The 50 most-cited articles in Applied Optics, 2016

Because of the poor lighting conditions at night time, visible images are often fused with corresponding infrared (IR) images for context enhancement of the scenes in night vision. In this paper, we present a novel night-vision context enhancement algorithm through IR and visible image fusion with the guided filter. First, to enhance the visibility of poorly illuminated details in the visible image before the fusion, an adaptive enhancement method is developed by incorporating the processes of dynamic range compression and contrast restoration based on the guided filter. Then, a hybrid multi-scale decomposition based on the guided filter is introduced to inject the IR image information into the visible image through a multi-scale fusion approach. Moreover, a perceptual-based regularization parameter selection method is used to determine the relative amount of the injected IR spectral features by comparing the perceptual saliency of the IR and visible image information. This fusion method can successfully transfer the important IR image information into the fused image, and…

Using a large-angle refractometer, the refractive indices of water, methanol, acetonitrile, acetone, ethanol, formaldehyde solution, 2-propanol, hexanes, 1-propanol, 2-butanol, tetrahydrofuran, dichloromethane, 1,4-dioxane, cyclohexane, N,N-dimethylformamide, ethylene glycol, N,N-dimethylacetamide, chloroform, glycerol, trichloroethylene, dimethylsulfoxide, p-xylene, ethylbenzene, toluene, m-xylene, benzene, and o-xylene were measured at 1550 nm and compared to literature values. In addition, the refractive indices of 48 aqueous sucrose solutions, 34 aqueous sodium chloride solutions, 40 DMSO-water, 40 ethylene glycol-water, and 40 glycerol-water mixtures were also measured at different concentrations and fit with third-order polynomial expressions. This study provides near-infrared refractive indices that were not previously available and may help with the calibration of refractive index sensors that operate at or near 1550 nm.

A sensing system is proposed for quantitative measurement of large-range dynamic nanostrain based on a phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometer, where the coherent detection and I/Q demodulation methods are employed to demodulate both the phase and the amplitude of the Rayleigh scattering light in real time. A nanopositioning translation stage is utilized to apply precise nanostrain to fiber. By measuring phase differences between two adjacent sections, the quantitative nanostrain with a large measurement range is demonstrated; this is also a method to measure the strain parameter of refractive index. For the Panda polarization-maintaining fiber under test in the experiment, the strain parameter of phase difference is measured to be 8.714 mrad/(nε·m), while the strain parameter of refractive index is measured to be −0.3751ε−1. As a proof of the concept, the dynamic strain sensing with a range of 10–1000 nε is experimentally demonstrated, and the strain resolution is 1 or 2 nε, corresponding to 5 or 2.5 m spatial resolution, respectively. The experimental measurement also…

We present results of numerical modeling and direct calorimetric measurements of the powder absorptivity for a number of metals. The modeling results generally correlate well with experiment. We show that the powder absorptivity is determined, to a great extent, by the absorptivity of a flat surface at normal incidence. Our results allow the prediction of the powder absorptivity from normal flat-surface absorptivity measurements.

Data for the spectral light absorption of pure water from 250 to 550 nm have been obtained using an integrating cavity made from a newly developed diffuse reflector with a very high UV reflectivity. The data provide the first scattering-independent measurements of absorption coefficients in the spectral gap between well-established literature values for the absorption coefficients in the visible (>400 nm) and UV (<200 nm). A minimum in the absorption coefficient has been observed in the UV at 344 nm; the value is 0.000811±0.000227 m−1.

In industrial measurements and online monitoring, full-field and high-efficiency deformation analysis has been increasingly important and highly demanded in recent years. In this paper, a fast three-dimensional digital image correlation (3D-DIC) method was proposed to implement real-time measurement. Two improvements were suggested to accelerate the computation speed without sacrificing the accuracy. First, an efficient inverse compositional Gauss-Newton (IC-GN) algorithm was developed to avoid redundant computation. Moreover, a seed point-based parallel method was extended for 3D-DIC to achieve parallel computation and faster convergence speed. The detailed process of the real-time measurement using the proposed method was also introduced. Benefiting from the efficient IC-GN algorithm and parallel processing software we developed, full-field, real-time 3D deformation monitoring was realized at a frame rate of 10 frames/s with resolution of 5000 points per frame. For validation, the displacement field of a four-point bending beam was determined by the real-time 3D-DIC. As an…

For the first time, direct detection of gravitational waves occurred in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) interferometers. These advanced detectors require large fused silica mirrors with optical and mechanical properties and have never been reached until now. This paper details the main achievements of these ion beam sputtering coatings.

One of the major challenges of employing a two-frequency (or two-wavelength) phase-shifting algorithm for absolute three-dimensional shape measurement is its sensitivity to noise. Therefore, three- or more-frequency phase-shifting algorithms are often used in lieu of a two-frequency phase-shifting algorithm for applications where the noise is severe. This paper proposes a method to use geometric constraints of digital fringe projection system to substantially reduce the noise impact by allowing the use of more than one period of equivalent phase map for temporal phase unwrapping. Experiments successfully verified the enhanced performance of the proposed method without increasing the number of patterns.

The analytical formulas for the orbital angular momentum (OAM) mode probability density, signal OAM mode detection probability, and spiral spectrum of partially coherent Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beams with optical vortices propagation in weak horizontal oceanic turbulent channels were developed, based on the Rytov approximation theory. The effect of oceanic turbulence and beam source parameters on the propagation behavior of the optical vortices carried by partially coherent LG beams was investigated in detail. Our results indicated that optical turbulence in an ocean environment produced a much stronger effect on the optical vortex than that in an atmosphere environment; the effective range of the signal OAM mode of LG beams with a smaller ratio of the mode crosstalk was limited to only several tens of meters in turbulent ocean. The existence of oceanic turbulence evidently induced OAM mode crosstalk and spiral spectrum spread. The effects of oceanic turbulence on the OAM mode detection probability increased with the increase of radial and azimuthal mode orders, oceanic turbulent…

As a means of increasing the channel capacity in free-space optical communication systems, two types of orbital angular momentum carrying beams, Bessel-Gauss and Laguerre-Gauss, are studied. In a series of numerical simulations, we show that Bessel-Gauss beams, pseudo-nondiffracting beams, outperform Laguerre-Gauss beams of various orders in channel efficiency and bit error rates.

We report a smartphone-based colorimetric analysis of saliva–alcohol concentrations, utilizing optimal color space and machine-learning algorithms. Commercial saliva–alcohol kits are used as a model experiment, utilizing a custom-built optical attachment for the smartphone to obtain consistent imaging of the alcohol strips. The color of the strips varies with the alcohol concentration, and the smartphone camera captures the color produced on the test strip. To make a suitable library for each alcohol concentration, statistical methods were tested to maximize between-scatter and minimize within-scatter for each concentration. Results of three different classification methods (LDA, SVM, and ANN) and four-color spaces (RGB, HSV, YUV, and Lab) were evaluated with various machine-learning data sets and five different smartphone models. Cross-validation results were used to assess the statistical performance, such as positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predictive values. An Android app developed and provided average classification rates of 100% and 80% for the standard and enhanced…

A dual-wavelength common-path digital holographic microscopy based on a single parallel glass plate is presented to achieve quantitative phase imaging, which combines the dual-wavelength technique with lateral shearing interferometry. Two illumination laser beams with different wavelengths (λ1=532 nm and λ2=632.8 nm) are reflected by the front and back surfaces of the parallel glass plate to create the lateral shear and form the digital hologram, and then the hologram is reconstructed to obtain the phase distribution with a synthetic wavelength Λ=3339.8 nm. The experimental configuration is very compact, with the advantages of vibration resistance and measurement range extension. The experimental results of the laser-ablated pit, groove, and staircase specimens show the feasibility of the proposed configuration.

Light beams that carry orbital angular momentum are often approximated by modulating an initial beam, usually Gaussian, with an azimuthal phase variation to create a vortex beam. Such vortex beams are well defined azimuthally, but the radial profile is neglected in this generation approach. Here, we show that a consequence of this is that vortex beams carry very little energy in the desired zeroth radial order, as little as only a few percent of the incident power. We demonstrate this experimentally and illustrate how to overcome the problem by complex amplitude modulation of the incident field.

Phase shifting profilometry (PSP) using binary fringe patterns with projector defocusing is promising for high-speed 3D shape measurement. To obtain a high-quality phase, the projector usually requires a high defocusing level, which leads to a drastic fall in fringe contrast. Due to its convenience and high speed, PSP using squared binary patterns with small phase shifting algorithms and slight defocusing is highly desirable. In this paper, the phase accuracies of the classical phase shifting algorithms are analyzed theoretically, and then compared using both simulation and experiment. We also adapt two algorithms for PSP using squared binary patterns, which include a Hilbert three-step PSP and a double three-step PSP. Both algorithms can increase phase accuracy, with the latter featuring additional invalid point detection. The adapted algorithms are also compared with the classical algorithms. Based on our analysis and comparison results, proper algorithm selection can be easily made according to the practical requirement.

Field experiments were conducted to test and evaluate the initial atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) measurement capability of airborne, high-energy, double-pulsed, 2-μm integrated path differential absorption (IPDA) lidar. This IPDA was designed, integrated, and operated at the NASA Langley Research Center on-board the NASA B-200 aircraft. The IPDA was tuned to the CO2 strong absorption line at 2050.9670 nm, which is the optimum for lower tropospheric weighted column measurements. Flights were conducted over land and ocean under different conditions. The first validation experiments of the IPDA for atmospheric CO2 remote sensing, focusing on low surface reflectivity oceanic surface returns during full day background conditions, are presented. In these experiments, the IPDA measurements were validated by comparison to airborne flask air-sampling measurements conducted by the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. IPDA performance modeling was conducted to evaluate measurement sensitivity and bias errors. The IPDA signals and their variation with altitude compare well with predicted…

A polarization-maintaining porous-core spiral photonic crystal fiber is proposed for efficient transmission of polarization-maintaining terahertz (THz) waves. The finite element method with perfectly matched layer boundary conditions is used to characterize the guiding properties. We demonstrate that by creating artificial asymmetry in the porous core, an ultrahigh birefringence of 0.0483 can be obtained at the operating frequency of 1.0 THz. Moreover, a low effective material loss of 0.085 cm−1 and very small confinement loss of 1.91×10−3 dB/cm are achieved for the y-polarization mode with optimal design parameters. This article also focuses on some crucial design parameters such as power fraction, bending loss, and dispersion for usability in the THz regime.

State-of-the-art camera calibration methods assume that the camera is at least nearly in focus and thus fail if the camera is substantially defocused. This paper presents a method which enables the accurate calibration of an out-of-focus camera. Specifically, the proposed method uses a digital display (e.g., liquid crystal display monitor) to generate fringe patterns that encode feature points into the carrier phase; these feature points can be accurately recovered, even if the fringe patterns are substantially blurred (i.e., the camera is substantially defocused). Experiments demonstrated that the proposed method can accurately calibrate a camera regardless of the amount of defocusing: the focal length difference is approximately 0.2% when the camera is focused compared to when the camera is substantially defocused.

We report a method for two-dimensional phase unwrapping based on the transport of intensity equation (TIE). Given a wrapped phase profile, we generate an auxiliary complex field and propagate it to small distances to simulate two intensity images on closely spaced planes. Using the longitudinal intensity derivative of the auxiliary field as an input, the TIE is solved by employing the regularized Fourier-transform-based approach. The resultant phase profile is automatically in the unwrapped form, as it has been obtained as a solution of a partial differential equation rather than as an argument of a complex-valued function. Our simulations and experimental results suggest that this approach is fast and accurate and provides a simple and practical solution for routine phase unwrapping tasks in interferometry and digital holography.

We present a modified optimal transport (OT) ray-mapping approach for designing freeform illumination optics. After mapping the source intensity into a virtual irradiance distribution under stereographic projection, we employ an advanced OT map computation method with the ability to tackle nonstandard boundary conditions. Following the computed map, we construct the freeform optical surface directly from normal vectors by requiring that the chord between two adjacent points is perpendicular to the average of the two normal vectors at these two points and enforcing this relationship with a least squares method. Examples of designing freeform lenses for LED sources show that we can produce various uniform illumination patterns with high optical efficiencies.

A frequency-tunable metamaterial absorber is designed with the unit cell consisting of a varactor-loaded fishnet-like resonator. This geometry allows all cathode and anode pads of the unit cells to be connected to their counterparts. Hence, only the ends of the periodic structure need to be biased, reducing the complexity of the bias network. The absorber was modeled using a full-wave simulation tool and verified experimentally with a 20×20 unit-cell prototype. Using free-space measurements, the absorber shows >90% absorption ratio from 3.96 to 5.29 GHz with a frequency tuning ratio of 28.7%, when the reverse voltage varied from 0 to 19 V.

High-speed (20 kHz) digital in-line holography (DIH) is applied for 3D quantification of the size and velocity of fragments formed from the impact of a single water drop onto a thin film of water and burning aluminum particles from the combustion of a solid rocket propellant. To address the depth-of-focus problem in DIH, a regression-based multiframe tracking algorithm is employed, and out-of-plane experimental displacement accuracy is shown to be improved by an order-of-magnitude. Comparison of the results with previous DIH measurements using low-speed recording shows improved positional accuracy with the added advantage of detailed resolution of transient dynamics from single experimental realizations. The method is shown to be particularly advantageous for quantification of particle mass flow rates. For the investigated particle fields, the mass flows rates, which have been automatically measured from single experimental realizations, are found to be within 8% of the expected values.

The aero-optical effects of an optical seeker with a supersonic jet for hypersonic vehicles in near space were investigated by three suites of cases, in which the altitude, angle of attack, and Mach number were varied in a large range. The direct simulation Monte Carlo based on the Boltzmann equation was used for flow computations and the ray-tracing method was used to simulate beam transmission through the nonuniform flow field over the optical window. Both imaging displacement and phase deviation were proposed as evaluation parameters, and along with Strehl ratio they were used to quantitatively evaluate aero-optical effects. The results show that aero-optical effects are quite weak when the altitude is greater than 30 km, the imaging displacement is related to the incident angle of a beam, and it is minimal when the incident angle is approximately 15°. For reducing the aero-optical effects, the optimal location of an aperture should be in the middle of the optical window.

We report on the design of an off-axis three-mirror freeform telescope with a large field of view (FOV) based on an integration mirror (IM). This design is the continuation of the authors' previous work. Based on aberration theory, we established a suitable nonrelayed three-mirror-anastigmat initial configuration for integration mirror design. For an optical freeform surface, we analyzed the qualitative aberration correction ability of a x-y polynomial surface that can provide a simple, convenient, and user-friendly relationship between freeform surface term coefficients and aberrations and then applied the x-y polynomial surface on the tertiary mirror to improve the system optimization degrees of freedom. In an example with a focal length of 1200 mm, an F-number of 12, and a FOV of 1°×30°, the tolerance performance was analyzed, and the system presented a good imaging performance. In addition, the IM structure and opto-mechanics support structure were designed and analyzed. The confirmatory design results showed that the integration of the primary mirror and tertiary mirror can…

Networks of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors can serve as structural health monitoring systems for large-scale structures based on the collection of ultrasonic waves. The demodulation of structural Lamb waves using FBG sensors requires a high signal-to-noise ratio because the Lamb waves are of low amplitudes. This paper compares the signal transfer amplitudes between two adhesive mounting configurations for an FBG to detect Lamb waves propagating in an aluminum plate: a directly bonded FBG and a remotely bonded FBG. In the directly bonded FBG case, the Lamb waves create in-plane and out-of-plane displacements, which are transferred through the adhesive bond and detected by the FBG sensor. In the remotely bonded FBG case, the Lamb waves are converted into longitudinal and flexural traveling waves in the optical fiber at the adhesive bond, which propagate through the optical fiber and are detected by the FBG sensor. A theoretical prediction of overall signal attenuation also is performed, which is the combination of material attenuation in the plate and optical fiber and attenuation…

Numerical reconstruction of digital holograms relies on a precise knowledge of the original object position. However, there are a number of relevant applications where this parameter is not known in advance and an efficient autofocusing method is required. This paper addresses the problem of finding optimal focusing methods for use in reconstruction of digital holograms of macroscopic amplitude and phase objects, using digital in-line phase-shifting holography in transmission mode. Fifteen autofocus measures, including spatial-, spectral-, and sparsity-based methods, were evaluated for both synthetic and experimental holograms. The Fresnel transform and the angular spectrum reconstruction methods were compared. Evaluation criteria included unimodality, accuracy, resolution, and computational cost. Autofocusing under angular spectrum propagation tends to perform better with respect to accuracy and unimodality criteria. Phase objects are, generally, more difficult to focus than amplitude objects. The normalized variance, the standard correlation, and the Tenenbaum gradient are the…

We have studied the surface treatment of polished fused silica by neutralized Ar ions with energy of 500-1500 eV and incidence angles of 0-90°. We found the following regularities: for samples that passed the standard procedure of deep polishing (initial effective roughness σ(eff)∼0.5 nm), the effective roughness decreases to the ultrasmooth level (i.e., σ(eff)∼0.25 nm in the range of spatial frequencies q∈[4.9×10(-2)-63] μm(-1)). The effect begins to be noticeable at the material removal of 150 nm and reaches saturation at depths of removal greater than 1 μm. For supersmooth samples (σ(eff)<0.3 nm), the effective roughness keeps the initial level at material removal down to tens of micrometers. The optimal ion energy range is 800-1300 eV (maximum smoothing effect); at higher energy some surface roughness degradation is observed. All the smoothing effects are observed at the incidence angle range θ(in)=0-35°. Increasing the ion energy above 1300 eV increases the etching rate by up to 4 μm per hour (J(ion)=0.8 mA/cm2), which allows for deep aspherization of sized substrates. The…

This is an overview of the adaptive optics used in Advanced LIGO (aLIGO), known as the thermal compensation system (TCS). The TCS was designed to minimize thermally induced spatial distortions in the interferometer optical modes and to provide some correction for static curvature errors in the core optics of aLIGO. The TCS is comprised of ring heater actuators, spatially tunable CO2 laser projectors, and Hartmann wavefront sensors. The system meets the requirements of correcting for nominal distortion in aLIGO to a maximum residual error of 5.4 nm rms, weighted across the laser beam, for up to 125 W of laser input power into the interferometer.

A recently proposed asymmetric cryptosystem based on coherent superposition and equal modulus decomposition has shown to be robust against a specific attack. In this paper, we have shown that it is vulnerable to a newly designed attack. With this attack, an intruder is able to access the exact private key and obtain precise attack results using a phase retrieval algorithm. In addition, we have also proposed a security-enhanced asymmetric cryptosystem using a random decomposition technique and a 4f optical system. In the proposed system, random decomposition is employed to create an effective trapdoor one-way function. As a result, it is able to avoid various types of attacks and maintain the asymmetric characteristics of the cryptosystem. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the feasibility and robustness of the proposed method.

We provide an analysis of contemporary multilayer optics for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) solar astronomy in the wavelength ranges: λ=12.9–13.3 nm, λ=17–21 nm, λ=28–33 nm, and λ=58.4 nm. We found new material pairs, which will make new spaceborne experiments possible due to the high reflection efficiencies, spectral resolution, and long-term stabilities of the proposed multilayer coatings. In the spectral range λ=13 nm, Mo/Be multilayer mirrors were shown to demonstrate a better ratio of reflection efficiency and spectral resolution compared with the commonly used Mo/Si. In the spectral range λ=17–21 nm, a new multilayer structure Al/Si was proposed, which had higher spectral resolution along with comparable reflection efficiency compared with the commonly used Al/Zr multilayer structures. In the spectral range λ=30 nm, the Si/B4C/Mg/Cr multilayer structure turned out to best obey reflection efficiency and long-term stability. The B4C and Cr layers prevented mutual diffusion of the Si and Mg layers. For the spectral range λ=58 nm, a new multilayer Mo/Mg-based structure was developed;…

The Gemini Planet Imager's adaptive optics (AO) subsystem was designed specifically to facilitate high-contrast imaging. A definitive description of the system's algorithms and technologies as built is given. 564 AO telemetry measurements from the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey campaign are analyzed. The modal gain optimizer tracks changes in atmospheric conditions. Science observations show that image quality can be improved with the use of both the spatially filtered wavefront sensor and linear-quadratic-Gaussian control of vibration. The error budget indicates that for all targets and atmospheric conditions AO bandwidth error is the largest term.

We apply ultrafast pure-rotational coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) for temperature and relative oxygen concentration measurements in the plume emanating from a burning, aluminized ammonium-perchlorate propellant strand. Combustion of these metal-based propellants is a particularly hostile environment for laser-based diagnostics, with intense background luminosity and scattering from hot metal particles as large as several hundred micrometers in diameter. CARS spectra that were previously obtained using nanosecond pulsed lasers in an aluminum-particle-seeded flame are examined and are determined to be severely impacted by nonresonant background, presumably as a result of the plasma formed by particulate-enhanced laser-induced breakdown. Introduction of femtosecond/picosecond (fs/ps) laser pulses improves CARS detection by providing time-gated elimination of strong nonresonant background interference. Single-laser-shot fs/ps CARS spectra were acquired from the burning propellant plume, with picosecond probe-pulse delays of 0 and 16 ps from the femtosecond pump and Stokes…

An automatic method that fully compensates the quantitative phase measurements in off-axis digital holographic microscopy (DHM) is presented. The two main perturbations of the quantitative phase measurements in off-axis DHM are automatically removed. While the curvature phase flaw introduced by the microscope objective is avoided by the use of an optimized telecentric imaging system for the recording of the holograms, the remaining phase perturbation due to the tilt of the reference wave is removed by the automatic computation of a digital compensating reference wave. The method has been tested on both nonbiological and biological samples with and improving on the quality of the recovered phase maps.

Fourier transform profilometry (FTP) is one of the frequently adopted three-dimensional (3D) shape measurement methods due to its ability to recover single-shot 3D shapes, yet it is challenging to retrieve the absolute phase map solely from one single grayscale fringe image. This paper presents a computational framework that overcomes this limitation of FTP with digital fringe projection (DFP). By using geometric constraints, an absolute phase map can be retrieved point-by-point from one single grayscale fringe image. Experiments demonstrate the success of our proposed framework with single-shot absolute 3D shape measurement capability.

. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time such measurements are reported for the ocean.

A microbubble resonator (MBR) coupled with a fiber taper is packaged with low-index polymer. The cladding polymer serves as a protective matrix for the coupling system to avoid environmental disturbance. The packaged structure is portable and provides good performance to maintain high Q factors for a long working period. The hollow structure of the MBR makes the packaged system useful for practical chemical and biomedical sensing applications. To evaluate the performance of the packaged MBRs-based sensor, we carry out bulk refractive index and surface-sensing measurements with achieved sensitivities of 18.8 nm/RIU and 31.29 pm/nm, respectively.

We demonstrate a Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser using tungsten disulfide (WS₂) as a saturable absorber. The WS₂ is deposited onto fiber ferrules using a drop-casting method. Passive Q-switched pulses operating in the C-band region with a central wavelength of 1560.7 nm are successfully generated by a tunable pulse repetition rate ranging from 27.2 to 84.8 kHz when pump power is increased from 40 to 220 mW. At the same time, the pulse width decreases from a maximum value of 3.84 μs to a minimum value of 1.44 μs. The signal-to-noise ratio gives a stable value of 43.7 dB. The modulation depth and saturation intensity are measured to be 0.99% and 36.2 MW/cm², respectively.

Citrus canker and Huanglongbing (HLB) are citrus diseases that represent a serious threat to the citrus production worldwide and may cause large economic losses. In this work, we combined fluorescence imaging spectroscopy (FIS) and a machine learning technique to discriminate between these diseases and other ordinary citrus conditions that may be present at citrus orchards, such as citrus scab and zinc deficiency. Our classification results are highly accurate when discriminating citrus canker from citrus scab (97.8%), and HLB from zinc deficiency (95%). These results show that it is possible to accurately identify citrus diseases that present similar symptoms.

A ground-based, integrated path, differential absorption light detection and ranging (IPDA LIDAR) system is described and characterized for a series of nighttime studies of CO2, CH4, and H2O. The transmitter is based on an actively stabilized, continuous-wave, single-frequency external-cavity diode laser (ECDL) operating from 1.60 to 1.65 μm. The fixed frequency output of the ECDL is microwave sideband tuned using an electro-optical phase modulator driven by an arbitrary waveform generator and filtered using a confocal cavity to generate a sequence of 123 frequencies separated by 300 MHz. The scan sequence of single sideband frequencies of 600 ns duration covers a 37 GHz region at a spectral scan rate of 10 kHz (100 μs per scan). Simultaneously, an eye-safe backscatter LIDAR system at 1.064 μm is used to monitor the atmospheric boundary layer. IPDA LIDAR measurements of the CO2 and CH4 dry air mixing ratios are presented in comparison with those from a commercial cavity ring-down (CRD) instrument. Differences between the IPDA LIDAR and CRD concentrations in several cases appear to…

The 3D measurement system based on fringe patterns is widely applied in diverse fields. The measurement accuracy is mainly determined by camera and projector calibration accuracy. In the existing methods, the system is calibrated by a dot calibration board with traditional image process algorithms. In this paper, an improved calibration method is proposed to increase camera and projector calibration accuracy simultaneously. To this end, first, a subpixel edge detection method is proposed to improve the detection accuracy of reference features for coarse calibration; second, an iterative compensation algorithm is developed to improve the detection accuracy of the reference feature centers for fine calibration. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed calibration method can improve the calibration accuracy and measurement accuracy.

The functionality of poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)-based interferometric fiber sensors for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) detection is investigated and experimentally demonstrated. Two interferometric configurations are considered in this work, namely Fabry-Perot (FP) and Sagnac interferometers (SI). Both sensors are functionalized with a thin layer of VOC-sensitive polymer: PDMS, whose degree of swelling varies as a function of VOC concentrations. This swelling effect will result in an optical path length and birefringence modulation for FP and SI sensors, respectively. In this paper, the two common VOCs, ethanol and 2-propanol, were detected by the proposed sensor and the inverse matrix method was used to differentiate the VOC in gas mixture.

Energy efficiency and lighting quality considerations are driving research into laser-pumped white light sources. Laser diodes as pump sources for downconversion phosphors promise freedom from "droop" that adversely affects the efficiency of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). High-intensity laser diode-pumped light sources for applications such as search lights and automobile headlights have been demonstrated recently. Our paper describes the design and construction of a domestic/office-type solid-state luminaire driven by light from an integrated violet laser-diode module. A trichromatic phosphor made from a blend of separate europium-containing rare-earth phosphors was used as the downconversion medium. Mechanical and optical design of the reflector and the phosphor plate are described. Characteristics of both the pump light and the downconverted light are also described. Our studies also looked at the variation of chromaticity coordinates with variation in pump power and the effect of laser speckle on the lamp's light output. Finally, there is a brief discussion of energy conversion…

A new kind of helical long-period grating (HLPG) written by using a CO2 laser is proposed and experimentally demonstrated, in which a sapphire tube (to be used as a miniature oven with a constant temperature inside) is specially utilized in place of the commonly used ZnSe focused-lens. The proposed method allows fabrication of a HLPG in a thinned fiber with a diameter smaller than several tens of micrometers. As an application of this kind of HLPG, a unique fiber sensor that allows for temperature-insensitive measurement of the refractive index is proposed and experimentally demonstrated, which is based on utilization of two cascaded HLPGs but with different transverse diameters.

We demonstrate a high-power, high-efficiency Raman fiber laser pumped directly by laser diode modules at 978 nm. 154 W of CW power were obtained at a wavelength of 1023 nm with an optical to optical efficiency of 65%. A commercial graded-index (GRIN) core fiber acts as the Raman fiber in a power oscillator configuration, which includes spectral selection to prevent generation of the second Stokes. In addition, brightness enhancement of the pump beam by a factor of 8.4 is attained due to the Raman gain distribution profile in the GRIN fiber. To the best of our knowledge this is the highest power and highest efficiency Raman fiber laser demonstrated in any configuration allowing brightness enhancement (i.e., in either cladding-pumped configuration or with GRIN fibers, excluding step-index core pumped), regardless of pumping scheme (i.e., either diode pumped or fiber laser pumped).

In the field of automatic optical inspection, it is imperative to measure the defects on spherical optical surfaces. So a novel spherical surface defect evaluation system is established in this paper to evaluate defects on optical spheres. In order to ensure the microscopic scattering dark-field imaging of optical spheres with different surface shape and radius of curvature, illumination with variable aperture angle is employed. In addition, the scanning path of subapertures along the parallels and meridians is planned to detect the large optical spheres. Since analysis shows that the spherical defect information could be lost in the optical imaging, the three-dimensional correction based on a pin-hole model is proposed to recover the actual spherical defects from the captured two-dimensional images. Given the difficulty of subaperture stitching and defect feature extraction in three-dimensional (3D) space after the correction, the 3D subapertures are transformed into a plane to be spliced through geometric projection. Then, methods of the surface integral and calibration are…

A hybrid approach for fast occlusion processing in computer-generated hologram calculation is studied in this paper. The proposed method is based on the combination of two commonly used approaches that complement one another: the point-source and wave-field approaches. By using these two approaches together, the proposed method thus takes advantage of both of them. In this method, the 3D scene is first sliced into several depth layers parallel to the hologram plane. Light scattered by the scene is then propagated and shielded from one layer to another using either a point-source or a wave-field approach according to a threshold criterion on the number of points within the layer. Finally, the hologram is obtained by computing the propagation of light from the nearest layer to the hologram plane. Experimental results reveal that the proposed method does not produce any visible artifact and outperforms both the point-source and wave-field approaches.

We propose an efficient algorithm using layered holographic stereogram for three-dimensional (3D) computer-generated holograms. The hologram is spatially partitioned into multiple holographic elements (hogels) to provide the occlusion effect and motion parallax by use of multiple viewpoint rendering. Each hogel is calculated with inverse Fresnel diffraction by slicing the viewing frustum according to the depth image. The sliced layers can provide accurate depth cues for reconstruction since the geometric information of the 3D scene is faithfully matched. The algorithm is compatible with computer graphics rendering techniques and robust for holograms with different parameters. When the hogel size equals 1 mm, the signal-to-noise ratio of the diffraction calculation is above 39 dB with a propagation distance longer than 10 mm. Numerical simulations and optical experiments have demonstrated that the proposed method can reconstruct quality 3D images with reduced computational load.

Speckle is the main obstacle for the use of laser light sources in projection technology. This paper focuses on speckle suppression by the reduction of temporal coherence which is provided by the broadband laser light. The investigation of the effect of laser spectrum width and multiple lasers on speckle contrast is discussed. A broader spectrum width of the laser light is attained by the use of multiple semiconductor laser diodes of the broad area type. Measurements of speckle contrast with and without angle diversity are performed for two and four laser diodes. The measurement of speckle contrast for a single laser diode is also presented for comparison. The experimental results show that multiple laser diodes provide lower speckle contrast as compared to a single laser diode. In addition, it is also shown in this paper that the wavelength distribution of independent laser diodes has an effect on speckle contrast. Two different types of blue laser diodes, Nichia NUB802T and Nichia NUB801E, which have slightly different central wavelengths, were used for the measurements. Four…

We use the numerically exact (superposition) T-matrix method to analyze recent measurements of the backscattering linear depolarization ratio (LDR) for a plume of aged smoke at lidar wavelengths ranging from 355 to 1064 nm. We show that the unique spectral dependence of the measured LDRs can be modeled, but only by assuming expressly nonspherical morphologies of smoke particles containing substantial amounts of nonabsorbing (or weakly absorbing) refractory materials such as sulfates. Our results demonstrate that spectral backscattering LDR measurements can be indicative of the presence of morphologically complex smoke particles, but additional (e.g., passive polarimetric or bistatic lidar) measurements may be required for a definitive characterization of the particle morphology and composition.

A novel porous-core photonic crystal fiber is presented, and its guiding properties are numerically investigated by using the finite element method. It is demonstrated that by introducing a rhombic-shaped core made of circular air holes inside the conventional hexagonal cladding, it is possible to obtain very low bending loss of 3.04×10−11 cm−1 at the operating frequency of 1.0 THz. In addition to this, low effective material loss of 0.089 cm−1 and very small confinement loss of 1.17×10−3 dB/cm are achieved for optimal design parameters. Other guiding properties, including effective area, dispersion, and higher order mode characteristics are also discussed thoroughly. The design of this porous fiber is relatively simple, since it contains fewer air holes and consists of circular air holes only. Due to promising wave-guiding properties, the proposed fiber would have a great potential for terahertz imaging and flexible communication applications.

Polarimetric dehazing methods have proven effective in enhancing the quality of chromatic hazy images. Considering that the infrared radiance has a better capacity for traveling through the haze, in this paper we propose a polarimetric dehazing method based on visible and infrared image fusion to improve the visibility of hazy images, especially for dense haze conditions. Experimental results demonstrate that the visibility of hazy images can be effectively enhanced, and the color information can be finely maintained. The visibility of dehazed images can be promoted at least 100%. This kind of dehazing method can be used widely in many dehazing applications.