Development of low-loss lead-germanate glass for mid-infrared fiber optics: II. preform extrusion and fiber fabrication

For lead-germanate glass fibers, reducing the content of hydroxyl (OH) groups and the formation of metallic Pb species is essential to pave the way for their applications as low-loss mid-IR fiber optics since OH and metallic Pb species cause intense absorption and scattering loss, respectively, in the mid-IR spectral range. The first part of this study reported the optimization of the glass melting procedure to obtain low amount of OH while preventing formation of metallic Pb species in lead-germanate glass. Here, the second part of this study reports the investigation of the process conditions to fabricate low-loss lead-germanate glass fiber through further understanding of the co-effects of glass melting and heat treatment atmospheres on the formation of nano- and micron-scale metallic Pb species in both the as-produced and heat treated lead-germanate glasses. Finally, using this advance in knowledge, we successfully fabricated low-loss lead-germanate glass fibers with no presence of reduced metallic Pb particles by optimizing dehydration agent, glass melting, preform extrusion and fiber drawing conditions. The optimized fabrication conditions reduced the unstructured fiber loss by almost one order to <0.3 dB/m at 1.55 μm.     

Ultrashort pulse-induced elastodynamics in polycrystalline materials. Part I: Model validation

The coupled thermal-mechanical response of a polycrystalline metallic film in response to ultrafast optical impingement is investigated. The thermo-elastodynamics formulated in the article considers laser absorption along the axial direction and thermal diffusion along the radial direction to account for the normal and shear stresses initiated by the rapid heating. The generalized formulation incorporates a two-step hyperbolic temperature model that characterizes the energy transport of electrons and lattices as finite in velocity. The coupling of thermal and mechanical fields is established through considering the energy dissipated in the form of propagating thermo-mechanical disturbances. The thermo-elastodynamical response of the polycrystalline film is found to be a strong function of the electron heat capacity that is also temperature-dependent. In addition, grain size effects due to film surface and grain-boundary scatterings are found to impact several thermophysical properties of the material. The impact of the energy transport of electrons is particularly prominent when the thickness becomes comparable with the electron mean-free-path. A staggered-grid finite difference scheme is followed to simultaneously resolve the coupled thermo-elastodynamical responses using an axisymmetric model. The time variation of the normalized electron temperature of a single crystalline gold film derived from the generalized model is favorably examined against published physical data, thus demonstrating the feasibility of the formulation in depicting the electron transport dynamics in response to non-ablating ultrafast irradiation.     

Hierarchical Coherent Phonons in a Superatomic Semiconductor

The coupling of phonons to electrons and other phonons plays a defining role in material properties, such as charge and energy transport, light emission, and superconductivity. In atomic solids, phonons are delocalized over the 3D lattice, in contrast to molecular solids where localized vibrations dominate. Here, a hierarchical semiconductor that expands the phonon space by combining localized 0D modes with delocalized 2D and 3D modes is described. This material consists of superatomic building blocks (Re₆Se₈) covalently linked into 2D sheets that are stacked into a layered van der Waals lattice. Using transient reflectance spectroscopy, three types of coherent phonons are identified: localized 0D breathing modes of isolated superatom, 2D synchronized twisting of superatoms in layers, and 3D acoustic interlayer deformation. These phonons are coupled to the electronic degrees of freedom to varying extents. The presence of local phonon modes in an extended crystal opens the door to controlling material properties from hierarchical phonon engineering.     

New exact solutions of the Tzitzéica-type equations in non-linear optics using the expa function method

One specific class of non-linear evolution equations, known as the Tzitzéica-type equations, has received great attention from a group of researchers involved in non-linear science. In this article, new exact solutions of the Tzitzéica-type equations arising in non-linear optics, including the Tzitzéica, Dodd–Bullough–Mikhailov and Tzitzéica–Dodd–Bullough equations, are obtained using the exp_a function method. The integration technique actually suggests a useful and reliable method to extract new exact solutions of a wide range of non-linear evolution equations.     

空间红外大口径折射式低温镜头设计与验证

针对目标探测类空间红外相机大范围成像、高灵敏度探测、高精度定位等应用需求,文中提出采用像方远心光路和低温光学技术结合的解决方案,设计了物方视场角8°×8°、入瞳口径265 mm、工作温度200 K的像方远心折射式光学系统。镜头最大口径280 mm,采用多级分散的弹性支撑设计,解决大口径低温透镜装框、透镜组件支撑和镜头整体安装各环节的热应力卸载问题。在保证高刚度和低漏热的情况下,使低温下透镜的热应力对镜头能量集中度的影响降低到可接受范围内。镜头完成装调及室温下像质确认后,进行了力学振动试验,并将其制冷到200 K水平测试像质,测试结果表明,镜头能量集中度达到轴上75%,边缘视场72%。     

Transparent Electrothermal Film Defoggers and Antiicing Coatings based on Wrinkled Graphene

Fog, frost, ice, and other natural phenomena can inevitably affect human life and the function of equipment. Therefore, removal or prevention is an urgent problem to be solved. As a new type of 2D material, graphene possesses great application potential in defogging and antiicing. In this work, a graphene film with intentionally increased defects and uniformly distributed wrinkles is synthesized on copper–zinc alloy substrates by chemical vapor deposition, and transparent electrothermal film defoggers are prepared based on such material. The defoggers can completely remove fog within 5 s when supplying a safe voltage of 28 V. The surface resistance of the defoggers is sensitive to humidity and it can monitor the defogging process in real time. Such outstanding performance is attributed to the ultrafast evaporation mechanism, which can prevent excessive water accumulation. The antiicing performance of wrinkled graphene (WG) is further studied. The antiicing coatings can delay freezing for 1.25 h at ?15 °C or 2.8 h at ?10 °C. The superior performance of WG can be explained by its unique surface structure and nanoscale roughness. Taken together, WG is expected to be used in antifog glass, rearview mirror defogging, aircraft surface deicing, and other applications.     

A neural network based technique for vibration characterization using Gaussian laser beams

This paper presents a neural network technique combined with an optical measurement system for the characterization of mechanical vibrations in industrial machinery. In the proposed system, the Gaussian beam of a laser source illuminates on an array of photodetectors. If either the laser source or the photodetector array is coupled with a vibrating system, then the optical powers detected by the photodetectors will vary accordingly, and are expected to reflect the magnitude and frequency of the X–Y planar vibrations of the monitored system. The time-varying optical powers are input to an artificial neural network-based vibration monitoring system which maps the power distributions to the X–Y position of the laser beam center. An experimental setup of the system is built and used for training and testing purposes. The obtained experimental results demonstrate the adequacy of combining optical techniques with neural networks to estimate the vibration frequency and magnitude. Estimated frequencies were within 1% of the actual ones, and the estimated magnitudes were within 29% of the actual magnitudes when using a chirp signal in the training phase. The magnitude estimation percentage error was further reduced below 12% when the neural network was trained with a decaying chirp signal.     

高功率光纤激光器光纤器件封装应力影响研究

高功率激光器无源器件制作过程中封装不当引入的应力,会导致信号光光束质量劣化和光纤温升,为了解决此问题,理论分析了光纤形变对信号光模式分布的影响,利用有限元方法建立包层光导致光纤发热模型,实验研究了不同封装方式对光纤发热情况和信号光光束质量的影响。实验表明,应力导致的光纤形变会造成信号光M2值在受力方向上略微变小而其垂直方向上变大,在输出100 W信号光时,施加应力导致的M2值的变化最高为0.39,与仿真结果相符。在光纤温升方面,相比于使用硬质胶水带来的12 ℃温升,使用硅橡胶封装的剥离器将温升控制在5 ℃以内,且其封装应力引入的M2值的变化在0.05以内。