Equivalent circuit model of the traveling wave electrode for lithium niobate thin film Mach-Zehnder modulators.

We propose an equivalent circuit model of the traveling wave electrode for lithium niobate thin film (TFLN) Mach-Zehnder modulators, in which the distributed capacitance and conformal mapping techniques are applied to calculate the microwave refractive index, microwave loss, and characteristic impedance. Their accuracies are verified by comparing with the results of the finite element method, and the relative errors are less than 3.282%, 1.776%, and 5.334%, respectively. The influence of the electrode's structural parameters on the modulation performances is analyzed, and a 3 dB modulation bandwidth around 84 GHz with an 8-mm-long traveling wave electrode is obtained.

Multi-tip edge coupler for integration of a distributed feedback semiconductor laser with a thin-film lithium niobate modulator.

Lithium niobate-on-insulator (LNOI) has been emerging as a popular integration platform for optical communications and microwave photonics. An edge coupler with high coupling efficiency, wide bandwidth, high fabrication and misalignment tolerance, as well as a small footprint is essential to couple light in or out of the LNOI chip. Some edge couplers have been demonstrated to realize fiber-to-chip coupling in the last few years, but the coupling with distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser is rarely studied. In this paper, we propose a multi-tip edge coupler with three tips to reduce the mode size mismatch between the LNOI waveguide and the DFB laser. The tilted sidewall, fabrication tolerance, misalignment tolerance, and facet reflection due to the effective index mismatch are discussed. It shows that the proposed multi-tip edge coupler can be practically used in the production of effective LNOI integrated chips.

On-chip optical narrowband reflector based on anti-symmetric Bragg grating.

We propose an on-chip optical narrowband reflector (NBR) based on two cascaded Bragg gratings (BGs). A π phase shifted anti-symmetric Bragg grating (π-PS-ASBG) and a rear uniform Bragg grating (UBG), are in-line connected. The π-PS-ASBG provides a hybrid mode resonance between the even- and odd TE (TE0 and TE1) modes, while the UBG is used as a rear reflector to reflect the TE0 mode that transmitted from the π-PS-ASBG. Different from traditional UBG, the reflection bandwidth decreases when the coupling coefficient increases. The calculated 3-dB bandwidth is 0.16 nm when the whole grating length is 400 µm. The proposed NBR can be applied in the cases requiring narrow reflection such as narrow linewidth semiconductor lasers.

On-chip mode converter based on two cascaded Bragg gratings.

We propose an on-chip mode converter via two cascaded Bragg reflection processes. A forward conversion between two guided modes can be achieved with the aid of an additional mode. The proposed structure is theoretically studied and simulated via the rigorous three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (3D-FDTD) method. The bandwidth and central wavelength of the proposed mode converter can be adjusted according to our theoretical analysis and simulation results. By applying the similar design approaches as fiber Bragg gratings, conversion spectra with different shapes can be obtained. As an example, several mode converters with bandpass and sidelobe-reduced spectra are designed. We also investigate and verify the mode conversion by experiment. Therefore, the proposed method may pave a new path for the mode converters with desired conversion spectra.

Transverse modal control of wide-stripe high power semiconductor lasers using sampled grating.

A transverse Bragg resonance (TBR) waveguide semiconductor laser with sampled grating is proposed and analyzed. The transverse phase shift in the middle of the grating is realized by shifting half of the sampling period, resulting in a good single transverse mode resonance. The characteristics such as the modal gain, the electric field distribution, the near and far field beam patterns are theoretically studied. Since the sampled grating is designed by combining a uniform basic grating with a micrometer scale sampling pattern, it can be easily fabricated by holographic exposure and conventional photolithography with low cost. Therefore, the proposed method would be beneficial to volume fabrication of wide-stripe high power semiconductor lasers.

Modulation properties enhancement in a monolithic integrated two-section DFB laser utilizing side-mode injection locking method.

A monolithic optical injection-locked (MOIL) DFB laser with large stable injection locking range is experimentally demonstrated using the side-mode injection locking technique. The low-frequency roll-off in the MOIL DFB laser is suppressed significantly. The relaxation oscillation frequency is measured to be 26.84 GHz and the intrinsic 3-dB response bandwidth is more than 30 GHz, which is about 20 GHz higher than that of the free running DFB laser. The nonlinear distortions, including the 1-dB compression point, second harmonic distortion (2HD) and third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3), are also suppressed significantly. A simple radio-over-fiber system transmitting 40 Msymbol/s 32-QAM signal with 6 GHz carrier is achieved using the MOIL DFB laser. After 50 km transmission, the average error vector magnitude (EVM) of the whole link is 2.94% in injection locked state, while the EVM in free running DFB laser is 5.25% as a comparison. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the MOIL DFB laser is realized utilizing the side-mode injection locking method.

Experimental demonstration of DFB semiconductor lasers with varying longitudinal parameters.

The distributed-coupling-coefficient and distributed-coupling-coefficient corrugation-pitch-modulated DFB lasers are experimentally demonstrated. The proposed lasers maintain good side mode suppression ratio over 50dBfrom 2.5 times to 12.5 times threshold current. The grating profiles of varying longitudinal parameters are equivalently obtained by specially designed sampled Bragg gratings and fabricated by conventional holographic exposure and µm-level photolithography.

Study of multiwavelength DFB semiconductor laser array with asymmetric structures based on sampling technique.

Multiwavelength distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser arrays (MLA) with asymmetric structures are studied in this paper. Thanks to the sampling technique, the asymmetric structures, including asymmetric phase shift and asymmetric coupling coefficient, can be achieved by common holographic exposure. Therefore, the cost of fabrication is remarkably reduced. In addition, due to the large scale of the sampling pattern, the wavelength precision of these kinds of MLA can be simultaneously improved. As an example, we designed and fabricated an asymmetrically phase-shifted MLA with 10 wavelengths for the first time. Compared with the common phase-shifted DFB laser, slope efficiency is significantly improved and single longitudinal mode is still guaranteed. Besides, relatively high wavelength precision is also obtained. The proposed MLA configurations may significantly benefit multiwavelength emitters for future photonic integration.

Experimental demonstration of the three phase shifted DFB semiconductor laser based on Reconstruction-Equivalent-Chirp technique.

A three phase shifted (3PS) distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser based on Reconstruction-Equivalent-Chirp (REC) technique is experimentally demonstrated for the first time. The simulation results show that the performances of the equivalent 3PS DFB semiconductor laser are nearly the same as that of the true 3PS laser. However, it only changes the µm-level sampling structures but the seed grating is uniform. So, its cost of fabrication is low. The measurement results exhibit its good single longitudinal mode (SLM) operation even at high bias current and surrounding temperature.

A Mutation in VWA1, Encoding von Willebrand Factor A Domain-Containing Protein 1, Is Associated With Hemifacial Microsomia.

BACKGROUND: Hemifacial microsomia (HFM) is a type of rare congenital syndrome caused by developmental disorders of the first and second pharyngeal arches that occurs in one out of 5,600 live births. There are significant gaps in our knowledge of the pathogenic genes underlying this syndrome. METHODS: Whole exome sequencing (WES) was performed on five patients, one asymptomatic carrier, and two marry-in members of a five-generation pedigree. Structure of WARP (product of VWA1) was predicted using the Phyre2 web portal. In situ hybridization and vwa1-knockdown/knockout studies in zebrafish using morpholino and CRISPR/Cas9 techniques were performed. Cartilage staining and immunofluorescence were carried out. RESULTS: Through WES and a set of filtration, we identified a c.G905A:p.R302Q point mutation in a novel candidate pathogenic gene, VWA1. The Phyre2 web portal predicted alterations in secondary and tertiary structures of WARP, indicating changes in its function as well. Predictions of protein-to-protein interactions in five pathways related to craniofacial development revealed possible interactions with four proteins in the FGF pathway. Knockdown/knockout studies of the zebrafish revealed deformities of pharyngeal cartilage. A decrease of the proliferation of cranial neural crest cells (CNCCs) and alteration of the structure of pharyngeal chondrocytes were observed in the morphants as well. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that a mutation in VWA1 is functionally linked to HFM through suppression of CNCC proliferation and disruption of the organization of pharyngeal chondrocytes.

One-step efficient generation of dual-function conditional knockout and geno-tagging alleles in zebrafish.

CRISPR/Cas systems are widely used to knock out genes by inducing indel mutations, which are prone to genetic compensation. Complex genome modifications such as knockin (KI) might bypass compensation, though difficult to practice due to low efficiency. Moreover, no 'two-in-one' KI strategy combining conditional knockout (CKO) with fluorescent gene-labeling or further allele-labeling has been reported. Here, we developed a dual-cassette-donor strategy and achieved one-step and efficient generation of dual-function KI alleles at tbx5a and kctd10 loci in zebrafish via targeted insertion. These alleles display fluorescent gene-tagging and CKO effects before and after Cre induction, respectively. By introducing a second fluorescent reporter, geno-tagging effects were achieved at tbx5a and sox10 loci, exhibiting CKO coupled with fluorescent reporter switch upon Cre induction, enabling tracing of three distinct genotypes. We found that LiCl purification of gRNA is critical for highly efficient KI, and preselection of founders allows the efficient germline recovery of KI events.

Single-cell analyses identify distinct and intermediate states of zebrafish pancreatic islet development.

Pancreatic endocrine islets are vital for glucose homeostasis. However, the islet developmental trajectory and its regulatory network are not well understood. To define the features of these specification and differentiation processes, we isolated individual islet cells from TgBAC(neurod1:EGFP) transgenic zebrafish and analyzed islet developmental dynamics across four different embryonic stages using a single-cell RNA-seq strategy. We identified proliferative endocrine progenitors, which could be further categorized by different cell cycle phases with the G1/S subpopulation displaying a distinct differentiation potential. We identified endocrine precursors, a heterogeneous intermediate-state population consisting of lineage-primed alpha, beta and delta cells that were characterized by the expression of lineage-specific transcription factors and relatively low expression of terminally differentiation markers. The terminally differentiated alpha, beta, and delta cells displayed stage-dependent differentiation states, which were related to their functional maturation. Our data unveiled distinct states, events and molecular features during the islet developmental transition, and provided resources to comprehensively understand the lineage hierarchy of islet development at the single-cell level.

High channel count and high precision channel spacing multi-wavelength laser array for future PICs.

Multi-wavelength semiconductor laser arrays (MLAs) have wide applications in wavelength multiplexing division (WDM) networks. In spite of their tremendous potential, adoption of the MLA has been hampered by a number of issues, particularly wavelength precision and fabrication cost. In this paper, we report high channel count MLAs in which the wavelengths of each channel can be determined precisely through low-cost standard µm-level photolithography/holographic lithography and the reconstruction-equivalent-chirp (REC) technique. 60-wavelength MLAs with good wavelength spacing uniformity have been demonstrated experimentally, in which nearly 83% lasers are within a wavelength deviation of ±0.20 nm, corresponding to a tolerance of ±0.032 nm in the period pitch. As a result of employing the equivalent phase shift technique, the single longitudinal mode (SLM) yield is nearly 100%, while the theoretical yield of standard DFB lasers is only around 33.3%.