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Register a new userUsing Graph Theory and a Plenoptic Sensor to Recognize Phase Distortions of a Laser Beam
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Atmospheric turbulence causes fluctuations in the local refractive index of air that accumulatively disturb a waves phase and amplitude distribution as it propagates. This impairs the effective range of laser weapons as well as the performance of free space optical (FSO) communication systems. Adaptive optics (AO) can be applied to effectively correct wavefront distortions in weak turbulence situations. However, in strong or deep turbulence, where scintillation and beam breakup are common phenomena, traditional wavefront sensing techniques such as the use of Shack-Hartmann sensors lead to incorrect results. Consequently, the performance of AO systems will be greatly compromised. We propose a new approach that can determine the major phase distortions in a beam instantaneously and guide an AO device to compensate for the phase distortion in a few iterations. In our approach, we use a plenoptic wavefront sensor to image the distorted beam into its 4D phase space. A fast reconstruction algorithm based on graph theory is applied to recognize the phase distortion of a laser beam and command the AO device to perform phase compensation. As a result, we show in our experiments that an arbitrary phase distortion with peak to peak value up to 22{pi} can be corrected within a few iteration steps. Scintillation and branch point problems are smartly avoided by the plenoptic sensor and its fast reconstruction algorithm. In this article, we will demonstrate the function of the plenoptic sensor, the fast reconstruction algorithm as well as the beam correction improvements when our approach is applied to an AO system.
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We have designed a plenoptic sensor to retrieve phase and amplitude changes resulting from a laser beams propagation through atmospheric turbulence. Compared with the commonly restricted domain of (-pi, pi) in phase reconstruction by interferometers, the reconstructed phase obtained by the plenoptic sensors can be continuous up to a multiple of 2pi. When compared with conventional Shack-Hartmann sensors, ambiguities caused by interference or low intensity, such as branch points and branch cuts, are less likely to happen and can be adaptively avoided by our reconstruction algorithm. In the design of our plenoptic sensor, we modified the fundamental structure of a light field camera into a mini Keplerian telescope array by accurately cascading the back focal plane of its object lens with a microlens arrays front focal plane and matching the numerical aperture of both components. Unlike light field cameras designed for incoherent imaging purposes, our plenoptic sensor operates on the complex amplitude of the incident beam and distributes it into a matrix of images that are simpler and less subject to interference than a global image of the beam. Then, with the proposed reconstruction algorithms, the plenoptic sensor is able to reconstruct the wavefront and a phase screen at an appropriate depth in the field that causes the equivalent distortion on the beam. The reconstructed results can be used to guide adaptive optics systems in directing beam propagation through atmospheric turbulence. In this paper we will show the theoretical analysis and experimental results obtained with the plenoptic sensor and its reconstruction algorithms.
Injection locking is a well known and commonly used method for coherent light amplification. Usually injection locking is done with a single-frequency seeding beam. In this work we show that injection locking may also be achieved in the case of multi-frequency seeding beam when slave laser provides sufficient frequency filtering. One relevant parameter turns out to be the frequency detuning between the free running slave laser and each injected frequency component. Stable selective locking to a set of three components separated of $1.2,$GHz is obtained for (positive) detuning values between zero and $1.5,$GHz depending on seeding power (ranging from 10 to 150 microwatt). This result suggests that, using distinct slave lasers for each line, a set of mutually coherent narrow-linewidth high-power radiation modes can be obtained.
We present a new flexible high speed laser scanning confocal microscope and its extension by an astigmatism particle tracking device (APTV). Many standard confocal microscopes use either a single laser beam to scan the sample at relatively low overall frame rate, or many laser beam to simultaneously scan the sample and achieve a high overall frame rate. Single-laser-beam confocal microscope often use a point detector to acquire the image. To achieve high overall frame rates, we use, next to the standard 2D probe scanning unit, a second 2D scan unit projecting the image directly on a 2D CCD-sensor (re-scan configuration). Using only a single laser beam eliminates cross-talk and leads to an imaging quality that is independent of the frame rate with a lateral resolution of 0.235unit{mu m}. The design described here is suitable for high frame rate, i.e., for frame rates well above video rate (full frame) up to a line rate of 32kHz. The dwell time of the laser focus on any spot in the sample (122ns) is significantly shorter than in standard confocal microscopes (in the order of milli or microseconds). This short dwell time reduces phototoxicity and bleaching of fluorescent molecules. The new design opens further flexibility and facilitates coupling to other optical methods. The setup can easily be extended by an APTV device to measure three dimensional dynamics while being able to show high resolution confocal structures. Thus one can use the high resolution confocal information synchronized with an APTV dataset.
Conventional nano-photonic schemes minimise multiple scattering to realise a miniaturised version of beam-splitters, interferometers and optical cavities for light propagation and lasing. Here instead, we introduce a nanophotonic network built from multiple paths and interference, to control and enhance light-matter interaction via light localisation. The network is built from a mesh of subwavelength waveguides, and can sustain localised modes and mirror-less light trapping stemming from interference over hundreds of nodes. With optical gain, these modes can easily lase, reaching $sim$100 pm linewidths. We introduce a graph solution to the Maxwells equation which describes light on the network, and predicts lasing action. In this framework, the network optical modes can be designed via the network connectivity and topology, and lasing can be tailored and enhanced by the network shape. Nanophotonic networks pave the way for new laser device architectures, which can be used for sensitive biosensing and on-chip optical information processing.
The control of the optical quality of a laser beam requires a complex amplitude measurement able to deal with strong modulus variations and potentially highly perturbed wavefronts. The method proposed here consists in an extension of phase diversity to complex amplitude measurements that is effective for highly perturbed beams. Named CAMELOT for Complex Amplitude MEasurement by a Likelihood Optimization Tool, it relies on the acquisition and processing of few images of the beam section taken along the optical path. The complex amplitude of the beam is retrieved from the images by the minimization of a Maximum a Posteriori error metric between the images and a model of the beam propagation. The analytical formalism of the method and its experimental validation are presented. The modulus of the beam is compared to a measurement of the beam profile, the phase of the beam is compared to a conventional phase diversity estimate. The precision of the experimental measurements is investigated by numerical simulations.
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