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Register a new userUltra-sensitive measurement of transverse displacements with structured light
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Added by
Vincenzo D'Ambrosio
Publication date
2021
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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Accurately measuring mechanical displacements is essential for a vast portion of current technologies. Several optical techniques accomplish this task, allowing for non-contact sensing even below the diffraction limit. Here we introduce an optical encoding technique, dubbed linear photonic gears, that enables ultra-sensitive measurements of transverse displacements by mapping these into polarization rotations of a laser beam. In ordinary ambient conditions, we measure the relative shift between two objects with a resolution of 400 pm. We argue that a resolution of 50 pm should be achievable with existing state-of-the-art technologies. Our single-optical-path scheme is intrinsically stable and it could be implemented as a compact sensor, using integrated optics. We anticipate it may have a strong impact on both research and industry.
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The use of structured light beams to detect the velocity of targets moving perpendicularly to the beams propagation axis opens new avenues for remote sensing of moving objects. However, determining the direction of motion is still a challenge since detection is usually done by means of an interferometric setup which only provides an absolute value of the frequency shift. Here, we put forward a novel method that addresses this issue. It uses dynamic control of the phase in the transverse plane of the structured light beam so that the direction of the particles movement can be deduced. This is done by noting the change in the magnitude of the frequency shift as the transverse phase of the structured light is moved appropriately. We demonstrate our method with rotating micro-particles that are illuminated by a Laguerre-Gaussian beam with a rotating phase about its propagation axis. Our method, which only requires a dynamically configurable optical beam generator, can easily be used with other types of motion by appropriate engineering and dynamic modulation of the phase of the light beam.
An improvement of the scheme by Brunner and Simon [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 010405 (2010)] is proposed in order to show that quantum weak measurements can provide a method to detect ultrasmall longitudinal phase shifts, even with white light. By performing an analysis in the frequency domain, we find that the amplification effect will work as long as the spectrum is large enough, irrespective of the behavior in the time domain. As such, the previous scheme can be notably simplified for experimental implementations.
Optical trapping describes the interaction between light and matter to manipulate micro-objects through momentum transfer. In the case of 3D trapping with a single beam, this is termed optical tweezers. Optical tweezers are a powerful and non-invasive tool for manipulating small objects, which have become indispensable in many fields, including physics, biology, soft condensed matter, amongst others. In the early days, optical trapping were typically used with a single Gaussian beam. In recent years, we have witnessed the rapid progress in the use of structured light beams with customized phase, amplitude and polarization in optical trapping. Unusual beam properties, such as phase singularities on-axis, propagation invariant nature, have opened up novel capabilities to the study of micromanipulation in liquid, air and vacuum. In this review, we summarize the recent advances in the field of optical trapping using structured light beams.
Quantum spin-Hall effect, a manifestation of topological properties that govern the behavior of surface states, was studied intensively in condensed matter physics resulting in the discovery of topological insulators. The quantum spin-Hall effect of light was introduced for surface plane-waves which intrinsically carry transverse optical spin, leading to many intriguing phenomena and applications in unidirectional waveguiding, metrology and quantum technologies. In addition to spin, optical waves can exhibit complex topological properties of vectorial electromagnetic fields, associated with orbital angular momentum or nonuniform intensity variations. Here, by considering both spin and angular momentum, we demonstrate a generalized spin-momentum relationship that governs vectorial properties of guided electromagnetic waves, extending optical quantum spin-Hall effect to a two-dimensional vector field of structured guided wave. The effect results in the appearance of the out-of-plane transverse optical spins, which vary progressively from the up state to the down state around the energy flow, and their variation is uniquely locked to the energy propagation direction. The related spin-momentum locking in a chiral spin swirl is demonstrated with four kinds of surface structured waves and proven both theoretically and experimentally. The results provide understanding of the spin dynamics in electromagnetic guided waves and show great importance in spin optics, topological photonics and optical spin-based devices and techniques.
We demonstrate the coherent frequency conversion of structured light, optical beams in which the phase varies in each point of the transverse plane, from the near infrared (803nm) to the visible (527nm). The frequency conversion process makes use of sum-frequency generation in a periodically poled lithium niobate (ppLN) crystal with the help of a 1540-nm Gaussian pump beam. We perform far-field intensity measurements of the frequency-converted field, and verify the sought-after transformation of the characteristic intensity and phase profiles for various input modes. The coherence of the frequency-conversion process is confirmed using a mode-projection technique with a phase mask and a single-mode fiber. The presented results could be of great relevance to novel applications in high-resolution microscopy and quantum information processing.
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