This PDF file contains the editorial “Significance, Originality, and Literature Review” for OE Vol. 53 Issue 11

Single wavelength TV holography is a widely used whole-field noncontacting optical method for nondestructive testing (NDT) of engineering structures. However, with a single wavelength configuration, it is difficult to quantify the large amplitude defects due to the overcrowding of fringes in the defect location. In this work, we propose a two wavelength microscopic TV holography using a single-chip color charge-coupled device (CCD) camera for NDT of microspecimens. The use of a color CCD allows simultaneous acquisition of speckle patterns at two different wavelengths and makes the data acquisition as simple as that of the single wavelength case. For the quantitative measurement of the defect, an error compensating eight-step phase-shifted algorithm is used. The design of the system and a few experimental results on small-scale rough specimens are presented.

It is demonstrated that audio information can be extracted from silent high-speed video with a simple and fast optical technique. The basic principle is that the sound waves can stimulate objects encountered in the traveling path to vibrate. The vibrations, although usually with small amplitudes, can be detected by using an image matching process. The proposed technique applies a subset-based image correlation approach to detect the motions of points on the surface of an object. It employs the Gauss-Newton algorithm and a few other measures to achieve very fast and highly accurate image matching. Because the detected vibrations are directly related to the sound waves, a simple model is introduced to reconstruct the original audio information of the sound waves. The proposed technique is robust and easy to implement, and its effectiveness has been verified by experiments.

Recent innovations in computational and electronic technologies have drastically enhanced the three-dimensional (3-D) optical metrology field in terms of measuring speed and accuracy, as well as expanded applications. High-speed 3-D optical metrology is a platform technology that could benefit numerous scientific studies and engineering concerns including but not limited to manufacturing, medical sciences, robotics, etc.

In this study, an optical system capable of simultaneously grabbing three phase-shifted interferometric images was developed for dynamic temperature field measurements of a thin flame. The polarization phase-shifting technique and a Michelson interferometer that is coupled to a 4-f system with a Ronchi grating placed at the frequency plane are used. This configuration permits the phase-shifted interferograms to be grabbed simultaneously by one CCD. The temperature field measurement is based on measuring the refraction index difference by solving the inverse Abel transform, which requires information obtained by the fringe order localization. The phase map is retrieved by a three-step algorithm. Experimental results of a dynamic thin flame are presented.

To reduce accuracy lost in the calibration process for high-precision optical systems using interferometry, an approach is proposed to detect checkerboard corners based on the level set evolution principle. Compared with existing corner detection methods, no image gradients are required for segmentation of checkerboard patterns. It has the capability of doing corner detection for the images acquired under more complex imaging environments, like underwater, low-contrast, blurred, and heavily distorted images. In addition, no iteration is required in the level set evolution procedure, and a fast speed is achieved. In this implementation, the grids that consist of a checkerboard pattern are first found as level set curves by segmenting the checkerboard pattern image. Then, noting that checkers might be recognized as quadrangles, the four corners of a quadrangle can be located by checking the varying of points of its boundary in slope. Alternatively, they also could be located according to the maximal distance at specific orientations between a point and the center of the closed curve. Finally, several experiment results are presented to validate the proposed approach and to demonstrate its robustness and correctness.

A method for improving the measuring accuracy of structured light measurement system, which adopts projecting stripe pattern to measure the three-dimensional profile, is presented. Based on the evaluation of the reliability of center extraction results, the improvement of accuracy is achieved by identifying and rejecting the stripe center extraction results with large error. Two parameters are used to evaluate the reliability of center extraction results. The first parameter is the average energy of the stripe, which is used to analyze and establish the relationship between the extraction accuracy and the signal-to-noise ratio through a statistical method. The second parameter is the asymmetric degree of the stripe gray distribution which introduces error into the center extraction, and a new method is proposed for measuring the asymmetric degree. Then, the criteria of the data rejection defined by the thresholds are presented, and large error data with low reliability are identified according to the thresholds. Higher measuring accuracy is achieved by rejecting the identified data. The validity of the method has been proved by experiments.

Statistical patterns have been used for structured illumination within a stereo-photogrammetry setup to precisely measure the shape of nearly arbitrary objects in a short time. This contribution gives an overview of recently developed projection setups based on such statistical patterns. Coherent and incoherent approaches as well as the applied reconstruction algorithm are explained. The results show the suitability of the statistical pattern projection approach to replace the commonly used slow digital light processing (DLP) projectors of three-dimensional shape sensors and facilitate measurements in an ultrashort time frame (microsecond range), e.g., to track moving objects.

Decade-long research efforts toward superfast three-dimensional (3-D) shape measurement leveraging the digital micromirror device (DMD) platforms are summarized. Specifically, we will present the following technologies: (1) high-resolution real-time 3-D shape measurement technology that achieves 30 Hz simultaneous 3-D shape acquisition, reconstruction, and display with more than 300,000 points per frame; (2) superfast 3-D optical metrology technology that achieves 3-D measurement at a rate of tens of kilohertz utilizing the binary defocusing method we invented; and (3) the improvement of the binary defocusing technology for superfast and high-accuracy 3-D optical metrology using the DMD platforms. Both principles and experimental results are presented.

Phase shifting using digital light processing (DLP) projectors enables high-speed three-dimensional (3-D) shape measurements based on a pattern projection method. However, faster phase shifting is required in industry to reduce the measurement time. For this purpose, it is necessary to precisely control the fringe pattern, but conventional DLP projectors afford limited control of the pattern due to their low-refresh rate (typically 120 Hz). Here, a multiwavelength spatiotemporal phase-shifting technique is proposed for faster 3-D shape measurements using a 3CCD camera. The projector consists of a single micro-electro-mechanical system mirror and three laser diodes of different wavelengths. The intensity modulation is transformed from the time to the spatial domain. The phases of the fringe patterns are independently controlled at each wavelength. Images are simultaneously captured of the projected patterns deformed in accord with the surface profile of the objective. The method is validated using a gray code technique for the height measurement of a sample in large steps.

Three-dimensional (3-D) measurement systems based on coded-light techniques are conventionally limited by the projection speed, which is typically in the range of a few 100 Hz, resulting in 3-D frame rates of 1 to 60 Hz. We propose to use an array projector for 3-D shape measurements, which enables much higher projection frame rates of up to the 100-kHz range. In contrast to previous setups, it does not project well-known phase-shifted sinusoidal fringes and Gray code patterns, but aperiodic sinusoidal fringes. This new technique, based on sine-shaped fringes with spatially and temporally varying offset, amplitude, period length, and phase shift, allows accurate 3-D measurement of objects, even with sharp edges, high slope, or varying surface properties, at high speed up to the kilohertz range. This paper explains the 3-D measurement principle and the basic design of an array projector that projects aperiodic sinusoidal fringes. It verifies the consistency between specified and projected patterns and points out the results of the setup’s characterization, e.g., of its high-speed capability. Furthermore, first 3-D shape measurements at a projection frame rate of 3 kHz resulting in a 3-D frame rate of <330  Hz are presented and evaluated.

A shape signature based on surface Ricci flow and optimal mass transportation is introduced for the purpose of surface comparison. First, the surface is conformally mapped onto plane by Ricci flow, which induces a measure on the planar domain. Second, the unique optimal mass transport map is computed that transports the new measure to the canonical measure on the plane. The map is obtained by a convex optimization process. This optimal transport map encodes all the information of the Riemannian metric on the surface. The shape signature consists of the optimal transport map, together with the mean curvature, which can fully recover the original surface. The discrete theories of surface Ricci flow and optimal mass transportation are explained thoroughly. The algorithms are given in detail. The signature is tested on human facial surfaces with different expressions accquired by structured light 3-D scanner based on phase-shifting method. The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and efficacy of the method.

Structured-light (SL) techniques are emerging as popular noncontact approaches for obtaining three-dimensional (3-D) measurements of complex objects for real-time applications in manufacturing, bioengineering, and robotics. The performance of SL systems is determined by the emitting (i.e., projector) and capturing (i.e., camera) hardware components and the triangulation configuration between them and an object of interest. A generic design methodology is presented to determine optimal triangulation configurations for SL systems. These optimal configurations are determined with respect to a set of performance metrics: (1) minimizing the 3-D reconstruction errors, (2) maximizing the pixel-to-pixel correspondence between the projector and camera, and (3) maximizing the dispersion of the measured 3-D points within a measurement volume, while satisfying design constraints based on hardware and user-defined specifications. The proposed methodology utilizes a 3-D geometric triangulation model based on ray-tracing geometry and pin-hole models for the projector and camera. Using the methodology, a set of optimal system configurations can be determined for a given set of hardware components. The design methodology was applied to a real-time SL system for surface profiling of complex objects. Experiments were conducted with an optimal sensor configuration and its performance verified with respect to a nonoptimal hardware configuration.

Fringe pattern profilometry using triangular patterns and intensity ratios is a robust and computationally efficient method in three-dimensional shape measurement technique. However, similar to other multiple-shot techniques, the object must be kept static during the process of measurement, which is a challenging requirement for the case of fast-moving objects. Errors will be introduced if the traditional multiple-shot techniques are used directly in the measurement of a moving object. A new method is proposed to address this issue. First, the movement of the object is measured in real time and described by the rotation matrix and translation vector. Then, the expressions are derived for the fringe patterns under the influence of the two-dimensional movement of the object, based on which the normalized fringe patterns from the object without movement are estimated. Finally, the object is reconstructed using the existing intensity ratio algorithm incorporating the fringe patterns estimated, leading to improved measurement accuracy. The performance of the proposed method is verified by experiments.

Digital holography offers a method of high-resolution imaging of microscopic particles and organisms in their natural environment. Automated image extraction and data processing are essential for rapid interrogation and analysis of the vast amounts of information contained in a typical hologram. In this work, we describe a robust-automated particle focusing approach, which we have developed to extract outlines of all particles contained within the sampling volume of each hologram constituting a “holovideo.” The output data consists of ordered point-lists delineating polygons that match particle outlines and facilitate further processing such as extraction of focused images from the holograms themselves. The algorithm developed allows the reduction of, typically, a 2-GB holovideo to tens of megabytes, thereby greatly reducing analysis time by allowing rapid scanning of the contoured images without manual focusing. The algorithm has been demonstrated on synthetic and laboratory holograms and applied to holographic videos recorded in the North Sea. The algorithm output also lends itself to further automated analysis techniques like particle tracking or automated recognition.

An optical three-dimensional (3-D) sensor based on a fringe projection technique that realizes the acquisition of the surface geometry of small objects was developed for highly resolved and ultrafast measurements. It realizes a data acquisition rate up to 60 high-resolution 3-D datasets per second. The high measurement velocity was achieved by consequent fringe code reduction and parallel data processing. The reduction of the length of the fringe image sequence was obtained by omission of the Gray code sequence using the geometric restrictions of the measurement objects and the geometric constraints of the sensor arrangement. The sensor covers three different measurement fields between 20  mm×20  mm and 40  mm×40  mm with a spatial resolution between 10 and 20 μm, respectively. In order to obtain a robust and fast recalibration of the sensor after change of the measurement field, a calibration procedure based on single shot analysis of a special test object was applied which works with low effort and time. The sensor may be used, e.g., for quality inspection of conductor boards or plugs in real-time industrial applications.

The multiview phase-shifting method shows its powerful capability in achieving high resolution three-dimensional (3-D) shape measurement. Unfortunately, this ability results in very high computation costs and 3-D computations have to be processed offline. To realize real-time 3-D shape measurement, a hybrid parallel computing architecture is proposed for multiview phase shifting. In this architecture, the central processing unit can co-operate with the graphic processing unit (GPU) to achieve hybrid parallel computing. The high computation cost procedures, including lens distortion rectification, phase computation, correspondence, and 3-D reconstruction, are implemented in GPU, and a three-layer kernel function model is designed to simultaneously realize coarse-grained and fine-grained paralleling computing. Experimental results verify that the developed system can perform 50 fps (frame per second) real-time 3-D measurement with 260 K 3-D points per frame. A speedup of up to 180 times is obtained for the performance of the proposed technique using a NVIDIA GT560Ti graphics card rather than a sequential C in a 3.4 GHZ Inter Core i7 3770.

The use of structured light illumination techniques for three-dimensional (3-D) data acquisition is, in many cases, limited to stationary objects due to the multiple pattern projections needed for depth analysis. High speed N -pattern projections require synchronization between the camera and the projector and have the added expense of these high speed devices. The composite pattern (CP) method allows multiple structured light patterns to be combined via spatial frequency modulation, thereby enabling measurement and rendering of a 3-D surface model of an object using only a single pattern. The capture speed of a single pattern does not require synchronization and is only limited by the camera speed which is N times less than the N -pattern techniques. When used on partially translucent materials such as human skin, the CP weighting is corrupted thereby degrading the 3-D reconstruction. The method described herein, termed modified CP, extends the CP design with the addition of a stripe encoding pattern to be insensitive to the internal scattering of human skin. This stripe pattern, used in conjunction with a new spatial processing method, allows for less contrast sensitivity, less sensitivity to human skin spatial frequency response and thus higher resolution performance. The resolution performance is experimentally measured based on a measure our group has developed, referred to as the depth matched transfer function. Measurements and practical applications are demonstrated.

This PDF file contains the editorial “Special Section Guest Editorial: Practical Holography: New Procedures, Materials, and Applications” for OE Vol. 53 Issue 11

A holographic TV system based on multiview image and depth map coding and the analysis of coding noise effects in reconstructed images is proposed. A major problem for holographic TV systems is the huge amount of data that must be transmitted. It has been shown that this problem can be solved by capturing a three-dimensional scene with multiview cameras, deriving depth maps from multiview images or directly capturing them, encoding and transmitting the multiview images and depth maps, and generating holograms at the receiver side. This method shows the same subjective image quality as hologram data transmission with about 1/97000 of the data rate. Speckle noise, which masks coding noise when the coded bit rate is not extremely low, is shown to be the main determinant of reconstructed holographic image quality.

We investigate a two-wavelength method for recording a persistent hologram in a doped photopolymer. The recording method is based on two separated optical excitations of the four-energy-level system of the doped element, one at λ=325  nm as the sensitizing wavelength and the other at λ=647  nm as the writing wavelength, allowing for an experimental demonstration of nondestructive readout in phenanthrenequinone-doped poly(methyl methacrylate). Further, a four-energy-level rate equations model is proposed for describing the dynamics of hologram recording. The model successfully explains our experimental finding and further provides a general method to investigate such a two-wavelength holographic recording in photopolymer.

A three-dimensional (3-D) display system for medical objects by holographic technique has been developed. A shiftable cylindrical lens is introduced to refract the 3-D images projected from the spatial light modulator. The viewing region of the refracted image changes with the position of the cylindrical lens. Through an imaging lens, the refracted images with different viewing regions are imaged into the same target object and a 3-D medical display with an enlarged viewing angle is implemented based on time-multiplexing method. The displayed object can be viewed within 17 deg at the front of the display.

A study of clarinet reeds demonstrates the capabilities of digital holography for identification and measurement of vibration modes, measurement of static displacement and creep, and measurement of shape profile. Three types of synthetic reeds were examined together with a number of cane reeds both wet and dry. It is shown that the synthetic reeds have fundamental vibration mode frequencies that are lower than those of natural cane reeds. The fundamental modes of cane reeds all lie above the range of notes played by the instrument whereas those of synthetic reeds do not. Examination of static displacements due to steady air flow showed creep effects due to inelasticity. Finally, projected fringes were used to measure the reed profile.

Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) is a potent tool to perform three-dimensional imaging and tracking. We present a review of the state-of-the-art of DHM for three-dimensional profiling and tracking with emphasis on DHM techniques, reconstruction criteria for three-dimensional profiling and tracking, and their applications in various branches of science, including biomedical microscopy, particle imaging velocimetry, micrometrology, and holographic tomography, to name but a few. First, several representative DHM configurations are summarized and brief descriptions of DHM processes are given. Then we describe and compare the reconstruction criteria to obtain three-dimensional profiles and four-dimensional trajectories of objects. Details of the simulated and experimental evidences of DHM techniques and related reconstruction algorithms on particles, biological cells, fibers, etc., with different shapes, sizes, and conditions are also provided. The review concludes with a summary of techniques and applications of three-dimensional imaging and four-dimensional tracking by DHM.

The telecentric arrangement in digital holographic microscopy (DHM), considered to be a pure-physical compensation for defocus aberration introduced by microscope objective (MO), shows shift-invariant behavior. Its optical arrangement requires precise adjustment of the distance between MO aperture stop and collimated lens. However, it is difficult to measure and quantify the distance even by monitoring the spatial frequency spectrum of recorded hologram in the absence of object. Thus the misalignment results in the residual defocus aberration in the telecentric arrangement. The total aberrations compensation for misalignment of telecentric arrangement in DHM is presented, in which a posteriori surface fitting method based on Zernike polynomials is performed to eliminate the residual defocus aberration as well as other primary aberrations. The approach reduces the difficulty in precise alignment of the telecentric arrangement and decreases the measurement error caused by aberrations in construction. Three-dimensional retrieval of the height for micro-hole arrays with high-spatial-frequency content demonstrates the feasibility of the method.

We propose a fast double random phase encoding (DRPE) algorithm using a graphics processing unit (GPU)-based stream-processing model. A performance analysis of the accelerated DRPE implementation that employs the Compute Unified Device Architecture programming environment is presented. We show that the proposed methodology executed on a GPU can dramatically increase encryption speed compared with central processing unit sequential computing. Our experimental results demonstrate that in encryption data of an image with a pixel size of 1000×1000, where one pixel has a 32-bit depth, our GPU version of the DRPE scheme can be approximately two times faster than the advanced encryption standard algorithm implemented on a GPU. In addition, the quality of parallel processing on the presented DRPE acceleration method is evaluated with performance parameters, such as speedup, efficiency, and redundancy.

Long-wave infrared digital holographic interferometry with CO₂ laser and microbolometer arrays has been developed for testing the large deformations of space reflectors. The setup considered is a Mach–Zehnder, associated to the digital holography reconstruction of the wavefront in the inline configuration with phase shifting. Two possibilities exist for illuminating the tested reflector: either with a point source (similarly to classical interferometry) or an extended source (with a diffuser). This paper presents the development of a modular setup which allows comparing both in the case of a parabolic mirror.

Ultrarealistic imaging is the science of producing images that faithfully recreate the light field surrounding an object, such that the unaided eye of a human observer cannot distinguish the difference between the original and the image. Recent technology improvements are now set to transform the fields of both analog and digital display holography, permitting both techniques to operate in the ultrarealistic regime. In particular, ultrarealistic analog holograms have now heralded the serious use of holography in such areas as museum display and cultural heritage protection. These full-color holograms are characterized by a substantially lower noise and a greater spectral fidelity. New recording systems, based on recent diode-pumped solid-state and semiconductor lasers combined with recording materials and processing, have been behind these improvements. Progress in illumination technology, however, has also led to a major reduction in display noise and to a significant increase in the clear image depth and brightness of holograms. Recent progress in one-step direct-write digital holography (DWDH) is now also opening the way to the creation of a new type of ultrarealistic display: the high virtual volume display. This is a large format full-parallax DWDH reflection hologram having a fundamentally larger clear image depth.

Thermal lens (TL) and thermal mirror (TM) effects have been widely used for measuring the thermo-optical properties in materials. However, most previous research is not a direct two-dimensional measurement of the phase difference induced by photothermal effects, and the TL and TM effects cannot be measured simultaneously. We present an integrated digital holography (IDH) for measuring photothermal effects induced by femtosecond laser pulses with the laser excitation fluence below the ablation threshold. The photothermal effects of a metal sample induced by femtosecond laser pulses are studied. Our theoretical analysis reveals that when the energy of the femtosecond laser is below the ablation threshold, the theory of heat conduction and thermoelasticity can be used to explain the TL and TM effects caused by the laser-induced nonuniform temperature distribution. The experimental results show that both the nanoscale surface deformation of the TM effect and the refraction index change of the TL effect can be measured simultaneously by using the IDH. This IDH setup could be suitable for measuring the optical and thermal properties of materials.

With the increasing interest in holography in three-dimensional imaging applications, the use of hologram compression techniques is mandatory for storage and transmission purposes. The state-of-the-art approach aims at encoding separately each interference pattern by resorting to common still-image compression techniques. Contrary to such an independent scheme, a joint hologram coding scheme is investigated in this paper. More precisely, instead of encoding all the interference patterns, it is proposed that only two sets of data be compressed by taking into account the redundancies existing among them. The resulting data are encoded by applying a joint multiscale decomposition based on the vector lifting concept. Experimental results show the benefits that can be drawn from the proposed hologram compression approach.

A method for improving the quality of the reconstructed image in space-bandwidth capacity-enhanced (SPACE) digital holography is proposed. SPACE digital holography is based on an off-axis configuration and is a technique for capturing an object wave with wide space-bandwidth product by introducing high spatial-carrier frequency, intentional aliasing, periodicity of a digital signal, and the optimal arrangements of the angle difference and object wave spectrum. In this paper, the severe spectrum attenuation caused by the integral of fine interference fringes in a pixel according to the sinc function is corrected by using spatial frequency analysis. Numerical and experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The paper presents a new automatic technique for speckle reduction in the context of digital holography. Speckle noise is a superposition of unwanted spots over objects of interest, due to the behavior of a coherence source of radiation with the object surface characteristics. In the proposed denoising method, bidimensional empirical mode decomposition is used to decompose the image signal, which is then filtered through the Frost filter. The proposed technique was preliminarily tested on the “Lena” image for quality assessment in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio. Then, its denoising capability was assessed on different holographic images on which also the comparison (using both blind metrics and visual inspection) with the leading strategies in the state of the art was favorably performed.

Total internal reflection (TIR) is normally important in an optical fingerprint scanner. The moisture effect in a fingerprint scanner based on TIR has been explored by using digital in-line holography (DIH). First, the reflection and the transmission technique set up for DIH have been explored by using a positive resolution test target with a line width of 200 μm. From experimental results, the reconstructed image of the reflected DIH is perfect as the image of the transmitted DIH. Due to the advantage for opaque object imaging of the reflected DIH, reflected DIH based on TIR has been selected to investigate the moisture effect of the fingerprint. Fingerprints with moistures of 39%, 54%, 69%, and a soaked finger have been observed. A laser diode of 635 nm and a complementary metal oxide semiconductor camera were used in all of the experimental setups in this research. The reconstructed image of the fingerprint gives a sharper image than the directed recorded image. The fingerprint with higher moisture provided a darker fingerprint image, while the optimum amount of moisture that gives the most complete finger pattern is 54%.

We propose a digital holographic imaging system that is capable of recording/measuring the amplitude and phase of an optical wavefront in a single shot. Based on the principle of digital holography (DH), the proposed system uses a reference beam to interfere with the light field under investigation and digitally records/measures the in-phase and quadrature interference patterns. Single-shot in-phase and quadrature interference pattern recording is made possible by incorporating the technologies widely used in coherent optical communication. Specifically, a free-space optical 90-deg hybrid is employed to measure the complex (real and imaginary) optical field. We have constructed a single-shot phase-shifting digital holography system and experimentally demonstrated its operation.

The microscope is one of the most useful tools for exploring and measuring the microscopic world. However, it has some restrictions in its applications because the microscope’s depth of field (DOF) is not sufficient for obtaining a single image with the necessary magnification in which the whole longitudinal object volume is in focus. Currently, the answer to this issue is the extended focused image. Techniques proposed over the years to overcome the limited DOF constraint of the holographic systems and to obtain a completely in-focus image are discussed. We divide them in two macro categories: the first one involves methods used to reconstruct three-dimensional generic objects (including techniques inherited from traditional microscopy, such as the sectioning and merging approach, or multiplane imaging), while the second area involves methods for objects recorded on a tilted plane with respect to hologram one (including not only the use of reconstruction techniques and rotation matrices, but also the introduction of a numerical cubic phase plate or hologram deformations). The aim is to compare these methods and to show how they work under the same conditions, proposing different applications for each.

Iterative algorithms, such as the algebraic reconstruction technique (ART), are popular for image reconstruction. For iterative reconstruction, the area integral model (AIM) is more accurate for better reconstruction quality than the line integral model (LIM). However, the computation of the system matrix for AIM is more complex and time-consuming than that for LIM. Here, we propose a fast and accurate method to compute the system matrix for AIM. First, we calculate the intersection of each boundary line of a narrow fan-beam with pixels in a recursive and efficient manner. Then, by grouping the beam-pixel intersection area into six types according to the slopes of the two boundary lines, we analytically compute the intersection area of the narrow fan-beam with the pixels in a simple algebraic fashion. Overall, experimental results show that our method is about three times faster than the Siddon algorithm and about two times faster than the distance-driven model (DDM) in computation of the system matrix. The reconstruction speed of our AIM-based ART is also faster than the LIM-based ART that uses the Siddon algorithm and DDM-based ART, for one iteration. The fast reconstruction speed of our method was accomplished without compromising the image quality.

This study developed a model for setting the adaptive luminance contrast between text and background for enhancing reading performance and visual comfort on smartphone displays. The study was carried out in two experiments. In Experiment I, a user test was conducted to identify the optimal luminance contrast with regard to subjects’ reading performance, measured by lines of text reading and visual comfort, assessed by self-report after the reading. Based on the empirical results of the test, an ideal adaptive model which decreases the luminance contrast gradually with passage of time was developed. In Experiment II, a validation test involving reading performance, visual comfort, and physiological stress measured by a brainwave analysis using an electroencephalogram confirmed that the proposed adaptive luminance contrast is adequate for prolonged text reading on smartphone displays. The developed model enhances both reading performance and visual comfort as well as reduces the energy consumption of a smartphone; hence, it is expected that this study will be applied to diverse kinds of visual display terminals.

Optical lens systems suffer from nonlinear geometrical distortion. Optical imaging applications such as image-enhanced endoscopy and image-based bronchoscope tracking require correction of this distortion for accurate localization, tracking, registration, and measurement of image features. Real-time capability is desirable for interactive systems and live video. The use of a texture-mapping graphics accelerator, which is standard hardware on current motherboard chipsets and add-in video graphics cards, to perform distortion correction is proposed. Mesh generation for image tessellation, an error analysis, and performance results are presented. It is shown that distortion correction using commodity graphics hardware is substantially faster than using the main processor and can be performed at video frame rates (faster than 30 frames per second), and that the polar-based method of mesh generation proposed here is more accurate than a conventional grid-based approach. Using graphics hardware to perform distortion correction is not only fast and accurate but also efficient as it frees the main processor for other tasks, which is an important issue in some real-time applications.

We have implemented a computer-generated hologram (CGH) calculation on Greatly Reduced Array of Processor Element with Data Reduction (GRAPE-DR) processors. The cost of CGH calculation is enormous, but CGH calculation is well suited to parallel computation. The GRAPE-DR is a multicore processor that has 512 processor elements. The GRAPE-DR supports a double-precision floating-point operation and can perform CGH calculation with high accuracy. The calculation speed of the GRAPE-DR system is seven times faster than that of a personal computer with an Intel Core i7-950 processor.

Single-shot quantitative interferometric microscopy (QIM) needs a high-accuracy and rapid phase retrieval algorithm. Retrieved phase distributions are often influenced by phase aberration background caused by both imaging system and phase retrieval algorithms. Here, we propose an improved phase aberration compensation (PAC) approach in order to eliminate the phase aberrations inherent in the data. With this method, sample-free parts are identified and used to calculate the background phase, reducing phase errors induced in samples and providing high-quality phase images. We now demonstrate that QIM based on this PAC approach realizes high-quality phase imaging from a single interferogram. This is of great potential for a real-time speedy diagnosis.

The retina-like sensor is a kind of anthropomorphic visual sensor. It plays an important role in both biological and machine vision due to its advantages of high resolution in the fovea, a wide field-of-view, and minimum pixel count. The space-variant property of the sensor makes it difficult to directly measure its modulation transfer function (MTF). The MTF of a retina-like sensor is measured with the bar-target pattern method. According to the pixel arrangement, the sensor is divided into rings and the MTF of each ring is measured using spoke targets with different periods. Comparison between the measured MTF and the theoretical MTF of the sensor showed that they coincide. The differences between them are also analyzed and discussed. The measured MTF helps to analyze the performance of an imaging system containing a retina-like sensor.

Contrast sensitivity functions (CSFs) describe visual stimuli based on their spatial frequency. However, CSF calibration is limited by the size of the sample collection and this remains an open issue. In this study, we propose an approach for calibrating CSFs that is based on the hypothesis that a precise CSF model can accurately predict image quality. Thus, CSF calibration is regarded as the inverse problem of image quality prediction according to our hypothesis. A CSF could be calibrated by optimizing the performance of a CSF-based image quality metric using a database containing images with known quality. Compared with the traditional method, this would reduce the work involved in sample collection dramatically. In the present study, we employed three image databases to optimize some existing CSF models. The experimental results showed that the performance of a three-parameter CSF model was better than that of other models. The results of this study may be helpful in CSF and image quality research.

This work shows an analytic solution to the central moments of the angle of linear polarization (AoLP) when the linear Stokes parameters are independent and Gaussian distributed with different means but equal variance. Such a result is useful for distinguishing AoLP features from noise in polarimetry. When the DoLP is high relative to the measurement uncertainty of the linear Stokes vector, AoLP statistics have been shown to be well approximated by a Gaussian distribution. When the DoLP is zero, AoLP values are uniformly distributed. In general, the probability density function (PDF) of AoLP does not have a closed-form solution and this is the first report, to our knowledge, on an exact analytic form for the central moments of the AoLP. This analytic form will be useful when the AoLP is of interest even when the DoLP is low and the corresponding PDF on the AoLP is in between the extreme cases of a Gaussian or a uniform distribution. We also show that a simple propagation of error (PE) analysis underestimates the AoLP variance at extremely low DoLP but is verified for cases of DoLP that are high relative to the Stokes measurement uncertainty. An example use of the AoLP variance in imaging polarimetry is presented.

When searching for small targets at sea based on an infrared imaging system, irregular and random vibration of the airborne imaging platform causes intense interference for the pipeline-filtering, which is an algorithm that performs well in detecting small targets but is particularly sensitive to interframe vibrations of sequence images. This paper puts forward a pipeline-filtering algorithm that has a good performance on self-adaptive antivibration. In the block matching method that combines the normalized cross-correlations coefficient with the normalized mutual information, the interframe vibration of sequence images is acquired in real time and used to correct coordinates of the single-frame detection results, and then the corrected detection results are used to complete the pipeline-filtering. In addition, under severe sea conditions, small targets at sea may disappear transiently, leading to missing detection. This algorithm is also able to resolve this problem. Experimental results show that the algorithm can overcome the problem of interframe vibration of sequence images, thus realizing accurate detection of small maritime targets.

The goal of no-reference/blind image quality assessment (NR-IQA) is to devise a perceptual model that can accurately predict the quality of a distorted image as human opinions, in which feature extraction is an important issue. However, the features used in the state-of-the-art “general purpose” NR-IQA algorithms are usually natural scene statistics (NSS) based or are perceptually relevant; therefore, the performance of these models is limited. To further improve the performance of NR-IQA, we propose a general purpose NR-IQA algorithm which combines NSS-based features with perceptually relevant features. The new method extracts features in both the spatial and gradient domains. In the spatial domain, we extract the point-wise statistics for single pixel values which are characterized by a generalized Gaussian distribution model to form the underlying features. In the gradient domain, statistical features based on neighboring gradient magnitude similarity are extracted. Then a mapping is learned to predict quality scores using a support vector regression. The experimental results on the benchmark image databases demonstrate that the proposed algorithm correlates highly with human judgments of quality and leads to significant performance improvements over state-of-the-art methods.

An image toning method for low dynamic range image compression is presented. The proposed method inserts tone mapping into JPEG baseline instead of postprocessing. First, an image is decomposed into detail, base, and surrounding components in terms of the discrete cosine transform coefficients. Subsequently, a luminance-adaptive tone mapping based on the human visual sensitivity properties is applied. In addition, compensation modules are added to enhance the visually sensitive factors, such as saturation, sharpness, and gamma. A comparative study confirms that the transmitted compression images have good image quality.

Automatically extracted and accurate scene structure generated from airborne platforms is a goal of many applications in the photogrammetry, remote sensing, and computer vision fields. This structure has traditionally been extracted automatically through the structure-from-motion (SfM) workflows. Although this process is very powerful, the analysis of error in accuracy can prove difficult. Our work presents a method of analyzing the georegistration error from SfM derived point clouds that have been transformed to a fixed Earth-based coordinate system. The error analysis is performed using synthetic airborne imagery which provides absolute truth for the ray-surface intersection of every pixel in every image. Three methods of georegistration are assessed; (1) using global positioning system (GPS) camera centers, (2) using pose information directly from on-board navigational instrumentation, and (3) using a recently developed method that utilizes the forward projection function and SfM-derived camera pose estimates. It was found that the georegistration derived from GPS camera centers and the direct use of pose information from on-board navigational instruments is very sensitive to noise from both the SfM process and instrumentation. The georegistration transform computed using the forward projection function and the derived pose estimates prove to be far more robust to these errors.

The deformation of the optical surfaces of a large aperture high-resolution space-borne optical system induced by earth’s gravity on the ground, which is not present during in-orbit operations, necessitates the evaluation of its performance in terms of wavefront error at various stages of development of the earth observation system. A direct method of evaluation for an optical system at an integrated electro-optical module based on a Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor (SH WFS) is proposed. Design and analysis of the wavefront sensor that are tailored to meet the requirements of the high-resolution optical system are described. We show that the procedure followed for the development of the SH WFS not only addresses the parameters of the wavefront sensor that are critical to its performance, but also aides in the wavefront sensor alignment and calibration. The performance of the developed SH WFS is demonstrated by testing a simulated telescope which is in situ verified in a test configuration using a standard Fizeau interferometer; a close match of the coefficients of Zernike modes between them is established.

We present our recent development concerning the evaluation of a low energy dose application to electron beam responding materials with a simple portable optical device. Electron beam irradiation is a promising option to sterilize sensitive and high performance products or surfaces at a low temperature and without moisture. Especially in the fields of the food industry and medicine, regulations regarding sterility are increasingly tightened. Because of this, a secure proof for electron-beam-assisted sterilization is required. However, no nondestructive and in situ method exists up until now. Our approach to provide a secure proof of sterilization is to place a suitable marker material based on rare-earth-doped phosphors inside or on the top of the packaging material of the respective product. Upon electron irradiation the marker material changes its luminescence properties as a function of the applied energy dose. We verified the energy dependence by means of time-resolved measurements of the luminescence decay of an upconversion phosphor with a portable optical device. In our experimental realization, short laser pulses in the near-infrared range are triggered by a microcontrol unit (MCU) and excite the marker material. The light emitted by the marker is collected in the range between 400 and 1100 nm via a silicon photodiode, processed by the MCU, and analyzed in a Labview program via a single-exponential fit. As a main result, we observe an increasing reduction of the luminescence lifetime with higher dose applications.

An approach for measuring fast oscillations of an absolute value of interferometer optical path difference (OPD) has been developed. The principles of frequency-scanning interferometry are utilized for the registration of the interferometer spectral function from which the OPD is calculated. The proposed approach enables one to capture the absolute baseline variations at frequencies much higher than the spectral acquisition rate. Despite the conventional approaches associating a single baseline indication to the registered spectrum, in the proposed method, a specially developed demodulation procedure is applied to the spectrum. This provides the ability to capture the baseline variations that took place during the spectrum acquisition. An analytical model describing the limitations on the parameters of the possibly registered baseline variations is developed. The experimental verification of the proposed approach and the developed model has been performed.

A method of absolute testing of a cylindrical wavefront is presented. The method is a merging of the random ball test method with the fiber optic reference test. The random ball test assumes a large number of interferograms of a good quality sphere with errors that are statistically distributed such that the average of the errors goes to zero. The fiber optic reference test utilizes a specially processed optical fiber to provide a high quality reference wave from an incident line focus from the cylindrical wave under test. A simulation and preliminary experiment results are presented which indicate that this method can significantly reduce the effects of fiber surface errors, yielding more accurate cylindrical wave measurements.

To realize the improvement of signal-to-noise ratio and rejection rate for elastic Mie-Rayleigh signals, a set of dichroic mirrors and narrow-band interference filters with high efficiency was proposed to constitute a new spectroscopy for atmospheric water vapor, aerosol, and cloud studies. Based on the curves of signal-to-noise ratio at three different channels, the actual rejection rates of elastic Mie-Rayleigh signals at the Raman channels were found to be higher than eight orders of magnitude with the cloudy conditions. Continuous nighttime observations showed that the statistical error of the water vapor mixing ratio was <10% at a height of 2.3 km with an aerosol backscatter ratio of 17. Temporal variations of water vapor and aerosols were obtained under the conditions of cloud and cloud-free, the change relevance between aerosol and water vapor was analyzed, and the growth characteristics of water vapor and aerosols showed a good agreement within the cloud layers. Obtained results indicate achievement of the continuous detection of water vapor, aerosol, and cloud with a high efficiency and stability by Raman lidar.

The most known and used phase shifting interferometry (PSI) demodulation methods are one-dimensional temporal linear systems. These methods use the information of the interferogram sequence at a single pixel to recover the modulating phase. Accordingly, scanning all pixels, we obtain the two-dimensional (2-D) modulated phase sought. As PSI demodulation methods do not take into account spatial information, these methods cannot remove unwanted harmonics or noise from the interferogram image space (spatial domain). To remove these unwanted artifacts from the image space, spatial information must be included in the demodulation model. We are going to show that the well-known least-squares system for PSI can be used as a full-field 2-D linear system that uses the temporal and spatial information in conjunction in order to recover the modulating phase while removing noise, unwanted harmonics, and interpolating small empty sections of the image space all in the same process with a low computational time.

The prevalent method to develop a phosphor recipe (based on trial and error) to create white light with a blue light-emitting diode (LED) is time-consuming. We developed a new method for determining parametric values in a simulated phosphor model through systematic testing of phosphor samples and optimizing the parameter values with ray-trace software. The model employs Mie volume scattering together with absorption and down-conversion. A double-integrating sphere spectral measurement system was constructed to perform phosphor characterization. It was used to characterize a YAG phosphor over a wide range of phosphor concentrations and thicknesses. The final phosphor model was proven to accurately predict the phosphor performance.

We present a null-screen design for testing the shape quality of the reflecting surface of a parabolic trough solar collector (PTSC). This technique is inexpensive, the whole surface is tested at once, and it is easy to implement. For this, we propose the design of a flat null-screen perpendicular to the optical axis of the PTSC in such a way that it allows testing of the full aperture; we compute the caustic associated with the reflected light rays on the desired surface and analyze the parameters that determine the null-screen dimensions. Additionally, we perform a numerical simulation to analyze the accuracy of the method by introducing random displacement errors into the measured data. Accuracies <0.35  mrad were found to evaluate the quality of surfaces with this method. The errors in the determination of the coordinates of the centroids of the reflected images must be measured with an accuracy <0.5  pixels, and the errors in the coordinates of the spots of the null-screen must be <0.5  mm.

Dual electrode Mach–Zehnder modulators (DE-MZMs) are used to conduct phase detection for direct wideband direction finding (DF) of microwave signals. It is demonstrated theoretically and through simulation and experimentation that the normalized magnitude of the output signal phase detector circuit is equal to |sin(ψ/2)|, where ψ is the phase difference between the plane waves arriving at the reference and measurement antennas of a linear DF array. A four-element wideband photonic DF system with robust symmetrical number system preprocessing is presented. Simulation and experimental testing results are provided to demonstrate the theoretical concept. The results demonstrate a direct DF receiver using DE-MZMs that achieves fine angular resolution using a much smaller array size than is typically required for linear arrays employing super-resolution signal processing techniques.

Terrestrial laser scanning has been used for various outdoor visualizations such as urban, construction, excavations, and land topography. Since laser scanning data have their own local coordinates in each station, a three-dimensional point cloud model of the object of interest is created in the local coordinate system by the combination of these measurements. For spatial queries and computations, the point cloud and other spatial data should be combined in a common coordinate system. In this study, a terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver were integrated for the registration of the laser scanner measurements into the geodetic coordinate system. Two georeferencing methods based on the continuously operating reference stations in the network Turkey (CORS-TR) were introduced. After the building was modelled by integrating the TLS and the GNSS receiver, the point cloud model that was created was registered to the international terrestrial reference frame. The registration was performed with 0.05 m root mean square error for the two georeferencing methods.

Substructured Ronchi gratings are used to sharpen and increase the number of fringes in Ronchigrams, thereby increasing their spatial resolution and allowing greater accuracy in the evaluation of a surface under test. This work presents a simple method for generating substructured Ronchi gratings and for calculating the intensity pattern produced by this type of grating. For this, we propose the generation of this kind of grating from the linear combination of classical gratings; the pattern of irradiance produced by these Ronchi gratings will be a linear combination of the intensity patterns produced by each combined classical grating. A comparison between theoretical and experimental Ronchigrams was obtained by analyzing a parabolic mirror.

On-line phase measuring profilometry (OPMP) for a rotating object is proposed. N frames of circular sinusoidal grating patterns are designed in advance, in which the transmittance along the radial direction is sinusoidal and there is a fixed shifting phase pitch of 2π/N between every adjacent two grating patterns along the radial direction. While the measured object is rotating, the designed grating patterns are projected onto the rotating object by digital light processing and the corresponding deformed patterns caused by the object at different positions are captured by a charge coupled device camera. By pixel matching and rotation transformation with special marks, N frames of the deformed patterns of the object at the same position can be extracted. Hence, the rotating object can be reconstructed by the extracted deformed patterns. The results of computer emulation and experiment show the feasibility and validity of the proposed OPMP. Either the maximum measurement absolute error is 0.118 mm or the maximum root mean square error is 0.077 mm in the measured region of 0 to 25 mm.

Identity-related security issues inherently present in passive optical networks (PON) still exist in the current (1G) and next-generation (10G) Ethernet-based passive optical network (EPON) systems. We propose a mutual authentication scheme that integrates an NTRUsign digital signature algorithm with inherent multipoint control protocol (MPCP) frames over an EPON system between the optical line terminal (OLT) and optical network unit (ONU). Here, a primitive NTRUsign algorithm is significantly modified through the use of a new perturbation so that it can be effectively used for simultaneously completing signature and authentication functions on the OLT and the ONU sides. Also, in order to transmit their individual sensitive messages, which include public key, signature, and random value and so forth, to each other, we redefine three unique frames according to MPCP format frame. These generated messages can be added into the frames and delivered to each other, allowing the OLT and the ONU to go ahead with a mutual identity authentication process to verify their legal identities. Our simulation results show that this proposed scheme performs very well in resisting security attacks and has low influence on the registration efficiency to to-be-registered ONUs. A performance comparison with traditional authentication algorithms is also presented. To the best of our knowledge, no detailed design of mutual authentication in EPON can be found in the literature up to now.

We suggest and analyze a compact nonreciprocal optical four-port based on a magneto-optical resonator in two-dimensional photonic crystal, which can fulfill many functions. This component can be used in three regimes: first, with magnetization by a direct current (DC) magnetic field +H₀, second, with magnetization by the DC magnetic field −H₀, and finally, with magnetization by the DC magnetic field +H₁. In the first regime, the four-port ensures equal division of the input signal between two output ones simultaneously providing protection of the generator in the input port from harmful reflected signals in the output ports; this can also be used as a switch by reversing +H₀ to −H₀. In the second regime, the same four-port fulfills 120-deg bending and it provides protection of the generator in the input port from reflected signals; it can also be used as a switch by reversing −H₀ to +H₀. In the third regime, with DC magnetic field +H₁, the device can be used as a three-way divider with equal division to the output ports. We analyze the scattering matrix of this component and discuss the physical mechanisms of its functioning. In addition, computational simulations were performed and their results confirm our theoretical predictions.

This paper presents a paraxial study of a double-sided telecentric zoom lens system with four components in terms of matrix method and Gaussian brackets. Compared with a double-sided telecentric zoom lens system with three components, the four-component type is capable of achieving a large zoom range and the requirements for lens components can be easily fulfilled. As a result of the study, a classification of double-sided telecentric zoom lenses with four components is given and eight types of zoom lens systems are derived. The equations are prudently derived, and a method for solving the problem is explicitly provided for each type. Some numerical examples are also appended for most lens types.

Ring resonators based on photonic crystals have attracted worldwide attention due to their wide applications attributed to their significant properties. By comparing different inner rod configurations reported for photonic crystal ring resonators (PCRRs), we propose a configuration for inner rods similar to diamond, which is called the “diamond inner rod configuration.” In comparison with previous proposed configurations for inner rods, the diamond inner rod configuration increases the vertical waveguide output with respect to the horizontal waveguide. With this configuration a 50-50 output can be gained for two outputs, horizontal and vertical waveguides, at 1.829 and 1.6777  μm. Additionally, at 1.8438  μm there is a considerable drop toward a vertical waveguide. In order to have a comparison among the PCRRs with various inner rod configurations, the maximum power of outputs and also the quality factors have been shown schematically. To generalize our proposed configuration, in addition to a channel drop filter (CDF) based on a single-ring resonator, we designed a double-ring resonator in which the same powers can also be successively gained from three outputs at 1.876  μm by engineering the parameters of the structure.

The concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) can be employed to improve the efficiency of solar cells and reduce the system cost of power generation, which is the primary part of the CPV system. Based on the demands for the concentrators to have an ultrathin and ultralight design, a design of ultrasmall aspect ratio concentrators is proposed. The concentrator is formed by a lens array and a freeform reflector to precisely control the light. The solar cell is placed at the side of the concentrator, which greatly reduces the overall thickness of the concentrator. The design can reduce the aspect ratio of concentrator by a considerable amount. The freeform reflector can shape the light beam and achieve a uniform distribution of light energy.

In this work, we numerically investigate and analyze the properties of an optical structure composed of successive thin film layers that can possess high values of nonlinear susceptibility, affecting the refractive index and/or the absorption coefficient. By applying the transmission line method properly modified to resolve the inclusion of third-order nonlinearity, the spectral reflectivity and transmission of such a device are presented. Specifically, the method is applied to a conceptual design of a distributed Bragg reflector. Optical bistability can be observed, which translates not only to a change in the value of reflectivity as the input power increases, but also to a shift of the Bragg wavelength.

We propose a porous-core octagonal photonic crystal fiber for low-loss terahertz (THz) waveguiding. Great attention is given to the geometries of the fiber inside the core to increase the fraction of power transmitted through the air holes. At an operating frequency f=1  THz, this design exhibits a low effective material loss which is approximately 0.05  cm⁻¹ or 0.2  dB/cm. In addition to the confinement loss, some other properties like the power fraction of the core air holes, responses of the effective material loss, and power fraction with respect to frequency have been also reported. This design is useful for efficient transmission of broadband terahertz radiation.

The optical code-division multiple-access (OCDMA) technique is considered a good candidate for providing optical layer security. An enhanced OCDMA network security mechanism with a pseudonoise (PN) random digital signals type of maximal-length sequence (M-sequence) code switching to protect against eavesdropping is presented. Signature codes unique to individual OCDMA-network users are reconfigured according to the register state of the controlling electrical shift registers. Examples of signature reconfiguration following state switching of the controlling shift register for both the network user and the eavesdropper are numerically illustrated. Dynamically changing the PN state of the shift register to reconfigure the user signature sequence is shown; this hinders eavesdroppers’ efforts to decode correct data sequences. The proposed scheme increases the probability of eavesdroppers committing errors in decoding and thereby substantially enhances the degree of an OCDMA network’s confidentiality.

All-optical signal processing plays an important role in the development of ultrahigh speed optical networks. All-optical logic schemes, such as OR, AND, NOT, and XOR gates, are projected using semiconductor optical amplifiers. Further, to verify the results of proposed logical gates, the half adder has also been realized and has achieved an accurate performance. The proposed schemes omit the requirement for an optical delay line or costly O-E-O conversions which makes the system flexible.

This paper proposes an electrical code divided multiplexing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ECDM-OFDM) modulation-based radio-over-fiber (ROF) system at the 60-GHz band. Compared with conventional OFDM ROF system, it can increase the distance of wireless links as well as suppressing the optical beating interference noise in the upstream link. The 4.68  Gb/s ECDM-OFDM signal at 60 GHz with a 25-km fiber and 8-m air transmission is experimentally demonstrated. The wireless distance of the ECDM-OFDM signal has been extended 3 m with the same transmitted power. For the upstream signal, no significant receiver power penalties are observed after transmission.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a full-duplex high-speed visible light communication (VLC) access network based on star topology architecture to offer high-speed optical wireless access for a large number of users. Optical fiber is used as the backbone of the VLC network and directly connected to the light-emitting diode lamps. Frequency division multiplexing (FDM) is utilized for both the downlink and uplink. The bidirectional transmission of 32 quadrature amplitude modulation orthogonal FDM signals at an overall throughput of 4  Gb/s is successfully achieved to support four users access, and each user is offered 500  Mb/s downstream and 500  Mb/s upstream. The measured bit error rates of the downlink and uplink for all four users are <7% pre-forward error correction limit of 3.8×10−³ after a 25 km standard single-mode fiber and 65 cm free space, which clearly validates the promising potential of the proposed VLC network architecture to offer more than 10  Gb/s wireless access.

The whispering gallery mode (WGM) lasing in a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based microresonator is demonstrated with a convenient and crafty approach. Fabricated by directly brushing dye-doped PDMS solution on an optical fiber, the microresonator is self-formed due to the high surface tension. The size of the resonator can be widely tuned by using different droplet volumes and brushing speeds across the optical fiber. Lasing with a threshold as low as 2.5  μJ/mm² is observed in this kind of fiber-stand PDMS microresonator. We also investigate the dependence of the lasing threshold on the different polarizations of the pump laser and size of the microresonator. This kind of WGM microresonator will find applications in optical sensors and on-chip integrated systems.

We propose a simple and cost-effective multifrequency optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) which is able to simultaneously generate two or more independent microwave signals by adding parallel filtering branches in the feedback loop. In the experimental demonstration, two signals with frequencies of 20 and 9 GHz are successfully generated. Compared with a conventional OEO, the generated signals have no additional noise and do not interfere with each other. The side-mode suppression by the optical dual-loop configuration is effective for both channels. The measured side-mode suppression ratios are larger than 65 dB, and the phase noises at a 10-kHz frequency offset are −108 and −113  dBc/Hz for 20 and 9-GHz signals, respectively.

Making use of the four-wave mixing, a realization of all-optical 1×6 broadcast technology based on aluminum-doped highly nonlinear fiber (AL-HNLF) is performed. In the system, a set of experiments at channel intervals of 50, 100, and 200 GHz are conducted, and clear eye diagrams as well as low error performance are obtained with an input optical signal of a continuous wave and a 10-Gb/s return-to-zero on-off keying signal, which mostly benefits from the AL-HNLF used in this system. In detail, resulting from the high stimulated Brillouin scattering threshold of AL-HNLF, more power can be launched into the fiber. Additionally, similar performances of different channel spaces demonstrate the adjustability for this technology. With these distinguishing features, this technology might satisfy the basic expectation of utility.

A single-longitudinal mode selection is realized in a linear-cavity tunable fiber laser constructed using a Faraday rotator mirror and a partial reflectance fiber Bragg grating as the cavity ends. At both tuning wavelengths of 1543.47 and 1557.52 nm, the measured optical signal-to-noise ratio is larger than 40 dB and a linewidth less than 1 MHz is obtained. It is based on the usage of a piece of gain fiber type saturable absorber as the mode filter. The pumping power efficiency is improved by 10% by recycling the residual pump power to the gain medium.

The intersymbol interference caused by dispersion, chirp, and a vestigial sideband filter in intensity modulation and a direct detection single carrier system is analyzed theoretically and numerically. An iterative nonlinear intersymbol interference cancellation technique is proposed and experimentally demonstrated in a 40-Gbps 16-QAM Mach-Zehnder modulator-based vestigial sideband intensity modulation and direct detection half-cycle Nyquist–subcarrier modulation system over a 100-km uncompensated standard single-mode fiber transmission for the first time. The experimental results show that 2.2-dB receiver sensitivity improvement is obtained at the forward error correction limit by using the iterative technique.

A fiber sensor tip was proposed for measuring temperature and liquid refractive indices (RI). The sensor tip was fabricated by dipping a solidification ultraviolet (SU-8) photoresist onto the end surface of a simple-mode optical fiber. Then the SU-8 photoresist was cured by an ultraviolet source. A Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity was formed on the end faces of the SU-8 and optical fiber, and it showed a perfect FP interference spectrum. The temperature and liquid RI can be independently measured by monitoring the shift and the loss variation of interference peaks. The liquid RI sensitivity is 96.07232  dB/RIU in the RI range of 1.333 to 1.3714, and the temperature sensitivity is 0.38052  nm/°C within the temperature range from 25 to 55°C. The cross-sensitivities of temperature and liquid RI can be ignored. The sensor tip can be used in harsh environments, including strong acid, strong alkali, and violent vibration liquids, as cross-linking SU-8 has excellent chemical corrosion resistance capacity and mechanical strength.

This paper describes numerical and analytical analyses relating to the use of nonlinear four-wave mixing in a semiconductor optical amplifier medium for anticipated wavelength conversion at ultrahigh data rates of 320 and 640  Gb/s. The proposed system guidelines and design show that a maximum wavelength shift of 30 nm can be achieved at 640  Gb/s, while still maintaining an acceptable bit error rate. In addition, the impact of the pump–probe ratio and semiconductor optical amplifier bias current are investigated and the results are reported.

Based on coupled-mode theory and transfer matrix method, the mode coupling mechanism and the reflection spectral properties of coated cascaded long- and short-period gratings (CLBG) are discussed. The effects of the thin-film parameters (film refractive index and film thickness) on the reflection spectra of the coated CLBG are simulated. By using electrostatic self-assembly method, poly acrylic acid (PAA) and poly allylamine hydrochloride (PAH) multilayer molecular pH-sensitive thin-films are assembled on the surface of the partial corroded CLBG. When the CLBG coated with PAA/PAH films are used to sense pH values, the resonant wavelengths of the CLBG have almost no shift, whereas the resonance peak reflectivities change with pH values. In addition, the sensitivities of the resonance peak reflectivities responding to pH values are improved by an order of magnitude.

We report a quasicontinuous wave (CW) linearly polarized rubidium vapor laser. The pumping source consists of five laser diode bars and its linewidth is reduced from the raw 1.8 to 0.2 nm by a bulk volume Bragg grating. Instead of adopting the “quasi-waveguide structure” gain cell, the pumping light of the rubidium vapor laser propagates freely in the vapor cell. The pumping light with polarization perpendicular to one of the rubidium laser is coupled into the resonator cavity by the polarized beam splitter. This laser configuration is suitable for a convection-cooling diode-pumped alkali vapor laser.

A pn-junction photodiode with a bandwidth in the GHz range is presented. This photodiode is fabricated in a standard 0.35‐μm high-voltage CMOS process with deep n-wells which can isolate negative substrate potentials down to −100  V from the MOS transistors. This photodiode can, therefore, be implemented together with circuits on the same chip. At a reverse bias voltage of −90  V, a bandwidth of 1.2 GHz was measured for 670-nm light. The breakdown voltage of this photodiode is about −180  V.

A hierarchical modulation with multilevels is proposed for an optical single-carrier frequency division multiplexing access (SC-FDMA) system. It can mitigate the nonlinearity by reducing the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of the SC-FDM signal. According to different optical signal-to-noise ratio requirements, the adaptive bit allocation can be implemented on different levels during hierarchical modulation. In the experiment, the PAPR of the hierarchical-modulated SC-FDM signal outperforms the conventional SC-FDM signal by 0.7 dB. Signals with 4- and 6-bit hierarchical modulation are successfully demodulated by the optical network unit with power penalties less than 0.2 and 0.45 dB, respectively.

A lithium niobate optical waveguide-based integrated electro-optic (EO) electric field (E-field) sensor dedicated to the measurement of intense nanosecond transient electromagnetic pulse (EMP) signals has been developed and calibrated. The time domain calibration system for measurement of intense nanosecond EMP signals has been established. A pure optical bias phase angle control system based on wavelength tuning has been developed and implemented to ensure that the sensor has a linear transfer function. The fluctuations of the sensor static output optical power are <0.1  dB with the proposed bias control system while <3  dB without bias control. The time domain characteristics of the detected pulsed E-fields have been compared with those of the input EMP signals. For the first type nanosecond level (ns-level) EMP signal, the relative errors of the detected E-fields on rise time, fall time, and pulse width are 0.38%, 0.69%, and 0.79%, respectively. Also, for the second type ns-level EMP signal, the relative errors of the measured E-fields on rise time, fall time, and pulse width are 0.40%, 0.31%, and 0.01%, respectively. All these results demonstrate that the developed integrated EO E-field sensing system has the potential to be used to accurately extract the information of transient E-fields.

We report on the guided-wave second-harmonic generation in a KTiOPO₄ nonlinear optical waveguide fabricated by a 17  MeV O⁵⁺ ion irradiation at a fluence of 1.5×10¹⁵  ions/cm². The waveguide guides light along both TE and TM polarizations, which is suitable for phase-matching frequency doubling. Second harmonics of green light at a wavelength of 532 nm have been generated through the KTiOPO₄ waveguide platform under an optical pump of fundamental wave at 1064 nm in both continuous-wave and pulsed regimes, reaching optical conversion efficiencies of 5.36%/W and 11.5%, respectively. The propagation losses have been determined to be ∼3.1 and ∼5.7  dB/cm for the TE and TM polarizations at a wavelength of 632.8 nm, respectively.

This paper presents studies on the role of Ge-doping concentration (6 to 18 mol. %) in the refractive index rollover fluence and thermal annealing characteristics of type IIa fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs). A 255 nm UV beam of low-pulse energy density (∼2.2  mJ/cm²), nanosecond (∼30  ns) duration, and high-repetition rate (∼5.5  kHz) was used for FBG inscription. It is observed that the UV fluence needed for refractive index rollover was higher for fiber having low Ge-doping (∼6  mol.%). The temperature sustainability of these gratings has been studied in a multistep thermal annealing process up to 800°C. It was observed that the higher the total UV fluence required for refractive index rollover, the higher the temperature sustainability of a type IIa grating. The temperature rise of the fiber for a single UV pulse and at the maximum cumulative UV fluence was estimated for different Ge-doping concentrations. The thermal stability of the grating is linked to the amount of Ge-doping concentration of the fiber. These observations may be due to the fact that a high cumulative fluence resulted in a larger stress relaxation, leading to enhanced FBG temperature stability.

In our research, we have theoretically studied a device that can serve as a modulating retroreflector (MRR) for applications in the visible spectrum. The device is comprised of a nanocomposite of a ferroelectric thin-film embedded with noble metal nanoshells. In comparison to the nanospheres, the nanoshells provide more flexibility in the design of the device. This MRR can be used in asymmetric communication links as an optical transceiver for mobile devices. The main conclusion from our study is that a nanocomposite-based MRR can save power, complexity, dimensions, and weight in comparison to standard communication links. This fact is very important for mobile platforms.

Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) are the subject of intense research in solar energy harvesting due to their unique electrical and optical characteristics. The transmission, reflection, and absorption spectra of decagonal Si NWs (D-SiNWs) solar cells have been calculated using a three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method to present a design guideline for ultra-high efficiency SiNW in solar cell applications. In this study, the structure geometrical parameters of the suggested design are tuned to maximize light absorption. The ultimate efficiency is used to quantify the absorption enhancement of the SiNWs solar cells. A maximum ultimate efficiency of 39.3% is achieved for the reported D-SiNWs, which is greater than that of the previous work of slanting Si NWs by 17.49%.

We report two fiber multiple-mode interferometers formed in photonic crystal fiber (PCF). The interference between the core and the cladding modes of a PCF is utilized. We use two methods to form a coupling point, and the cladding modes are excited from the fundamental core mode. One method is blowing compressed gas into the air holes and discharging at the coupling point; the air holes will expand due to gas expansion in the discharge process. Similarly, the other is discharging at the coupling point after the air is exhausted from the air holes, and the holes will contract during the process. By making another coupling point at a different location along the fiber, the proposed PCF interferometers are implemented. Experimental results show that the sensitivities of the two devices can achieve 1.54 and 1.45 nm for a 0.01 refractive index change.

We demonstrate a 1×2 optical switch matrix based on a liquid-actuated mirror reflector. Three indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes are fabricated on the bottom substrate. One droplet is placed in the middle of the liquid channel and surrounded by density-matched silicone oil. A mirror reflector is placed on the droplet. In its initial state, the light beam can pass through the device from the light hole. When we apply voltage to one side of the ITO electrode, the droplet carries the mirror reflector, stretching and moving toward this side of the substrate. Therefore, the light beam is reflected by the mirror reflector. The light beam can pass through the device again when the mirror reflector is carried away by the droplet. Out-1 and Out-2 alternately change the switch-on and off states. Therefore, the device can achieve the function of a 1×2 optical switch matrix. Because it uses a mirror reflector to block the light beam, the device can attain 100% intensity attenuation. Our experiments show that the switch time from Out-1 (Out-2) to Out-2 (Out-1) are 129 and 123 ms, respectively. The proposed optical switch has potential applications in variable optical attenuators, electronic displays, and light shutters.

A prism coupler-based nano-plasmonic sensor consisting of a high refractive index (RI) prism (2S2G-prism, LASF9-prism), gold (Au) metal film, and different amino acids as the dielectric sample is used for sensing in attenuated total internal reflection mode. An additional semiconductor (silicon) nano-layer over the gold surface has been used for increasing the stability and sensitivity of the surface plasmon resonance sensor. A comparative analysis of performance of the nano-plasmonic sensors in the spectral regime using these two high RI prism materials with an additional semiconductor nano-layer has been presented. The sensing performance of the proposed nano-plasmonic sensors in terms of evanescent field enhancement, spectral sensitivity, detection accuracy, figure of merit, and Q-factor with different amino acid samples has been discussed along with supporting theoretical simulations in a MATLAB® environment.

A simple approach was demonstrated to fabricate the curved microlens array (MLA) using a drop-on-demand (DOD) droplet generator and a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) replica mold. The planar microlens array (planar MLA) was fabricated using a simple and cost-effective DOD droplet generator, and then the curved MLA was fabricated by multiple replication processes. The PDMS elastomer membrane mold replicated from the planar MLA was used to transfer the microlenses from a planar substrate onto a spherical surface. The NORLAND65 (NOA65) optical adhesive was chosen to be the material of the curved MLA due to its good optical properties. The curved MLA, whose radii of curvature of the spherical surface were approximately 5.1 and 1.8 mm, was fabricated. The morphology damage during the replication process was avoided by the surface treatment of the PDMS elastomer membrane mold and the deformation of the curved microlens was analyzed and was ranged from 2.1% to 8.5%. The surface quality of the curved microlenses was measured by a white light interferometer and an atomic force microscope and the results showed that the arithmetical mean deviation of the profile R_a was 0.54 nm with a 2×2-μm² scanned area, while the resultant surface showed an excellent surface smoothness. The imaging and focus performance of the curved MLA were measured by a projection experiment. The experimental results demonstrated a high potential for curved MLA being applied to scale-invariant processing, robot vision, and fast motion detection.

By using a piecewise uniform approximation method, the reflectance and transmittance of light for an obliquely incident circularly polarized plane wave on a tilt-modulated chiral sculptured thin film (STF) were computed. The circular Bragg phenomenon was found to vanish when the amplitude of the modulation was high enough for oblique incidence. The tilt-modulated chiral STF then acts like a conventional mirror in the Bragg regime.

The antimony-doped tin oxide (SnO₂∶Sb) films have been deposited on the Al₂O₃ (0001) substrates by RF magnetron sputtering. The influence of annealing on the structural and photoluminescence (PL) properties of the SnO₂∶Sb films was investigated. The prepared samples were polycrystalline films having a rutile structure of pure SnO₂ and a preferred orientation along the (110) direction, with an improvement in the film crystallinity observed after annealing. An ultraviolet PL peak near 334 nm was observed at room temperature both before and after annealing. The corresponding PL mechanism was discussed in detail.

The wavelength dependence of the nonreciprocal phase shift (NPS) in a magneto-optical (MO) waveguide is investigated from the aspect of the geometrical structure. In an MO nonreciprocal waveguide, the effect of the waveguide dispersion on the NPS is being demonstrated to compensate the dispersion of the Faraday rotation coefficients. By accurately controlling the structure parameter of the MO waveguide, the wavelength-insensitive NPS can be obtained. According to this principle, we proposed the dual-wavelength nonreciprocal phase shifter at the wavelengths of 1.31 and 1.55  μm.

This PDF file contains the errata for “OE Vol. 53 Issue 11 Paper OE-2014-1028-ERR” for OE Vol. 53 Issue 11