No Arabic abstract
Optical sensing is one of the key-enablers of modern diagnostics. Especially label-free imaging modalities hold great promise as they eliminate labeling procedures prior to analysis. However, scattering signals of nanometric particles scale with their volume-square. This unfavorable scaling makes it extremely difficult to quantitatively characterize intrinsically heterogeneous clinical samples, such as extracellular vesicles, as their signal variation easily exceeds the dynamic range of currently available cameras. Here, we introduce off-axis k-space holography that circumvents this limitation. By imaging the back-focal-plane of our microscope we project the scattering signal of all particles onto all camera pixels thus dramatically boosting the achievable dynamic range to up-to 110 dB. We validate our platform by detecting, and quantitatively sizing, metallic and dielectric particles over a 200x200 $mu$m field-of-view and demonstrate that independently performed signal calibrations allow correctly sizing particles made from different materials. Finally, we present quantitative size-distributions of extracellular vesicle samples.
Metasurface-based color display and holography have greatly advanced the state of the art display technologies. To further enrich the metasurface functionalities, recently a lot of research endeavors have been made to combine these two display functions within a single device. However, so far such metasurfaces have remained static and lack tunability once the devices are fabricated. In this work, we demonstrate a dynamic dual-function metasurface device at visible frequencies. It allows for switching between dynamic holography and dynamic color display, taking advantage of the reversible phase transition of magnesium through hydrogenation and dehydrogenation. Spatially arranged stepwise nanocavity pixels are employed to accurately control the amplitude and phase of light, enabling the generation of high-quality color prints and holograms. Our work represents a paradigm toward compact and multifunctional optical elements for future display technologies.
Efficient hybrid plasmonic-photonic metasurfaces that simultaneously take advantage of the potential of both pure metallic and all-dielectric nanoantennas are identified as an emerging technology in flat optics. Nevertheless, post-fabrication tunable hybrid metasurfaces are still elusive. Here, we present a reconfigurable hybrid metasurface platform by incorporating the phase-change material Ge$_{2}$Sb$_{2}$Te$_{5}$ (GST) into metal-dielectric meta-atoms for active and non-volatile tuning of properties of light. We systematically design a reduced-dimension meta-atom, which selectively controls the fundamental hybrid plasmonic-photonic resonances of the metasurface via the dynamic change of optical constants of GST without compromising the scattering efficiency. As a proof-of-concept, we experimentally demonstrate miniaturized tunable metasurfaces that control the amplitude and phase of incident light necessary for high-contrast optical switching and anomalous to specular beam deflection, respectively. Finally, we leverage a deep learning-based approach to present an intuitive low-dimensional visualization of the enhanced range of response reconfiguration enabled by the addition of GST. Our findings further substantiate dynamically tunable hybrid metasurfaces as promising candidates for the development of small-footprint energy harvesting, imaging, and optical signal processing devices.
Optical focusing through/inside scattering media, like multimode fiber and biological tissues, has significant impact in biomedicine yet considered challenging due to strong scattering nature of light. Previously, promising progress has been made, benefiting from the iterative optical wavefront shaping, with which deep-tissue high-resolution optical focusing becomes possible. Most of iterative algorithms can overcome noise perturbations but fail to effectively adapt beyond the noise, e.g. sudden strong perturbations. Re-optimizations are usually needed for significant decorrelated medium since these algorithms heavily rely on the optimization in the previous iterations. Such ineffectiveness is probably due to the absence of a metric that can gauge the deviation of the instant wavefront from the optimum compensation based on the concurrently measured optical focusing. In this study, a square rule of binary-amplitude modulation, directly relating the measured focusing performance with the error in the optimized wavefront, is theoretically proved and experimentally validated. With this simple rule, it is feasible to quantify how many pixels on the spatial light modulator incorrectly modulate the wavefront for the instant status of the medium or the whole system. As an example of application, we propose a novel algorithm, dynamic mutation algorithm, with high adaptability against perturbations by probing how far the optimization has gone toward the theoretically optimum. The diminished focus of scattered light can be effectively recovered when perturbations to the medium cause significant drop of the focusing performance, which no existing algorithms can achieve due to their inherent strong dependence on previous optimizations. With further improvement, this study may boost or inspire many applications, like high-resolution imaging and stimulation, in instable scattering environments.
We present a new method for real- and complex-valued image reconstruction from two intensity measurements made in the Fourier plane: the Fourier magnitude of the unknown image, and the intensity of the interference pattern arising from superimposition of the original signal with a reference beam. This approach can provide significant advantages in digital holography since it poses less stringent requirements on the reference beam. In particular, it does not require spatial separation between the sought signal and the reference beam. Moreover, the reference beam need not be known precisely, and in fact, may contain severe errors, without leading to a deterioration in the reconstruction quality. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the speed and quality of reconstruction.
We report on a tunable all-optical delay line for pulses with optical frequency within the Rb $D_2$ absorption line. Using frequency tuning between absorption components from different isotopes, pulses of 10 ns duration are delayed in a 10 cm hot vapour cell by up to 40 ns while the transmission remains above 10%. The use of two isotopes allows the delay to be increased or decreased by optical pumping with a second laser, producing rapid tuning over a range of more than 40% of the initial delay at 110$^{circ}$C. We investigate the frequency and intensity ranges in which this delay line can be realised. Our observations are in good agreement with a numerical model of the system.