammonia is 200 ppm per one full oscillation of the signal. The further improvements include switching to a longer wavelength laser source (750-nm semiconductor laser), substitution of poly(methyl) methacrylate with hydrophilic high-temperature polyimide, and increase the doping rate of indicator dye. All these improvements are expected to bring sensitivity to 10 ppm of ammonia per one full oscillation of signal independent on the humidity of ambient air. The proposed sensor can be used as a robust and inexpensive stand-alone instrument for continuous environment pollution monitoring.

The need to make manufacturing, operation, and support of airborne vehicles safer and more efficient forces engineers and scientists to look for lighter, cheaper, more reliable technologies. Light weight, immunity to EMI, fire safety, high bandwidth, and high signal fidelity have already made photonics in general and fiber optics in particular an extremely attractive medium for communication purposes. With the fiber optics serving as a central nervous system of the vehicle, generation, detection, and processing of the signal occurs at the peripherals that include smart structures and devices. Due to their interdisciplinary nature, photonic technologies cover such diverse areas as optical sensors and actuators, embedded and distributed sensors, sensing schemes and architectures, harnesses and connectors, signal processing and algorithms. The paper includes a brief description of work in the photonic area that is going on at NASA, especially at the Glenn Research Center (GRC).

An all-optical micro motor with a rotor driven by a traveling wave of surface deformation of a stator being in contact with the rotor is being studied. Instead of an ultrasonic wave produced by an electrically driven piezoelectric actuator as in ultrasonic motors, the wave is a result of a photo induced surface deformation of a photosensitive material produced by a traveling holographic grating. Two phase modulated coherent optical beams generate the grating. Several types of photosensitive materials are studied such as photorefractive crystals, photosensitive piezoelectric ceramics, and side-chain liquid crystalline polyesters. In order to be considered as a possible candidate for micro motors, the material should exhibit surface deformation produced by moving grating of the order of 10 micron. Deformations produced by static holographic gratings are studied in photorefractive crystals of LiNbO3 using high vertical resolution surface profilometer Dektak 3 and surface interferometer WYKO. An experimental set-up with moving grating has been developed. The set-up uses a two-beam interferometry configuration with one beam being reflected by a thin mirror mounted on a loud speaker. A ramp voltage signal generator drives the speaker. Changing voltage, polarity, and frequency of the signal can easily generate vibrating gratings or moving gratings in both directions. A vibrating grating has been applied to a photorefractive crystal of BSO controlled by an external electric field of the order of 104 V/cm. We have additionally studied effects of moving grating interaction with light absorbing fluids such as solutions of 2,9,16,23-Tetrakis(phenylthio)-29H, 31 Hphthalocyanine in chlorobenzene in capillary tubes. The purpose of using a liquid is to show that the moving gratings can force a liquid to shift. The interaction of a single low power focused laser beam at 633 nm with such fluid produced an intensive circular motion, which also might be applied to all-optical micro motors or actuators.

Single-arm dual-mode optical waveguide interferometer utilizes interference between two modes of different order. Sensing effect results from the change in propagation conditions of the modes caused by the environment. The waveguide is made as an open asymmetric structure containing a dye-doped polymer film onto a quartz substrate. It is more sensitive to the change of environment than its conventional polarimetric analog using orthogonal modes (TE and TM) of the same order. The sensor still preserves the option of operating in polarimetric regime using a variety of mode combinations such as TE(sub 0)/TM(sub 0) (conventional) TE(sub 0)/TM(sub 1), TE(sub 1)/TM(sub 0), or TE(sub 1)/TM(sub 1) but can also work in nonpolarimetric regime using combinations TE(sub 0)/TE(sub 1) or TM(sub 0)/TM(sub 1). Utilization of different mode combinations simultaneously makes the device more versatile. Application of the sensor to gas sensing is based on doping polymer film with an organic indicator dye targeting a particular gaseous reagent. Change of the optical absorption spectrum of the dye caused by the gaseous pollutant results in change of the reactive index of the dye-doped polymer film that can be detected by the sensor. As indicator dyes we utilize Bromocresol Purple doped into polymer poly(methyl) methacrylate that is sensitive to small concentrations of ammonia. The indicator dye demonstrated an irreversible increase in optical absorption near the peak at 350 nm being exposed to 5% ammonia in pure nitrogen at 600 Torr. The dye also showed reversible growth of the absorption peak near 600 nm after exposure to a vapor of standard medical ammonia spirit (65% alcohol). We have built a breadboard prototype of the sensor with He-Ne laser as a light source and with a single mode fiber input and a multimode fiber output. The prototype showed a sensitivity to temperature change of the order of 2 C per 2pi phase shift. The sensitivity of the sensor to the presence of dTy ammonia is not less than 300 ppm per 2pi phase shift. The proposed sensor can be used as a robust stand-alone instrument for continuous environment pollution monitoring.

The authors present the results of characterization of linear absorption and nonlinear refractive index of Au, Ag, Cu and Sn ion implantation into LiNbO3. Ag was implanted at 1.5 MeV to fluences of 2 to 17 x 17(exp 16)/sq cm at room temperature. Au and Cu were implanted to fluences of 5 to 20 x 10(exp 16)/sq cm at an energy of 2.0 MeV. Sn was implanted to a fluence of 1.6 x 10(exp 17)/sq cm at 160 kV. Optical absorption spectrometry indicated an absorption peak for the Au implanted samples after heat treatment at 1,000 C at approx. 620 nm. The Ag implanted samples absorption peaks shifted from approx. 450 nm before heat treatment to 550 nm after 500 C for 1h. Heat treatment at 800 C returned the Ag implanted crystals to a clear state. Cu nanocluster absorption peaks disappears at 500 C. No Sn clusters were observed by optical absorption or XRD. The size of the Ag and Au clusters as a function of heat treatment were determined from the absorption peaks. The Ag clusters did not change appreciably in size with heat treatment. The Au clusters increased from 3 to 9 nm diameter upon heat treatment at 1000 C. TEM analysis performed on a Au implanted crystal indicated the formation of Au nanocrystals with facets normal to the c-axis. Measurements of the nonlinear refractive indices were carried out using the Z-scan method with a tunable dye laser pumped by a frequency doubled mode-locked Nd:YAG laser. The dye laser had a 4.5 ps pulse duration time and 76 MHz pulse repetition rate (575 nm).

Ion implantation has been shown to produce a high density of metal colloids within the layer regions of glasses and crystalline materials. The high-precipitate volume fraction and small size of metal nanoclusters formed leads to values for the third-order susceptibility much greater than those for metal doped solids. This has stimulated interest in use of ion implantation to make nonlinear optical materials. On the other side, LiNbO3 has proved to be a good material for optical waveguides produced by MeV ion implantation. Light confinement in these waveguides is produced by refractive index step difference between the implanted region and the bulk material. Implantation of LiNbO3 with MeV metal ions can therefore result into nonlinear optical waveguide structures with great potential in a variety of device applications. We describe linear and nonlinear optical properties of a waveguide structure in LiNbO3-based composite material produced by silver ion implantation in connection with mechanisms of its formation.

We report the results of characterization of nonlinear refractive index of the composite material produced by MeV Ag ion implantation of LiNbO(sub 3) crystal (z-cut). The material after implantation exhibited a linear optical absorption spectrum with the surface plasmon peak near 430 nm attributed to the colloidal silver nanoclusters. Heat treatment of the material at 500 deg C caused a shift of the absorption peak to 550 nm. The nonlinear refractive index of the sample after heat treatment was measured in the region of the absorption peak with the Z-scan technique using a tunable picosecond laser source (4.5 ps pulse width).The experimental data were compared against the reference sample made of MeV Cu implanted silica with the absorption peak in the same region. The nonlinear index of the Ag implanted LiNbO(sub 3) sample produced at five times less fluence is on average two times greater than that of the reference.