Journal of Modern Optics

ISSN: 0950-0340 (Print) 1362-3044 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tmop20

Graphene oxide (GO)-based wideband optical

polarizer using a non-adiabatic microfiber

H. Ahmad, M. T. Rahman, M. J. Faruki, S. R. Azzuhri, M. F. Ismail, N. M. S. Shah

& M. Z. A. Razak

To cite this article: H. Ahmad, M. T. Rahman, M. J. Faruki, S. R. Azzuhri, M. F. Ismail, N. M. S.

Shah & M. Z. A. Razak (2016): Graphene oxide (GO)-based wideband optical polarizer using a
non-adiabatic microfiber, Journal of Modern Optics, DOI: 10.1080/09500340.2016.1241903

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500340.2016.1241903

Published online: 12 Oct 2016.

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Journal of Modern Optics, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500340.2016.1241903

Graphene oxide (GO)-based wideband optical polarizer using a non-adiabatic

microfiber
H. Ahmad, M. T. Rahman, M. J. Faruki, S. R. Azzuhri, M. F. Ismail, N. M. S. Shah and M. Z. A. Razak
Photonics Research Centre (PRC), University of Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

In this paper, a microfibre polarizer based on graphene oxide (GO) is proposed and demonstrated. Received 23 February 2016
A microfibre was coated with GO using the drop-casting technique. The extinction ratio (ER) has Accepted 19 September 2016
been measured at wideband range of 1310, 1460, 1550 and 1600 nm. The highest ER obtained in KEYWORDS
this experiment was 37.0 dB measured at 1480 nm wavelength. The result has been achieved with Microfibre; graphene oxide;
a GO coating thickness of 24 μm and coating length of 12 mm. This work demonstrates a polarizing polarizer; Raman spectrum;
effect of GO-coated microfibre. extinction ratio

1. Introduction A number of optical-based polarizers have been

reported in the literature (5–10). The most common
The generation and manipulation of highly stable optical
approach to produce an optical polarizer is to use surface
pulses have become a topic of great interest in the fibre
plasmonic modes to suppress the undesired polarization
laser research community within the past few years. The
state (6–8). Reports have shown that plasmonic mode
main advantage of these optical pulses lie in their wide
optical polarizers can achieve a high ER between the two
range of applications, such as in high-speed communica-
orthogonally polarized modes, but is limited in its poten-
tion, optical imaging and material processing. An optical
tial due to its complex structure and high propagation loss.
polarizer is a critical components in optical devices to con-
There are also reports on other types of optical polarizers
trol the polarization state of light in many photonics appli-
such as lithium niobite (LiNbO3) waveguide polarizers (9,
cations such as coherent optical communication, optical
10), birefringence polymer waveguide polarizers (11, 12)
signal processing and optical-based sensor (1). The advan-
and long-period grating polarizers (13, 14). Although the
tage of the optical polarizer is its ability to be used over a
aforementioned polarizers demonstrate a high ER, they
wide broadband spectrum (2), as well as being easily inte-
also suffer from various limitations, including a narrow
grated into current optical communications infrastruc-
operating wavelength band and complex fabrication
ture, in particular fibre-based systems (3). Furthermore,
process.
optical polarizers can be realized through a wide variety
In recent years the development of graphene, a two-di-
of materials, thus allowing these devices to be optimized
mensional flat carbon monolayer has gained wide atten-
to specific parameters of operation if necessary (4).
tion in optoelectronics applications due to its remarkable
An optical polarizer allows the transmission of only
optical properties (15, 16). A number of graphene-coated
one single polarization state  (transverse electric (TE) or
based optical polarizers have been reported in recent
transverse magnetic) while eliminating the other polari-
years. Bao et al. (17) demonstrated optical polarization
zation state, either by absorption, redirection or rejection.
using a graphene coating on a D-shaped fibre, while Pei et
In design of the polarizer, the main objective is to achieve
al. (18) reported a graphene-based optical polarizer using
a  high polarization extinction ratio (ER), defined as the
a graphene/glass hybrid waveguide. Graphene-based
ratio of power in the desired polarization state to the power
polarizers have also been reported on plasmonic (19)
in the undesired polarization state (5). A good optical-based
and polymer-based waveguides (20). There has also been
polarizer should have a high ER and low insertion loss.
a report of an optical polarizer using a graphene oxide
Because the lowest order of TE and transverse magnetic
(GO), a derivative of graphene. GO has been reported to
(TM) mode cut-off states are very close to each other, a
be more efficient in terms of dispersion in solvents and
good optical polarizer is difficult and challenging to design.

CONTACT  H. Ahmad  harith@um.edu.my

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2    H. Ahmad et al.
exhibits simpler handling towards the graphene-modified
devices and materials (21). Lim et al. (5) demonstrated
a broadband polarizer on a polymer optical waveguide
coated with GO via the drop-casting method and recorded
a very high ER of nearly 40 dB at 1590 nm.
Recent studies on microfibres have found an interest-
ing relationship between the generation of fibre lasers
and its strong evanescent field effect. Microfibres have
become a promising candidate for the miniaturization
of optical components and has several unique and inter-
esting properties such as high nonlinearity and disper-
sion-tuning ability (22). The introduction of microfibres
with the associated manipulation of its diameter, length
and refractive index contrast, offers the ability to control
the multi-modal interference properties. In this work, a
simple and cost effective optical polarizer is proposed
and demonstrated on a non-adiabatic microfibre with a
GO coating accomplished by the drop-casting method.
A novel TM-based optical polarizer with an ER as high
as 36 dB was recorded at the 1480 nm wavelength region.
2.  Device fabrication
Figure 1 represents the experimental set-up used in the
fabrication process whereby a fibre was tapered by the
flame brushing technique. In this technique, around
4/5ths cm of coating was removed from a single-mode
fibre (SMF-28). The SMF was positioned horizontally
and held tautly by two motorized translation stage fibre
holders. The linear translation stage had a sliding section
in addition to these two fibre holders.
The inset of Figure 1 is a photo of the motorized fixed
translation stage in the fibre tapering process with the
torch. During the tapering process, these fibre holder
stages are adjusted using a motor controller board such
that the middle range of the clamped fibre remains per-
pendicular at a constant distance to the torch flame. The
torch flame was created from oxygen–butane mixture and
Figure 1.  Experimental set-up for the fabrication process of
microfibre.
Figure 2. Microscopic image of the tapered fibre.
oxygen and butane gas cylinders were attached near to it to
supply the mixture to the torch. A 10-mm-long flame was
achieved and was kept fixed just below the tapering region.
The flame is greatly dependent on the pressure of oxy-
gen and butane gas and thus gas pressure was controlled
carefully for optimal flame performance, with approxi-
mately 5 psi pressure maintained in the gas supply line of
both the oxygen and butane cylinders. It is worthwhile to
mention that appropriate flame level and temperature are
two important parameters to ensure a high-performance
tapered fibre (23). A tunable laser source (TLS) and an
optical power meter (OPM) was used in this process to
check the insertion loss of fabricated microfibre. Figure
2 depicts a microscope image of the tapered fibre waist
diameter at 5.65 μm.
The radius of tapered fibre was assessed using the inte-
gral equation:
( )
2∫ L
1 dx
r(x) = r0 exp − (1)
where r0 is the radius of the fibre and L represents the
length of the hot zone, which is the area of the microfibre
that is heated that has a distance of x. The value of L has a
linear relationship with x, and this is expressed as follows:
L(x) = L0 + ∝ x (2)
where L0 represents the initial length of the fibre’s hot
zone and ∝ is a constant that varies between –1 and +1.
By manipulating ∝, different tapered fibre shapes can be
realized such as reciprocal, decaying-exponential, linear
and concave curve. Hence, a convenient integral can be
formed as follows:
( )
2 ∫ L0 + ∝ x
1 dx
r(x) = r0 exp − (3)
( )−1∕2∝
∝x
r(x) = r0 1 + (4)
L0

Figure 3. Raman spectroscopy scan for GO solution.
3.  Characterization of GO
The GO solution was prepared via an improved version of
Hummer’s method (24). Figure 3 shows the Raman shift
of the GO solution.
From Figure 3, it can be seen that the Raman spec-
trum exhibits three main characteristics peaks; the D peak
arising from the doubly resonant disorder-induced mode
(~1353 cm−1) due to the stretching of C–C bond; the G
peak, a doubly phonon mode occurring due to the first-or-
der scattering of the E2 g phonon of the sp2 C atoms at the
Brillouin zone centre (~1605 cm−1) and the two-dimen-
sional overtone peak (~2715 cm−1) (25). The GO sample
shows a prominent D peak, indicative of significant struc-
tural disorder due to the incorporation of O− ions and is
related to the size of the in-plane sp2 domains (26). The
increment of the D peak intensity indicates the formation
of more sp2 domains. Additionally, the D band is Raman-
active at the graphitic edge (26).
4.  Experimental set-up
The prepared GO solution was deposited on the microfi-
bre-tapered region located on top of the glass slide. Using
the drop-casting technique, 0.5 μl of GO solution contain-
ing flakes was carefully dropped on the microfibre waist
region using a micropipette. Figure 4 shows the set-up
used to measure the insertion loss of the microfibre with
the GO layer, with the input of the microfibre connected
to a TLS via polarization controller (PC) and the output
is connected to an OPM, which is used to measure the
insertion loss of the fabricated microfibre. A Point Gray
Fly Capture2 SDK camera by Edmund Optics was used
to measure the GO coating length.
The tapered fibre immersed in GO (a drop of GO on the
glass slide) was left to dry at room temperature for 15 min.
To obtain better interaction of GO with the tapered fibre,
two more drops were added in the same drop spot in the
waist region. Again, for each drop of GO, the deposited
region was let to dry for approximately 15 min.
Journal of Modern Optics   3
Figure 4. Set-up for polarizer using GO-coated tapered fibre.
Figure 5. (a) Top view of GO coating and (b) TM and TE polarization
at 1550 nm using GO-based microfibre polarizer.
Extra precaution was taken by ensuring the GO spot
was fully dried before surface mapping took place. This
was done to avoid the profiler from scratching out the GO
spot and damaging the microfibre sample. The insertion
loss and ER for the both TE- and TM-polarized modes
before and after GO coating on the microfibre was meas-
ured using the polarized OPM (27). The polarization state
of the guided light in the launch fibre was controlled using
a PC and the GO polarization state output was measured
in free space using a Thorlabs PAX 5710 Polarimeter.
Figure 5(a) represents the top view of drop-cast GO
coating, which consists of three drops of GO. The waist
diameter of the fabricated microfibre was 5.65  μm and
the GO coating was applied to the microfibre using the
drop cast method. It was observed that the GO coating
was spread over the waist of the microfibre approximately
12 mm long.
A wide wavelength of the between 1310 and 1600 nm
was applied to examine the ER for all three cases (e.g. after
one drop of GO, two drops of GO and so on). The inser-
tion loss for TM- and TE-polarized mode was measured
too. A change is detected in the ER and TM/TE polarizer
mode because of the additional GO drops in the tapered
fibre. A 1550-nm signal was launched into the microfibre
and the TM and TE mode output was detected as shown
in Figure 5(b) and (c) correspondingly. The intensity of the
4    H. Ahmad et al.

TM polarization light is brighter than that of the TE polar- drops and becomes constant after the deposition of three
ization light. This indicates that the GO-based microfibre GO drops. The results were summarized in Figure 6(a).
polarizer works as a TM pass polarizer. Before deposition, an ER was recorded at 1310 with a
value of 1.76  dB. After the first drop of GO, an ER of
15.49 dB was recorded at 1600 nm, while after the second
5.  Results and discussion
drop deposition, a higher ER was recorded at 1550 nm
In this experiment, it was observed that the insertion (20.53 dB) and 1600 nm (20.43 dB). The ER increased
loss for the TM mode increases with the number of GO further after the third drop of GO with measured values
of 32.83 and 35.74 dB at 1550 and 1600 nm. Extra care
(a) 40 is taken during the experiment as the linear polarization
35 0 Drop state is sensitive and could easily be affected by small
30 1 Drop movements to the fibres or even vibrations in the sur-
Extintion ratio (dB)

25 2 Drop rounding area.

3 Drop Figure 6(b) shows the increasing ER trend with the
20
number of GO drops. After the third drop of GO, the
15
highest ER was recorded around 35.74  dB at 1600  nm
10 wavelength and the lowest ER was recorded as 6.68 dB at
5 1310 nm wavelength. This GO-based microfibre polarizer
0 works through the interaction of the evanescent field with
1300 1350 1400 1450 1500 1550 1600 propagating light. A portion of light propagates outside of
Wavelength (nm) the microfibre in the waist region and interacts with the
GO at this point. It has been observed that increasing the
(b) 40 number of GO drops results an increase in the ER due to
1310
35 the presence of more GO molecules. As such, the first GO
1460
30 drop on the microfibre creates a relatively thin coating film
1550 on the microfibre, where the thickness of the film is much
Extintion Ratio

25
1600 lower than the penetration depth of the evanescent field.
20
Adding another drop of the GO solution now increases the
15 thickness of the GO coating, while a third drop increases
10 the thickness further. This increases the interaction of the
5 GO coating with the evanescent field, thus generating a
0 higher ER.
0 1 2 3 Figure 7 illustrates the cross-section view of the TM
Number of Drops and TE mode taken from the charge-coupled device cam-
era. The three-dimensional view of the light intensity for
Figure 6. The ER of GO drops with (a) three drops after 15-min TE and TM mode at 1550 nm is shown in Figure 8(a) and
interval (b) Three drops in the same spot from 1310  nm until (b) correspondingly.
1600 nm wavelength sources.

Figure 7. Cross-section view of the light high intensity (a) TM and low intensity (b) TE mode.

Figure 8. 3D view of the polarizer intensity for (a) TM mode and (b) TE mode at 1550 nm wavelength.
10
Transmissted Power (dB)
0 ter of 5.65 μm and coating length of 12 mm. Within the
TM TE
-10
-20
-30
-40
0 1 2 3
Number of GO Drop(s)
Figure 9.  Transmitted power for TM and TE mode at 1550  nm
wavelength.
For the TM mode, the optical intensity obtained from
the measurement was −0.35  dB, while the total power
and peak value was recorded at 52279374.00 and 3261.00
cnts, respectively. Subsequently, for the TE mode, the opti-
cal intensity level obtained from the measurement was
−32.48 dB with total power and peak values of 33126826.00
and 876.00 cnts, respectively. The insertion loss of the
device for the TM and TE modes was also measured.
Figure 9 shows the transmitted power for TM and TE mode
at 1550 nm wavelength after putting different drops of GO.
The insertion loss for TM mode was measured as 0.61,
5.11 and 2.2 dB for 1, 2 and 3 drops of GO, respectively.
On the other hand, insertion losses of 14.12, 11.66 and
13.8 dB were measured for the TE mode polarizer for 1,
2 and 3 drops of GO, respectively.
6. Conclusion
A GO-based polarizer using a non-adiabatic microfi-
bre is proposed and demonstrated. The polarizer was
formed by depositing layers of GO on a tapered fibre
using the drop-casting method. The ER was recorded in
Journal of Modern Optics   5
the wavelength range between 1310 and 1600 nm after
depositing three drops of GO, with a microfibre diame-
1540–1620 nm wavelength range, the GO recorded an ER
of 32.83 dB. The highest and the lowest ER values were
attained at 35.74 and 6.68 dB at 1600 and 1310 nm wave-
length, respectively.
Acknowledgements
We would also like to thank Dr. M. Z. Razak for assisting in the
graphical work of the paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the University of Malaya for the
research funding [grant number LRGS (2015) NGOD/UM/
KPT], [grant number GA010-2014 (ULUNG)], [grant number
RU007/2015].
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