Measurement of longitudinal displacement using lateral shearing cyclic path optical configuration setup and phase shifting interferometry

We present a technique for the measurement of longitudinal displacement using a lateral shearing cyclic path optical configuration (CPOC) setup and phase shifting interferometry. In the technique, a plane mirror mounted on a linear translation stage, placed slightly away from the focal plane of a lens, introduces a longitudinal focal shift to the incident focusing beam. The resulting spherical wavefront emerging from the lens is sheared into two orthogonally polarized beams using the CPOC setup. By applying polarization phase shifting interferometry (PPSI), the longitudinal focal shift of the beam focus is calculated by determining the slope of the optical path difference variation between the sheared beams. Similarly, the additional focal shift introduced due to longitudinal translation of the mirror, by an unknown amount, is determined using PPSI. Half of the difference between the two longitudinal focal shifts measured gives the longitudinal displacement of the mirror. The technique can be used for an extended range of distance measurement. The novelty of the technique is the introduction of CPOC for the distance measurement. The advantages of the technique compared to other related methods are discussed.     

Opaque optics thickness measurement using a cyclic path optical configuration setup and polarization phase shifting interferometry

Thickness measurement of an opaque optics using a cyclic path optical configuration (CPOC) setup and polarization phase shifting interferometry (PPSI) is presented. The CPOC setup is used to simultaneously focus two orthogonally polarized counterpropagating converging beams at its hypotenuse arm. The opaque optics is placed at the hypotenuse arm of the CPOC setup such that one of its surfaces reflects back one of the counterpropagating focusing beams. Because of the thickness of the opaque optics, the other focusing beam suffers a longitudinal shift in the beam focus. Applying PPSI, the longitudinal shift in the beam focus which is twice the thickness of the opaque optics is determined. The results obtained for a silicon plate of thickness 0.660 mm with a measurement uncertainty of 0.013 mm are presented.     

Thickness measurement of transparent glass plates using a lateral shearing cyclic path optical configuration setup and polarization phase shifting interferometry

We present a measurement technique to determine the thickness of a transparent glass plate (GP) by using a lateral shearing cyclic path optical configuration (CPOC) setup and polarization phase shifting interferometry (PPSI). In the technique, the GP introduces a longitudinal shift in the focus of the beam and, as a result, a spherical wavefront emerges from the lens, which is otherwise set for producing a collimated beam. Using CPOC, two laterally sheared orthogonally polarized beams are generated from the incident spherical wavefront. By applying PPSI, the slope of the optical path difference variation between the laterally sheared interfering beams is evaluated, and the radius of the spherical wavefront and the longitudinal shift of the beam focus are calculated. The thickness of the GP is determined from the standard relation between the longitudinal shift of the focus introduced by the GP and the thickness of the GP. Results obtained for a GP of 9.810mm thickness are presented.     

Simultaneous determination of refractive index and thickness of moderately thick plane-parallel transparent glass plates using cyclic path optical configuration setup and a lateral shearing interferometer

We present a simple technique for simultaneous determination of refractive index and thickness of moderately thick plane-parallel transparent glass plates (GPs) using a cyclic path optical configuration (CPOC) setup and a wedge shear plate as lateral shearing interferometer. The CPOC setup is used to simultaneously focus the counterpropagating converging beams at a common point at its hypotenuse arm. The apparent thickness and real thickness of the test GP are determined by observing three retrocollimation positions of the GP surfaces with respect to the common focus point. The RI is obtained by dividing the real thickness with apparent thickness of the GP. Presented in this paper are the results obtained for a test GP with a thickness of 14.983 mm and a RI of 1.515.     

High-speed,high-sensitivity,gated surface profiling with closed-loop optical coherence topography

We describe and experimentally demonstrate a novel (to our knowledge) surface profiling technique, for which we propose the term closed-loop optical coherence topography. This technique is a scanning beam, servo-locked variation of low-coherence interferometry. It allows for the sub-wavelength-resolution tracking of a weakly scattering macroscopic-scale surface, with the surface profile being directly output by the controlling electronics. The absence of significant real-time computational overhead makes the technique well suited to high-speed tracking. The use of a micrometer-scale coherence gate efficiently suppresses signals arising from structures not associated with the surface. These features make the technique particularly well suited to real-time surface profiling of in vivo, macroscopic biological surfaces.     

Scanning optical microellipsometer for pure surface profiling

We describe a scanning optical interferometer that can simultaneously perform ellipsometry measurements and thus provides a true surface profile. This is accomplished by projecting the back focal plane of the objective lens onto a CCD array. The measured phase differences between the p- and s-polarization components are converted, by using a specially developed algorithm, to optical phase changes caused by material variations. The compensation process is then applied to extract the true profile of the object surface. Experimental results obtained with the system are shown.     

Transmission laser microscope using the phase-shifting technique and its application to measurement of optical waveguides

A type of a transmission phase-shifting laser microscope, believed to be new, has been developed. In this microscope a biprism located between a magnifying lens and an observation plane was used as a beam splitter. The biprism is laterally translated to introduce phase shifts required for quantitative phase measurement with a phase-shifting technique. The disturbance caused by a Fresnel-diffracted wave from the splitting edge of the biprism is reduced by placement of a linear beam stopper at the center of an intermediate image plane. As the first application, the developed microscope is used to measure a refractive-index distribution in optical waveguides. A difference of refractive indices of less than 6 x 10(-5) is clearly measured in the submicrometer region.     

Laser desorption combined with hyperthermal surface ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry

A setup combining laser desorption of nonvolatile molecules and their aerodynamic acceleration in a supersonic molecular beam followed by hyperthermal surface ionization in a reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer is described. While laser desorption performs the intact transfer of the analyte molecules into the gas phase, hyperthermal surface ionization opens up the possibility to efficiently ionize even larger molecules with a small and potentially controlled degree of fragmentation. Being an ionization technique, which is particularly effective for aromatic and heterocyclic compounds, the selectivity can further be increased by tuning the kinetic energy to which the molecules are accelerated in the supersonic beam. The results obtained for several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and biochemical substances show that sufficient acceleration can be achieved even for molecules with a molecular weight above 5000 amu and that HSI preserves its advantageous features even for thermally labile large molecules such as insulin.     

Measurement of the surface profile of an axicon lens with a polarization phase-shifting shearing interferometer

We present a Twyman-Green interferometer (TGI)-based polarization phase-shifting shearing interferometric technique for testing the conical surface of an axicon (AX) lens. In this technique, the annular beam generated due to the passing of an expanded collimated laser beam traveling along the axis of revolution of the transparent glass AX element is split up into its reflected and transmitted components, having the plane of polarization in the orthogonal planes, by the polarization beam splitter (PBS) cube of the TGI-based optical setup. The split-up components are made to travel unequal paths along the two arms of the TGI and are recombined by the PBS. Because of the difference in path lengths traveled by the annular conical beams, a linear shear is introduced along the radial direction between the interfering components. Thus, the resulting interference pattern gives a map of the optical path difference (OPD) between two successive close points along a radial direction on the conical surface of the AX lens. The OPD map along radial directions, and hence the slopes/profiles of the conical surface, are obtained by applying polarization phase-shifting interferometry. Results obtained for an AX lens are presented.     

Adaptive optical array receivers for detection of surface acoustic waves

Adaptive interferometric detection systems based on two-wave mixing in photorefractive crystals have been configured as distributed optical receivers. The spatial distribution of the detection laser power on the sample surface is controlled by use of phase gratings and amplitude masks. The responses of point, line, array, and chirped optical receivers to propagating surface acoustic waves (SAW's) are discussed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally. It is shown that by use of different object beam footprints it is possible to configure adaptive holographic SAW receivers that are either broadband or narrow band and that are preferentially sensitive to SAW's propagating in given directions. The receivers also allow for the distribution of laser power over the sample, eliminating the excessive heating or surface damage that can occur in some materials when high power, point-focused, detection lasers are used.     

Reference-beam system for measuring relative small-surface local irregularities of a reflective object

We present an optical technique for measuring irregularities on a small local surface ( approximately lambda/100). This new technique uses a narrow laser beam as a local probe. The probe beam interferes with a reference beam. We use a 90 degrees phase delay on the reference beam to increase the sensitivity. We show that if the test surface vibrates laterally, the collected power of the interferogram encodes as amplitude modulations, on a sinusoidal temporal carrier, the local surface irregularities.     

Production and characterization of spiral phase plates for optical wavelengths

We describe the fabrication and characterization of a high-quality spiral phase plate as a device to generate optical vortices of low (3-5) specified charge at visible wavelengths. The manufacturing process is based on a molding technique and allows for the production of high-precision, smooth spiral phase plates as well as for their replication. An attractive feature of this process is that it permits the fabrication of nominally identical spiral phase plates made from different materials and thus yielding different vortex charges. When such a plate is inserted in the waist of a fundamental Gaussian beam, the resultant far-field intensity profile shows a rich vortex structure, in excellent agreement with diffraction calculations based on ideal spiral phase plates. Using a simple optical test, we show that the reproducibility of the manufacturing process is excellent.     

Computational calibration method for optical tomography

We propose a computational calibration method for optical tomography. The model of the calibration scheme is based on the rotation symmetry of source and detector positions in the measurement setup. The relative amplitude losses and phase shifts at the optic fibers are modeled by complex-valued coupling coefficients. The coupling coefficients can be estimated when optical tomography data from a homogeneous and isotropic object are given. Once these coupling coefficients have been estimated, any data measured with the same measurement setup can be corrected for the relative variation in the data due to source and detector losses. The final calibration of the data for the source and detector losses and the source calibration between the data and the forward model are obtained as part of the initial estimation for reconstruction. The calibration method was tested with simulations and measurements. The results show that the coupling coefficients of the sources and detectors can be estimated with good accuracy. Furthermore, the results show that the method can significantly improve the quality of reconstructed images.     

Photonic crystal surface waves for optical biosensors

We present a new optical biosensor technique based on registration of dual optical s-polarized modes on a photonic crystal surface. The simultaneous registration of two optical surface waves with different evanescent depths from the same surface spot permits the segregation of the volume and the surface contributions from an analyte, while the absence of metal damping permits an increase in the propagation length of the optical surface waves and the sensitivity of the biosensor. Our technique was tested with the binding of biotin molecules to a streptavidin monolayer that has been detected with signal/noise ratio of approximately 15 at 1-s signal accumulation time. The detection limit is approximately 20 fg of the analyte on the probed spot of the surface.     

Noncontact optical imaging in mice with full angular coverage and automatic surface extraction

During the past decade, optical imaging combined with tomographic approaches has proved its potential in offering quantitative three-dimensional spatial maps of chromophore or fluorophore concentration in vivo. Due to its direct application in biology and biomedicine, diffuse optical tomography (DOT) and its fluorescence counterpart, fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT), have benefited from an increase in devoted research and new experimental and theoretical developments, giving rise to a new imaging modality. The most recent advances in FMT and DOT are based on the capability of collecting large data sets by using CCDs as detectors, and on the ability to include multiple projections through recently developed noncontact approaches. For these to be implemented, we have developed an imaging setup that enables three-dimensional imaging of arbitrary shapes in fluorescence or absorption mode that is appropriate for small animal imaging. This is achieved by implementing a noncontact approach both for sources and detectors and coregistering surface geometry measurements using the same CCD camera. A thresholded shadowgrammetry approach is applied to the geometry measurements to retrieve the surface mesh. We present the evaluation of the system and method in recovering three-dimensional surfaces from phantom data and live mice. The approach is used to map the measured in vivo fluorescence data onto the tissue surface by making use of the free-space propagation equations, as well as to reconstruct fluorescence concentrations inside highly scattering tissuelike phantom samples. Finally, the potential use of this setup for in vivo small animal imaging and its impact on biomedical research is discussed.     

Investigation of membrane deformation by a fringe projection method

An optical method has been developed to measure the deformation of a membrane in a microphone. A fringe projector that consists of an optical fiber and an optical wedge is described and analyzed by geometric optics. A three-step phase-shifting technique that involves the introduction of an arbitrary phase is discussed. The fine fringe patterns projected onto a small test surface are captured by a CCD camera mounted on a long-distance microscope. With the aid of a phase-shifting technique and signal-demodulating techniques, the proposed setup is capable of measuring deformation of the membrane of the order of as much as submicrometers.     

Size and environment dependence of surface phonon modes of gallium arsenide nanowires as measured by Raman spectroscopy

Gallium arsenide nanowires were synthesized by gallium-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. By varying the growth time, nanowires with diameters ranging from 30 to 160?nm were obtained. Raman spectra of the nanowire ensembles were measured. The small linewidth of the optical phonon modes agree with an excellent crystalline quality. A surface phonon mode was also revealed, as a shoulder at lower frequencies of the longitudinal optical mode. In agreement with the theory, the surface mode shifts to lower wavenumbers when the diameter of the nanowires is decreased or the environment dielectric constant increased.     

A dynamic plasmonic manipulation technique assisted by phase modulation of an incident optical vortex beam

A novel phase modulation method for dynamic manipulation of surface plasmon polaritons?(SPPs) with a phase engineered optical vortex?(OV) beam illuminating on nanoslits is experimentally demonstrated. Because of the unique helical phase carried by an OV beam, dynamic control of SPP multiple focusing and standing wave generation is realized by changing the OV beam's topological charge constituent with the help of a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator. Measurement of SPP distributions with near-field scanning optical microscopy showed an excellent agreement with numerical predictions. The proposed phase modulation technique for manipulating SPPs features has seemingly dynamic and reconfigurable advantages, with profound potential for development of SPP coupling, routing, multiplexing and high-resolution imaging devices on plasmonic chips.     

New scanning technique for the optical vortex microscope

In the optical vortex microscopy the focused Gaussian beam with optical vortex scans a sample. An optical vortex can be introduced into a laser beam with the use of a special optical element--a vortex lens. When moving the vortex lens, the optical vortex changes its position inside the spot formed by a focused laser beam. This effect can be used as a new precise scanning technique. In this paper, we study the optical vortex behavior at the sample plane. We also estimate if the new scanning technique results in observable effects that could be used for a phase object detection.