A novel optical subdivision method for dual-frequency interferometer

The theory of optical subdivision techniques of dual-frequency laser interferometers is stated. And a novel optical subdivision technique is proposed originally to enhance resolution of a commercial interferometer by adding some corner-cubes. Then the performance of the interferometer is tested. The interferometer resolution of 1.24 nm and the average error of below 2 nm are achieved by using the technique. The most novel of the optical subdivision technique is without lambda/4 plates. It is less sensitive to environmental changes, it has prodigious potential to improve resolution farther and it can reduce polarization mixing error. (C) 2007 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Theoretical analysis of optical properties of dielectric coatings dependence on substrate subsurface defects

A model for refractive index of stratified dielectric substrate was put forward according to theories of inhomogeneous coatings. The substrate was divided into surface layer, subsurface layer and bulk layer along the normal direction of its surface. Both the surface layer (separated into N-1 sublayers of uniform thickness) and subsurface layer (separated into N-2 sublayers of uniform thickness), whose refractive indices have different statistical distributions, are equivalent to inhomogeneous coatings, respectively. And theoretical deduction was carried Out by employing characteristic matrix method of optical coatings. An example of mathematical calculation for optical properties of dielectric coatings had been presented. The computing results indicate that substrate subsurface defects can bring about additional bulk scattering and change propagation characteristic in thin film and Substrate. Therefore, reflectance, reflective phase shift and phase difference of an assembly of coatings and substrate deviate from ideal conditions. The model will provide some beneficial theory directions for improving optical properties of dielectric coatings via substrate surface modification. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Control of polarization for a broadband dichroic filter at 45 degrees incidence

A method for the control of polarization for a broadband dichroic filter was reported and some design examples were elaborated. This method could be applied over a wide range of wavelengths and a wide range of polarizations in the transmission region. A nonpolaiizing broadband dichroic filter and a broadband dichroic filter with certain polarization were designed and fabricated by electron beam evaporation with ion beam assisted deposition. The experimental spectral performances showed good agreement with their theoretical curves. In addition, the application of the method was discussed. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America

Diode laser pumped, KERR phase-shifting and switching of a diode laser signal in a small area optical fibre

In this paper authors report the first demonstration of a diode laser powered Kerr effect device, consisting of a single birefringent fiber, able to phase-shift and switch an optical signal generated by a second laser diode. They have obtained fast, stable phase-shifting of 90° in a single fiber, at a coupled pump power of only 20 mW. Using this phase shift to induce polarization switching with resultant gating, 25% modulation of the diode laser signal has been observed, with a detection limited-rise time of 10ns.

Liquid crystal over silicon device characteristics for holographic projection of high-definition television images.

We discuss some fundamental characteristics of a phase-modulating device suitable to holographically project a monochrome video frame with 1280 x 720 resolution. The phase-modulating device is expected to be a liquid crystal over silicon chip with silicon area similar to that of commercial devices. Its basic characteristics, such as number of pixels, bits per pixel, and pixel dimensions, are optimized in terms of image quality and optical efficiency. Estimates of the image quality are made from the noise levels and contrast, while efficiency is calculated by considering the beam apodization, device dead space, diffraction losses, and the sinc envelope.

High-speed wavelength conversion utilizing birefringence in semiconductor optical amplifiers

This paper describes a novel technique whereby a mixture of cross-phase and cross-gain modulation effects in an SOA causes polarization rotation of a cw probe beam in the presence of a signal pulse, enabling the transmission of the probe through a polarizer to be controlled. The benefits of this approach are: 1) Very high extinction ratios present in the wavelength converted signal (>30 achieved); 2) A non-inverted wavelength converted signal, which is advantageous for chirp-compensation;2 3) A simple and stable experimental set-up, 4) Converted pulses which can be shaped to be faster than the input pulses.

Demonstration of time division demultiplexing from 40Gb/s to 10Gb/s via polarisation switching in a semiconductor optical amplifier

An all-optical polarization rotation technique was demonstrated for demultiplexing a 40 Gb/s return-to-zero optical time division de/multiplexing (OTDM) signal. A sensitivity penalty of 3.5 dB was achieved for the total multiplexing/demultiplexing process from 10Gb/s to 40 Gb/s and back again.

Holographic memory with correlator based readout

The investigation of an inverted hybrid digital/ optical VanderLugt type correlator based on a holographic memory is reported in this paper. A set of reference templates is stored in a photorefractive crystal (PRC) by angular hologram multiplexing. In the filter plane, a phase-modulating liquid crystal television (LCTV) serves as a phase-only input device. During the recognition process, which is based on the pure phase correlation, the reference templates are correlated sequentially with the input object. This correlator shows high sensitivity to object rotation, sharp correlation peaks, high light efficiency, and is fully shift-invariant in spite of the PRC thickness. The influences of the LCTV on the performance of the system are discussed and experimental results are shown.

10-Gbits/s all-optical 3R regeneration and format conversion using a gain-switched DFB laser

A strain-compensated multiple quantum well device is used as a DFB laser, this has been optimized for low jitter gain switched operation at 10 GHz. The signal is transmitted down 80 km of standard fiber then amplified, filtered and polarization controlled before being injected into a DFB laser. The purpose of this regeneration process is to gain switch the DFB with the extracted clock signal in order to retime the converted signal. This process also simultaneously converts the input NRZ format to an output RZ data to format and results in a signal whose optical power and extinction ratio are considerably improved by the regeneration process.

Holographic mode-group division multiplexing

Specific fibre modes are deliberately excited in a few-mode and multimode fibre using holography. The same system is also used to demonstrate holography's ability to detect and route individual fibre modes. © 2011 Optical Society of America.