Experimental demonstration of femtosecond switching of a fully packaged all-optical switch

We experimentally demonstrate femtosecond switching of a fully packaged hybrid-integrated Mach-Zehnder switch. A record switching window of 620fs at fult-width-half-maximum is achieved. © 2004 Optical Society of America.

1.36Tbit/s spectral slicing source based on a Cr4+:YAG femtosecond laser

We report a novel OTDM/WDM source based on spectral slicing of a passively mode-locked Cr4: YAG femtosecond pulse source. Total capacities up to 682Gbit/s and 1.36bit/s with spectral efficiencies of 0.2b/s/Hz and 0.4b/s/Hz have been achieved. © 2003 Optical Society of America.

Near optimal combination of sensory and motor uncertainty in time during a naturalistic perception-action task.

Most behavioral tasks have time constraints for successful completion, such as catching a ball in flight. Many of these tasks require trading off the time allocated to perception and action, especially when only one of the two is possible at any time. In general, the longer we perceive, the smaller the uncertainty in perceptual estimates. However, a longer perception phase leaves less time for action, which results in less precise movements. Here we examine subjects catching a virtual ball. Critically, as soon as subjects began to move, the ball became invisible. We study how subjects trade-off sensory and movement uncertainty by deciding when to initiate their actions. We formulate this task in a probabilistic framework and show that subjects' decisions when to start moving are statistically near optimal given their individual sensory and motor uncertainties. Moreover, we accurately predict individual subject's task performance. Thus we show that subjects in a natural task are quantitatively aware of how sensory and motor variability depend on time and act so as to minimize overall task variability.

Thermoelastic dissipation in MEMS/NEMS flexural mode resonators.

Understanding the energy dissipation mechanisms in single-crystal silicon MEMS/NEMS resonators are particularly important to maximizing an important figure of merit relevant for miniature sensor and signal processing applications: the Quality factor (Q) of resonance. This paper discusses thermoelastic dissipation (TED) as the dominant internal-friction mechanism in flexural mode MEMS/NEMS resonators. Criteria for optimizing the geometrical design of flexural mode MEMS/NEMS resonators are theoretically established with a view towards minimizing the TED for single-crystal silicon MEMS/NEMS flexural mode resonators.