Electric field control of a Bragg diffraction optical beam splitter based on a cubic K(0.99)Li(0.01)Ta(0.63)Nb(0.37)O3 single crystal

We have realized an electric field controlled Bragg diffraction optical beam splitter based on a photorefractive Bragg diffraction grating. In our experiments, the splitter was produced by wave coupling (532.0 nm) with a potassium lithium tantalate niobate single crystal. In the process of splitting, the incident beam could be split into multioutput beams by the splitter. The influence of an externally applied electric field was studied, and the results show that the intensity of the Bragg diffraction could be controlled by the electric field. The polarization properties of the splitter are discussed.     

Electric field control of a two-dimensional higher order diffraction optical beam splitter based on a cubic K0.99Li0.01Ta0.63Nb0.37O3 single crystal

An electric field controlled two-dimensional higher order diffraction optical beam splitter has been realized based on a photorefractive higher order diffraction grating. In experiments, the splitter was produced by wave coupling (632.8 nm, 532.0 nm) at a small incident angle with a potassium lithium tantalate niobate single crystal. In the process of splitting, the incident beam of different wavelengths (632.8 nm, 532.0 nm) could be split into multi-output beams by the splitter. The influence of an externally applied electric field was studied and results show that the intensity of higher order diffraction could be controlled by the electric field. The polarization properties of higher order diffraction were discussed. An electric field controlled five–three optical beam splitter was investigated theoretically.     

Polarization-selective beam splitter based on a highly efficient simple binary diffraction grating

A polarization beam splitter (PBS) based on a giant-reflection to zero-order (GIRO) grating is presented. The GIRO grating is a simple binary diffraction grating with parameters chosen such that the excited optical modes in the grating interfere constructively and destructively at the respective interfaces. This interference results in high-zero-order reflection (>99%) with a high polarization-selective extinction ratio (+/-30 dB). The grating shows a low aspect ratio. The GIRO PBS is theoretically and experimentally shown to be an adequate PBS for use as an optical isolator in combination with a quarter-wave plate in a CO2-laser system.     

Three-dimensional large-screen display with reflection-mode spatial light modulators and a single-projection optical system: analysis of a retardation-modulation method

A stereoscopic projector with polarized glasses is proposed that consists of spatial light modulators (SLM's) that control the retardation of projected light, a polarization beam splitter (PBS), and single-projection optics. This display's features include a three-dimensional (3-D) image display with a single projector and half the size and the power consumption of a conventional 3-D projector. Analysis shows that the cross talk and the extinction ratio of this system depend strongly on the polarized light-separation characteristics of the PBS, the light output, and the extinction ratio of the SLM's. A double-PBS method that drastically improves 3-D image quality is also discussed.     

Unexpected irreversible damage of an asymmetric bismuth silicate photorefractive spatial light modulator

Unexpected irreversible damage occurred repeatedly in the asymmetric bismuth silicate (BSO) photorefractive spatial light modulator under some operation modes, even though the power of the write-light beam does not exceed the optical damage threshold. According to the microscopic surface images and the Raman spectra of the BSO film, sudden rising of temperature in local areas caused by the drift of the photon-induced electrons is responsible for the damage; the damage exists not only on the surface but also inside the BSO crystal. The damage is relative to the structure of the spatial light modulator, the operation mode, and the growth of the BSO crystal. The information provided by the damage is useful for optimizing the structure, the operation modes, and the performance of the photorefractive spatial light modulators.     

Ultracompact beam splitters based on plasmonic nanoslits

An ultracompact plasmonic beam splitter is theoretically and numerically investigated. The splitter consists of a V-shaped nanoslit in metal films. Two groups of nanoscale metallic grooves inside the slit (A) and at the small slit opening (B) are investigated. We show that there are two energy channels guiding light out by the splitter: the optical and the plasmonic channels. Groove A is used to couple incident light into the plasmonic channel. Groove B functions as a plasmonic scatter. We demonstrate that the energy transfer through plasmonic path is dominant in the beam splitter. We find that more than four times the energy is transferred by the plasmonic channel using structures A and B. We show that the plasmonic waves scattered by B can be converted into light waves. These light waves redistribute the transmitted energy through interference with the field transmitted from the nanoslit. Therefore, different beam splitting effects are achieved by simply changing the interference conditions between the scattered waves and the transmitted waves. The impact of the width and height of groove B are also investigated. It is found that the plasmonic scattering of B is changed into light scattering with increase of the width and the height of B. These devices have potential applications in optical sampling, signal processing, and integrated optical circuits.     

光栅分振幅光偏振测量系统的研制

使用一个既能产生反射光衍射又能产生透射光衍射的特殊金属光栅作为分光器,研制一种新颖的高速光波偏振态测量系统。它没有使用转动光学部件或调制器,而是将金属光栅产生的四条1级衍射光的光强线性地转换为电信号,通过定标方法得到系统的非奇异的仪器矩阵,然后通过线性运算得到入射光的待测Stokes矢量。该系统结构紧凑、安装方便,可用作实时偏振测量术和椭偏测量术中的偏振态探测器。     

Reduction of polarization-induced artifacts in grating-based spectrometers

An optical device that converts unpolarized light into a single polarization state is described. The device is based on a polarizing beam splitter that separates the two polarization directions. The beam splitter is combined with two pairs of equilateral prisms that are used to collimate the two beams in terms of both propagation and polarization directions. When it is used in combination with a blazed diffraction grating, this device is shown to effectively remove the polarization dependence of the first-order diffracted power. The device has an insertion loss of approximately 14% for purely s-polarized light. However, for unpolarized light incident upon the two gratings studied here, the increased throughput of the p-polarized component leads to an average relative gain in overall efficiency of 13%-19%, depending on the grating. In collimating the two polarization directions, the device may cause a reduction in spectral resolution for a rectangular entrance slit. As a result, the device is more likely to find use in spectrometers that have a circular aperture, such as that provided by an optical fiber.     

Diffractive light attenuators with variable transmission

Abstract

A new application of diffractive optical elements (DOEs) for continuous or multistage adjustment of optical radiation intensity is described. The diffractive attenuators are linear or circular gratings (amplitude or phase) with constant period and diffraction efficiency that varies across the grating. The zero order of diffraction is used as the output and transmitted through the grating without angular deviation. The diffractive attenuators, in distinction to conventional analogues, allow one to change the intensity of the light beam according to predetermined function and have no limitations for power of the regulated light beam. These elements can be used in optical systems as a beam splitter with adjusted splitting coefficient. The experimental results on a circular diffractive attenuator fabricated by direct laser writing on a chromium film are presented. The range of transmission variation was 20 times within a 340° angle of attenuator turn. The possibility to use a phase diffractive attenuator as a light radiation modulator for a powerful technological laser is discussed.     

Selective erasure of speckle-multiplexed holograms by use of a double Mach-Zehnder interferometric arrangement

A novel method to selectively erase and update speckle-multiplexed holograms in photorefractive crystals by use of a double Mach-Zehnder (DMZ) interferometric arrangement is presented. The DMZ arrangement automatically produces a pair of pi-phase-shifted interference patterns used for holographic recording, erasure, and update operations with a fairly simple optical configuration that consists of a commonly used dielectric multilayer beam splitter and two mirrors. The recording and the erasure conditions required for erasing a photorefractive hologram quickly and completely are discussed by calculating the temporal property of the hologram buildup and decay using the time-dependent coupled-wave equations. An experiment is also performed, in which arbitrary holograms in speckle-multiplexed holograms are selectively erased and updated with the simple DMZ optical configuration.     

Dynamic digital photorefractive memory for optoelectronic neural network learning modules

Neural network modules based on page-oriented dynamic digital photorefractive memory are described. The modules can implement two different interconnection organizations, fan-out and fan-in, depending on their target network applications. Neural network learning is realized by the real-time memory update of dynamic digital photorefractive memory. Physical separation of subvolumes in the page-oriented photorefractive memory architecture contributes to the low cross talk and high diffraction efficiency of the stored interconnection weights. Digitally encoded interconnection weights ensure high accuracy, providing superior neural network system scalability. Module scalability and feedforward throughput have been investigated based on photorefractive memory geometry and the photodetector power requirements. The following four approaches to extend module scalability are discussed: partial optical summation, semiparallel feedforward operation, time partitioning, and interconnection matrix partitioning. Learning capabilities of the system are investigated in terms of required interconnection primitives for implementing learning processes and three memory-update schemes. The experimental results of Perceptron learning network implementation with 900 input neurons with digital 6-bit accuracy are reported.     

Effects of dead zones in multiple-quantum-well binary-phase modulators on optical interconnections

We investigate the effects of inactive regions [dead zones (DZ's)] in multiple-quantum-well binary-phase modulators used for free-space dynamic optical interconnection applications. Results, however, have implications for other types of pixelated spatial light modulators (SLM's). To our knowledge, the effects of DZ's in SLM's have not before been thoroughly studied in a context other than optical correlation. We investigate the DZ's (considered to be either opaque or transmissive) as a feature that may be exploited in system design, calculating light efficiency and fidelity as a function of DZ fractional width. It is shown that in particular cases an appropriate choice of DZ width would lead to an optical interconnection with substantially improved cross-talk performance.     

Photorefractive properties of nanostructured organic materials doped with fullerenes and carbon nanotubes

The phenomenon of a significant increase in the photoinduced changes in refractive index, non-linear refraction, and nonlinear third-order optical susceptibility in organic materials based on polyimides, pyridines, and prolinols upon the introduction of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into the organic matrix is briefly considered (with emphasis on the dominating effect of CNTs). It is established that the values of these photorefractive parameters determined in said fullerene- and CNT-doped materials using a four-wave-mixing scheme are close to the analogous values in bulk silicon-based materials. The results can be useful in developing thin-film nonlinear filters, thin diffraction gratings for passive data recording, and optically-addressed light modulators, in medical applications, and in display technology (e.g., for creating a three-dimensional medium prototype).     

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.     

High-performance thin-film polarizing beam splitter operating at angles greater than the critical angle

A new type of thin-film polarizing beam splitter (PBS) is proposed that is based on the effects of light interference and frustrated total internal reflection. This PBS has a significantly better performance than conventional thin-film PBS's. It is nonabsorbing, broadband, and wide angle and has high extinction ratios in both the transmitted and the reflected beams. The principles and theory of this PBS are described in detail. Several PBS's designed for the visible and the infrared spectral regions are described. The measured results for a prototype visible PBS of this type are presented as well.     

Off-Bragg analysis of the diffraction efficiency of reflection photorefractive holograms

Formulas are given for the calculation of diffraction efficiency of reflection-type gratings recorded in a photorefractive medium. The analysis incorporates the coupled-wave theory that was developed for photorefractive hologram gratings. This analysis takes into account grating slant with respect to the medium surface, light absorption during reconstruction, any incident angle of the reference beam, and any photorefractive phase shift. General solutions for signal and reference wave functions are given in a closed-form expression by use of a hypergeometric function. The optimum media parameters and recording conditions for high diffraction efficiency are obtained by the derived formulas. The diffraction properties for off-Bragg conditions are also discussed.     

Reconfigurable array interconnection by photorefractive correlation

Electronic parallel processors might communicate more effectively by photons sent through glass or air than by electrons sent through wires, but quickly routing thousands of optical signals remains a problem. Previous photorefractive interconnection networks have dedicated one hologram to each input channel. Instead, we compute a control image from the entire network configuration and store it as a single color-keyedvolume hologram. This lets us use hologram superposition for fast switchingbetween multiple prestored patterns. During operation, data signals from the input modulator array, powered by a shared wavelength-tunable laser, are correlated optically with one color-matched connection hologram to produce the output array. This decouples both data rate and interconnect switching speeds from the slow photorefractive response. We can display arbitrary connection weights using simple binary-phase spatial light modulators and gracefully accommodate modulator limitations by trading off control-image bandwidth for output signal-to-noise ratio. Experimental results with color-multiplexed reflection holograms in z-cut LiNbO(3) confirmed our theoretical predictions that this approach works best for densely connected networks with high fan-in to each output. We obtained an average aggregate signal-to-noise ratio of more than 200:1 for 1024 inputs and outputs.     

Diffractive optical elements designed for highly precise far-field generation in the presence of artifacts typical for pixelated spatial light modulators

Diffractive optical elements (DOEs) realized by spatial light modulators (SLMs) often have features that distinguish them from most conventional, static DOEs: strong coupling between phase and amplitude modulation, a modulation versus steering parameter characteristic that may not be precisely known (and may vary with, e.g., temperature), and deadspace effects and interpixel cross talk. For an optimal function of the DOE, e.g. as a multiple-beam splitter, the DOE design must account for these artifacts. We present an iterative design method in which the optimal setting of each SLM pixel is carefully chosen by considering the SLM artifacts and the design targets. For instance, the deadspace-interpixel effects are modeled by dividing the pixel to be optimized, and its nearest neighbors, into a number of subareas, each with its unique response and far-field contribution. Besides the customary intensity control, the design targets can also include phase control of the optical field in one or more of the beams in the beam splitter. We show how this can be used to cancel a strong unwanted zeroth-order beam, which results from using a slightly incorrect modulation characteristic for the SLM, by purposely sending a beam in the same direction but with the opposite phase. All the designs have been implemented on the 256 x 256 central pixels of a reflective liquid crystal on silicon SLM with a selected input polarization state and a direction of transmission axis of the output polarizer such that for the available different pixel settings a phase modulation of ~2pi rad could be obtained, accompanied by an intensity modulation depth as high as >95%.     

Diffraction properties of double-layer rectangular phase gratings

Abstract

We theoretically present diffraction properties of double-layer rectangular phase gratings (DLRPGs). Computer simulations show that these DLRPGs can realize several functions such as optical filtering, optical switching, optical amplitude modulating, beam splitting with variable output beam numbers and wavelength division multiplexing, and so on. As a test of the above diffraction properties, we fabricate a set of DLRPGs in a double-layer light-sensitive material by the contact printing method. Based on the DLRPGs of the material, a single beam splitter with experimental results of splitting of an incident beam into 2, 3 or 5 output beams and of higher than 64% total diffraction efficiency are realized when the incident angle of the readout beam is tuned during the reading process.     

Optical implementation of rearrangeable nonblocking double banyan interconnection network in free space

The banyan network plays an important role in optical interconnection networks. A smart and compact double banyan network with cascading banyan network and inverse banyan network is proposed by using a polarizing beam-splitter (PBS), a phase spatial light modulator (PSLM), a half-wave plate (HWP), a double-faced reflective mirror (DFRM), and mirrors. The PBS features that the s-component (perpendicular to the incident plane) of the incident light beam is reflected, and the p-component (parallel to the incident plane) passes through it. Simultaneously, the bipartition graph algorithm (BGA) is adopted to ascertain the state of the node switch in each node stage (straight or crossover connection). According to switching logic, under control of external electrical signals, the PSLM functions to control routing paths of the signal beams, i.e. the polarization of each optical signal is rotated or not rotated 90° by a programmable PSLM. Since the proposed optical setup consists of only optical polarization elements, it is compact in structure, and possesses a low energy loss, a high signal-to-noise ratio and an available large number of optical channels. Finally, the discussions and the experimental results show that the double banyan network proposed here, owing to without signal blocking and conflict, may be used in optical communication and optical information processing.