Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Mehmet Bayindir

John Dimitris Joannopoulos

Yoel Fink

Fabien Sorin

Ayman F Abouraddy

Ofer Shapira

Dursen Saygin Hinczewski

Jerimy R Arnold

Shandon Dee Hart

Jean Francois Viens

Jeremy R Arnold

Fabien Soren

The invention provides techniques for drawing fibers that include conducting, semiconducting, and insulating materials in intimate contact and prescribed geometries. The resulting fiber exhibits engineered electrical and optical functionalities along extended fiber lengths. The invention provides corresponding processes for producing such fibers, including assembling a fiber preform of a plurality of distinct materials, e.g., of conducting, semiconducting, and insulating materials, and drawing the preform into a fiber.

Optoelectronic fiber codrawn from conducting, semiconducting, and insulating materials

There is provided a thermal sensing fiber grid, including a plurality of rows and columns of thermal sensing fibers, each of which includes a semiconducting element that has a fiber length and that is characterized by a bandgap energy corresponding to a selected operational temperature range of the fiber in which there can be produced a change in thermally-excited electronic charge carrier population in the semiconducting element in response to a temperature change in the selected temperature range. There is included at least one pair of conducting electrodes in contact with the semiconducting element along the fiber length, and an insulator along the fiber length. An electronic circuit is provided for and connected to each thermal sensing fiber for producing an indication of thermal sensing fiber grid coordinates of a change in ambient temperature.

Thermal sensing fiber devices

There is provided a feedback-controlled self-heat-monitoring fiber, including an insulator having a fiber length with at least one metal-semiconductor-metal thermal sensing element along the fiber length and disposed at a position in a cross section of the fiber for sensing changes in fiber temperature. An electronic circuit is connected to the thermal sensing element for indicating changes in fiber temperature. A controller is connected for controlling optical transmission through an optical transmission element, that is disposed along the fiber length, in response to indications of changes in fiber temperature.

There is provided a thermal sensing fiber including a semiconducting element having a fiber length and characterized by a bandgap energy corresponding to a selected operational temperature range for the fiber in which there can be produced a change in thermally-excited electronic charge carrier population in the semiconducting element in response to a temperature change in the selected temperature range. At least one pair of conducting electrodes is provided in contact with the semiconducting element along the fiber length, and an insulator is provided along the fiber length.

The invention provides an optical fiber photodetector including a photoconductive element, such as a semiconducting element, having a fiber length. The semiconducting element is characterized as a non-composite material in at least one fiber direction. At least one pair of conducting electrodes is in contact with the semiconducting element along the fiber length, and an insulator is provided along the fiber length. An optical resonator can be disposed along the fiber length and along a path of illumination to the semiconducting element. The resonator is dimensioned to substantially reflect all illumination wavelengths except for a prescribed range of wavelengths transmitted to the semiconducting element. The fiber photodetector can be arranged in a photodetecting fiber grid, photodetecting fiber fabric, or other configuration for detecting incident illumination.

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Somerville, MA, United States of America

Mehmet Bayindir