International Journal of

---

In this paper, a tapered tip optical fiber probe sensor for localized refractive index (RI) measurements is presented. This sensor’s interaction with analytes is confined to a few micro-meters which makes it a promising candidate for in-vivo or even intra-cellular RI monitoring. This tapered tip was simply fabricated by etching optical fiber with hydrofluoric acid to a conic shape with a sub-micrometer aperture. The sensor was calibrated for RI measurement using different concentrations of NaCl in water. Limit of detection of 6.7×10^-5 RIU was achieved for this low-cost sensor.

---

In this research, Ag nanoparticles were prepared by using g-radiation at concentration of 5.18×10^-3 M and irradiated at different doses. A green laser was employed as excited source for measuring nonlinear refractive index and absorption coefficient. The measurements were done by z-scan method for both, closed and open aperture at temperature room. We deduced that with growth of size of Ag nanoparticles, nonlinear refractive index increased while absorption coefficient of samples decreased

---

Glassy samples with a composition of 40P2O5–30V2O5–(30-x)Li2O– xK2O, 0<x<30 (mol %) were prepared by the conventional melt quenching technique in two forms of bulk and blown film. X-ray diffraction patterns corroborated the amorphous feature of the samples. Density of samples was investigated by using Archimedes principle. Based on absorption and reflection spectra, indirect allowed optical gaps, Urbach energies, refractive index and dielectric coefficients were calculated. Study of FTIR spectra revealed that all of the samples mainly contain metaphosphate and pyrophosphate units. Glass transition temperatures were also evaluated using DSC curves. Non-linear variation of many physical properties by gradually substitution of Li ions with K, confirmed the existence of mixed alkali effect in glassy system.​

---

In this paper a novel anti-reflection (AR) coating based on silicon nano-bars is designed and its impact on the performance of crystalline silicon (c-Si) thin-film solar cells is extensively studied. Silicon nano-bars with optimized size and period are embedded on top of the active layer, under a 100nm Si₃N₄ layer. As a result of the proposed layer stack, an inhomogeneous intermediate layer with effective refractive index amid the two layers is formed and a graded refractive index AR coating is achieved, which has a substantial effect on broad, omnidirectional reduction of the reflection spectra. To validate our claim, the proposed structure as well as four conventional AR coatings are simulated and through the numerical analysis of both the spectral response of the reflection factor and the silicon active layer absorption spectra, it is shown that the proposed design outperforms conventional already existing AR coatings, and in addition provides a strong coupling of the incident light to the active layer, while improving the overall efficiency of the thin-film solar cell.

---

Silver nanowires are the favorable material in many applications based on their plasmonic double resonance in the visible region. In this paper, thin films of Poly-vinyl-pyrrolidone (PVP) doped with Silver nanowires (Ag NWs) in different concentrations have been prepared. The plasmonic imaging system using a high numerical aperture objective lens excite the Surface Plasmon in these structures. The hot spot results from reflected light intensity of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) proved that increasing of concentration of Silver nanowires yields to get better hot spot in plasmonic imaging systems by choosing the appropriate wavelength. These obtained results accompanying with third order nonlinear investigations show the ability of samples usage in thermoplasmonic applications.