Optical in-plane strain field sensor

A whole-field speckle strain sensor is presented. The speckle strain sensor allows the measurement of all three in-plane components of the strain field simultaneously without touching the surface of the sample. The strain fields are extracted from the in-plane motion of defocused laser speckles in a telecentric imaging system. To distinguish the contribution to the speckle motion from surface translation, rotation, and strain, the speckle motion from three lasers with different illumination directions and wavelengths has to be analyzed separately. Simultaneous acquisition of the three individual speckle patterns is achieved by means of splitting the light from the lasers onto separate but synchronized detectors with the aid of dichroic mirrors. The motion of the speckles is calculated with digital speckle photography (speckle correlation), which enables the strain sensor to measure strain fields with noise levels as low as 10 microstrain.     

Wavefront sensor architectures fully embedded in an image sensor

Several architectures of wavefront sensors have been developed since the rise of adaptive optics. In all cases, optical elements are placed in front of image sensors. This makes the sensor quite bulky, expensive, and sensitive to optical misalignment. I propose two novel architectures fully embedded in the image sensor that require no additional optical element. The sensor can be placed directly in the beam to analyze, leading to small, easy to use, and cost-efficient systems. The two architectures are described before testing by simulation of their ability to sense the wavefront distortion and their sensitivity to signal-to-noise ratio.     

Optical D-fiber-based volatile organic compound sensor

A fiber-optic sensor used to detect volatile organic compounds is described. The sensor consists of a single-mode D-fiber with a 2.5 microm polydimethylsiloxane layer. The layer is applied to the fiber flat after removal of a section of the fiber's cladding to increase evanescent interaction of the light with the layer. Absorption of volatile organic compounds into the polymer alters the refractive index of the layer, resulting in a birefringent change of the fiber. This change is observed as a shift in polarization of the light carried by the fiber. The sensor has a short length of 3 cm and a response time of around 1 s. The sensor is naturally reversible and gives an exponential response for gas and liquid concentrations of dichloromethane and acetone, respectively.     

Optical image recognition of three-dimensional objects

A three-dimensional (3-D) optical image-recognition technique is proposed and studied. The proposed technique is based on two-pupil optical heterodyne scanning and is capable of performing 3-D image recognition. A hologram of the 3-D reference object is first created and then is used to modulate spatially one of the pupils of the optical system; the other pupil is a point source. A 3-D target object to be recognized is then scanned in two dimensions by optical beams modulated by the two pupils. The result of the two-dimensional scan pattern effectively displays the correlation of the holographic information of the 3-D reference object and that of the 3-D target object. A strong correlation peak results if the two pieces of the holographic information are matched. We analyze the proposed technique and thereby lay a theoretical foundation for optical implementations of the idea. Finally, computer simulations are performed to verify the proposed idea.     

Low-complexity low-memory energy-efficient image coding for wireless image sensor networks

Wireless image sensor networks are capable of sensing, processing and transmitting the image in hard-to-access regions without expensive network infrastructure and will have great contribution in Internet of Things. These networks are resource constraint systems with limited memory, energy, processing speed and bandwidth. Low computational energy and communication energy will improve the lifetime of these resource-limited networks. In this paper, an energy-efficient low-memory and low-bitrate image coding is designed exclusively for low-power camera-equipped sensor node. The performance of the proposed image coder is analysed in terms of bitrate, image quality, memory size and energy consumption. Experiments are carried out with Atmel ATmega128 processor. The experimental results show that this system consumes only 0.23% of energy consumed by true Discrete Cosine Transform-based Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) standard and offers reasonable image quality suitable for visual perception at low bitrate. This system requires only 19% of memory required by standard JPEG.     

Optical frequency-domain reflectometry for microbend sensor demodulation

The operation of an incoherent optical frequency-domain reflectometer for monitoring the continuous Rayleigh backscatter in a multimode optical fiber is presented. A simple but effective model to predict the value of beat frequencies arising in the system when excited by a linearly frequency-swept amplitude modulation has been developed. We have verified the model's predictions by experimental measurement of beat frequencies and modulation depth indices of different lengths of standard graded-index multimode optical fiber. Demonstration of the system sensitivity to the detection of microbending loss is then discussed. In particular the detection of loss in a hydrogel-based water-sensing cable allows an alternative interrogation to conventional optical time-domain reflectometry techniques to be implemented. We demonstrate that the incoherent optical frequency-domain reflectometer is capable of detecting and locating sections of increased loss in a multimode optical fiber, and we discuss the fundamental limits on spatial resolution and dynamic range.     

Optical penetration-based silkworm pupa gender sensor structure

This paper proposes and experimentally demonstrates for what is believed to be the first time a highly sought-after optical structure for highly-accurate identification of the silkworm pupa gender. The key idea is to exploit a long wavelength optical beam in the red or near infrared spectrum that can effectively and safely penetrate the body of a silkworm pupa. Later on, simple image processing operations via image thresholding, blob filtering, and image inversion processes are applied in order to eliminate the unwanted image noises and at the same time highlight the gender gland. Experimental proof of concept using three 636 nm wavelength light emitting diodes, a two-dimensional web camera, an 8 bit microcontroller board, and a notebook computer shows a very high 95.6% total accuracy in identifying the gender of 45 silkworm pupae with a measured fast identification time of 96.6 ms. Other key features include low cost, low component counts, and ease of implementation and control.     

Optical sensor based on Fabry-Perot resonance modes

An oscillating wave sensor based on Fabry-Perot resonance modes has been developed. Different from the surface plasmon resonance sensors and the waveguide mode sensors in which the sample is located in the evanescent field region, the proposed device contains the sample in the core region that supports the oscillating field. Owing to the strong concentration of the electromagnetic field in the sensing medium, the proposed device exhibits unusual sensitivity enhancement, which has never been exploited in any other devices.     

Optical characterization of ultrahigh diffraction efficiency gratings

We report on the optical characterization of an ultrahigh diffraction efficiency grating in a first-order Littrow configuration. The apparatus used was an optical cavity built from the grating under investigation and an additional high-reflection mirror. The measurement of the cavity finesse provided precise information about the grating's diffraction efficiency and its optical loss. We measured a finesse of 1580 from which we deduced a diffraction efficiency of (99.635+/-0.016)% and an overall optical loss due to scattering and absorption of just 0.185%. Such high-quality gratings, including the tool used for their characterization, might apply for future gravitational wave detectors. For example, the demonstrated cavity itself presents an all-reflective, low-loss Fabry-Perot resonator that might replace conventional arm cavities in advanced high-power Michelson interferometers.     

Optical sensor array and integrated light source

We report a new, solid-state, integrated optical array sensor platform. The optical sensor array and integrated light source (OSAILS) is demonstrated for quenchometric O2 detection. The OSAILS requires low voltages (3-5 V dc), it is stable (< or = 5% RSD over the course of several hours of continuous operation), it is reproducible and reversible (< or =3% RSD), it exhibits a rapid response time (<30 s), and it provides good detection limits (0.2% O2). The OSAILS opens the door to a number of new optical sensor array strategies.     

Capacitance of silicon pixels

Capacitance measurements have been made on silicon pixel sensors of types n⁺ on n, p⁺on n, and n⁺ on p. The arrays test a variety of implant and gap widths, and the n⁺ on n devices test several p-stop designs. The measurements examine inter-pixel and backplane contributions and include studies of temperature dependence. Measurements were made before and after irradiation with fluences relevant to LHC experiments and Fermilab Tevatron Run 2.     

Optical fiber sensor based on oblique angle deposition

The technique of oblique angle deposition has been extended to the fabrication of nanostructured metal coatings on the tips of standard silica optical fibers by thermal evaporation. The coatings are initiated as metal island films, which grow into extended rodlike structures as the deposition continues. The nanorod coatings demonstrate excellent surface-enhanced Raman scattering performance with variability of less than 10% as shown by direct measurements off the fiber tip with thiophenol as a test analyte. However, in the remote sensing configuration, the nanorod structures perform no better than thin metal island films. This appears to be mainly due to reduced transmission when nanorod lengths exceed ~100 nm. Moreover, the variability of remote measurements is increased to 18%. This is believed to be due to variations in coupling efficiency.     

叶片叶尖间隙测量的光纤传感器

根据叶尖间隙测量的要求,设计了一种新型的光纤传感器。它采用了单光纤传光、多组光纤束接收散射光的结构。发射光纤位于中心,周围均布多组接收光纤。通过各组接收光纤光强的比值运算,消除了叶尖表面反射率变化对测量结果的影响,也可减小叶尖表面与传感器端面夹角给测量结果带来的影响。在转速同步传感器的配合下,该传感器可以实时测量所有叶片的叶尖间隙。当叶片转速在0—12000r／min之间变化时,叶尖间隙的测量范围为0-3mm,测量精度为25μm。     

Optical fiber sensor based on differential spectroscopic absorption

A material sensor based on differential spectroscopic absorption is proposed. The presence of a foreign material in a medium embodying the fiber sensor results in power attenuation at some particular wavelengths. This attenuation, which may be used for measuring the amount of the lossy material, is theoretically analyzed for the case of single-mode operation. A sensitivity analysis is carried out, and some design considerations are discussed.     

Optical tweezers with increased axial trapping efficiency

Abstract

We demonstrate that the axial trapping efficiency in optical tweezers is improved by using a Laguerre-Gaussian laser mode as the trapping beam. For a wide range of particle sizes and sample cell depths, the laser power required with an l = 3 Laguerre-Gaussian mode is reduced by a factor of two compared with that of the fundamental mode. This is important for biological applications where a reduction in the laser power lessens the risk of damage to living samples.     

Optical fiber relative-humidity sensor with polyvinyl alcohol film

We describe a fiber-optic relative-humidity (RH) sensor comprising a moisture-sensitive overlay on a single-mode side-polished fiber. The hygroscopic polymeric material deposited was polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), which proved to have good adherence and stability. The film reached a fast equilibrium with atmospheric moisture (in less than 1 min), inducing changes in the output optical power of approximately 10 dB for the 70%-90% RH range. To yield a low-cost device, single-mode standard communication fibers were used; therefore all the components of the sensor can be commercial, mass-produced telecommunication devices. The experimental results obtained are consistent with the expected behavior of the system; the output power decreases because of losses in the polished region of the fiber as the refractive index of its external medium approaches the fiber core value. Because the external medium is PVA film, its refractive index changes in response to its water content.