Multiband wavelength-division demultiplexing with a cascaded substrate-mode grating structure

A multiband wavelength-division-demultiplexing (WDDM) structure, which incorporates cascaded substrate-mode holograms, is presented. The method can be used to design a WDDM device that consists of two or more layers of fundamental units (i.e., substrate-mode holograms). The fundamental unit is based on a diffracted grating and a substrate that include angular dispersion, wavelength bandwidth, and total internal reflection, which can be used to separate optical signals of different wavelengths. We have designed and built a multiband WDDM device, incorporating cascaded substrate-mode holograms in dichromated gelatin.     

Induced and form birefringence in high-frequency polarization gratings

High-frequency phase polarization gratings are fabricated holographically in dichromated gelatin dyed with malachite green. It is observed that the intensity of the -1 diffracted beam is a sinusoidal function of the incident polarization angle. In addition, we analyze the dependence of the diffracted order polarization on grating frequency. It is evident from our results that form birefringence becomes significant when the grating period is smaller than the illumination wavelength, thus modifying the optically induced birefringence. Then, in polarization hologram reconstruction, it is not possible to obtain the polarization distribution at the recording step for high-frequency objects.     

Wavefront distortion of the reflected and diffracted beams produced by the thermoelastic deformation of a diffraction grating heated by a Gaussian laser beam

It may be advantageous in advanced gravitational-wave detectors to replace conventional beam splitters and Fabry-Perot input mirrors with diffractive elements. In each of these applications, the wavefront distortions produced by the absorption and subsequent heating of the grating can limit the maximum useful optical power. We present data on the wavefront distortions induced in a laser probe beam for both the reflected and diffracted beams from a grating that is heated by a Gaussian laser beam and compare these results to a simple theory of the wavefront distortions induced by thermoelastic deformations.     

Effects of the self-emission of an IR Fourier-transform spectrometer on measured absorption spectra

Up to now the effect of the modulated thermal self-emission of Fourier-transform spectrometers has been investigated for emission measurements only. But this instrumental radiation also influences Fourier-transform absorption spectroscopy in the mid-IR when the Moon, a hot blackbody, or even the Sun is taken as a radiation source, e.g., by causing small negative radiance values in the center of saturated absorption lines. For our experimental investigations, a blackbody that can be cooled down to liquid-nitrogen temperature was constructed. Measurements at different temperatures of the blackbody and for different optical configurations in the detector port of the Fourier spectrometer as well as transmission measurements of gas cells are used to examine the statements above.     

Design of Holographic Gratings

A new approach to the design of holographic concave gratings is presented, in which a grating is treated as if it were composed of many small plane gratings, i.e. of local elementary gratings. A wavefront of the diffracted wave is constructed from the waves diffracted from the local elementary gratings. The expression of the focal curves is represented by the loci of centres of principal curvature of the wavefront. The aberration functions are defined as the differences between the direction cosines of the normal to the diffracted wave and those of the reference spherical wave. Blanks are assumed to be toric. The gratings are designed for use with Seya-Namioka monochromators and grazing incidence monochromators, and their theoretical performances are investigated by means of spot diagrams.     

Optical temperature sensor and thermal expansion measurement using a femtosecond micromachined grating in 6H-SiC

An optical temperature sensor was created using a femtosecond micromachined diffraction grating inside transparent bulk 6H-SiC, and to the best of our knowledge, this is a novel technique of measuring temperature. Other methods of measuring temperature using fiber Bragg gratings have been devised by other groups such as Zhang and Kahrizi [in MEMS, NANO, and Smart Systems (IEEE, 2005)]. This temperature sensor was, to the best of our knowledge, also used for a novel method of measuring the linear and nonlinear coefficients of the thermal expansion of transparent and nontransparent materials by means of the grating first-order diffracted beam. Furthermore the coefficient of thermal expansion of 6H-SiC was measured using this new technique. A He-Ne laser beam was used with the SiC grating to produce a first-order diffracted beam where the change in deflection height was measured as a function of temperature. The grating was micromachined with a 20 microm spacing and has dimensions of approximately 500 microm x 500 microm (l x w) and is roughly 0.5 microm deep into the 6H-SiC bulk. A minimum temperature of 26.7 degrees C and a maximum temperature of 399 degrees C were measured, which gives a DeltaT of 372.3 degrees C. The sensitivity of the technique is DeltaT=5 degrees C. A maximum deflection angle of 1.81 degrees was measured in the first-order diffracted beam. The trend of the deflection with increasing temperature is a nonlinear polynomial of the second-order. This optical SiC thermal sensor has many high-temperature electronic applications such as aircraft turbine and gas tank monitoring for commercial and military applications.     

Wideband two-port beam splitter of a binary fused-silica phase grating

The usual beam splitter of multilayer-coated film with a wideband spectrum is not easy to achieve. We describe the realization of a wideband transmission two-port beam splitter based on a binary fused-silica phase grating. To achieve high efficiency and equality in the diffracted 0th and -1st orders, the grating profile parameters are optimized using rigorous coupled-wave analysis at a wavelength of 1550 nm. Holographic recording and the inductively coupled plasma dry etching technique are used to fabricate the fused-silica beam splitter grating. The measured efficiency of (45% x 2) = 90% diffracted into the both orders can be obtained with the fabricated grating under Littrow mounting. The physical mechanism of such a wideband two-port beam splitter grating can be well explained by the modal method based on two-beam interference of the modes excited by the incident wave. With the high damage threshold, low coefficient of thermal expansion, and wideband high efficiency, the presented beam splitter etched in fused silica should be a useful optical element for a variety of practical applications.     

Measurement of the thermal diffusivity of aqueous solutions of alcohols by a laser-induced thermal grating technique

The thermal diffusivity of methanol, ethanol, and their aqueous solutions was measured at atmospheric pressure and temperature. The measurements were performed with a laser-induced thermal grating technique. The aqueous solutions have weight fractions of 20, 40, 60, and 80%. Systematic errors were taken into consideration, and corrections were made to the measured values. Focused laser beams were used, which notably intensify the diffracted signal, reduce the background to zero, and justify neglecting the heterodyne term of the diffracted signal, thus simplifying the data evaluation. Hence, the accuracy of the measurements was improved significantly. The overall accuracy of the measurements is estimated to be better than 1.5%.     

Self-pumped phase-conjugate interferometer with a photorefractive iron-doped lithium-niobate crystal

A single object wave is amplitude divided by a beam splitter into two waves of equal intensity that are made to interfere at the back surface of an iron-doped lithium-niobate crystal so that the normal to the back surface is the angular bisector of the input waves. The interference results in the formation of a phase grating (Bragg grating) in the volume of the crystal. These waves are diffracted at the Bragg grating on both the front focal plane and the back focal plane of the crystal. The wave diffracted in the back focal plane from the Bragg grating and counterpropagating to the incident wave is observed to be the phase conjugate of the input object wave. The wave diffracted in the front focal plane of the Bragg grating is incorporated into the design of an interferometer to measure a specific in-plane displacement of the object wave. It is theoretically evaluated and experimentally demonstrated that interferometers such as those that incorporate conjugate-wave pairs are highly sensitive.     

Zonal wavefront sensor with reduced number of rows in the detector array

In this paper, we describe a zonal wavefront sensor in which the photodetector array can have a smaller number of rows. The test wavefront is incident on a two-dimensional array of diffraction gratings followed by a single focusing lens. The periodicity and the orientation of the grating rulings of each grating can be chosen such that the +1 order beam from the gratings forms an array of focal spots in the detector plane. We show that by using a square array of zones, it is possible to generate an array of +1 order focal spots having a smaller number of rows, thus reducing the height of the required detector array. The phase profile of the test wavefront can be estimated by measuring the displacements of the +1 order focal spots for the test wavefront relative to the +1 order focal spots for a plane reference wavefront. The narrower width of the photodetector array can offer several advantages, such as a faster frame rate of the wavefront sensor, a reduced amount of cross talk between the nearby detector zones, and a decrease in the maximum thermal noise. We also present experimental results of a proof-of-concept experimental arrangement using the proposed wavefront sensing scheme.     

Diffraction of optical communication Gaussian beams by volume gratings: comparison of simulations and experimental results

The diffraction effects induced by a thick holographic grating on the propagation of a finite Gaussian beam are theoretically analyzed by means of the coupled-wave theory and the beam propagation method. Distortion of the transmitted and diffracted beams is simulated as a function of the grating parameters. Theoretical results are verified by experimentation realized by use of LiNbO3 volume gratings read out by a 1550-nm Gaussian beam, typical of optical fiber communications. This analysis can be implemented as a useful tool to aid with the design of volume grating-based devices employed in optical communications.     

Interferometric measurement of the phase of diffracted waves near the plasmon resonances of metallic gratings

We propose a method for analyzing both theoretically and experimentally the behavior of the phase of the waves diffracted by gratings. The method is applied to the study of resonance phenomena. It is used for determining the optogeometrical parameters of a metallic grating. We show that the experimental setup, which is insensitive to mechanical drifts or thermal fluctuations, can be used for sensing purposes.     

Grazing Diffraction by Volume Phase Gratings

Light diffraction by a volume phase grating with slanted fringes is considered. An analytical solution of the system of second-order coupled wave equations is obtained and applied to the problems of grazing diffraction by a transmission grating. It is shown that a strong backward diffracted wave arises, demonstrating that the grating can behave simultaneously as a transmission and a reflection grating. The diffraction efficiency balance and angular selectivity are analysed.     

Diffraction properties of volume holographic gratings for an ultrashort pulsed beam with different polarization states readout

The diffraction properties of volume holographic gratings are studied when the gratings are illuminated by an ultrashort pulsed beam with different polarization states. The developed coupled wave theory of Kogelnik is used. Considering the dispersion effect of the grating media, solutions for the diffracted and transmitted intensities, diffraction efficiencies and the bandwidths of the gratings are given in transmission volume holographic gratings and reflection volume holographic gratings. The bandwidths of the gratings are reduced by the dispersion effect of the grating media. They also have different influences on the diffraction of an ultrashort pulsed beam with different polarization states. For different values of the ratio of the spectral bandwidth of the input pulse to that of the grating, the changes of the spectral and temporal distributions of the diffracted intensities, as well as the diffraction efficiencies of the gratings are shown.     

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.     

Thermal stability of retained austenite in Cr–Ni weld metals at low temperatures

Abstract

As environmental temperature decreases, the amount of retained austenite is more likely to greatly reduce due to the thermal austenite–martensite transformation caused by the decreased thermal stability of retained austenite, probably making its amount lower than the required content. In the present study, the thermal stability of retained austenite in Cr–Ni weld metals was investigated to see whether sufficient retained austenite can be maintained at low temperatures. The specific experimental procedure is as follows: briefly, the samples were cooled in turn from room temperature to 0, ?20, ?40, ?60, ?80, ?100 and ?196°C; the amount of retained austenite at the above temperatures was measured using X-ray diffraction. Through investigating the dependence of the content of retained austenite on temperature, it was revealed that when the content of retained austenite is <20%, retained austenite can be maintained until ?196°C.     

Analog tunable gratings driven by thin-film piezoelectric microelectromechanical actuators

We present a microfabricated grating whose period can be tuned in analog fashion to within a fraction of a nanometer. The tunable angular range is more than 400 microrad in the first diffracted order. The design concept consists of a diffractive grating defined onto a 400-nm membrane, with the membrane subsequently strained in the direction perpendicular to the grating grooves by thin-film piezoelectric actuation. The strain-tuned grating device was fabricated with microelectromechanical processes, utilizing both surface and bulk micromachining. The fabricated piezoelectric film achieved a measured dielectric constant of 1200. Device characterization yielded grating period changes up to 8.3 nm (0.21% strain in the membrane) at 10 V and a diffracted angular change of 486 microrad, in good agreement with the theory. Uniformity across the actuated grating and out-of-plane deflections are characterized and discussed.     

Non-uniformities in Dichromated Gelatin Reflection Gratings

Abstract

A theoretical model for non-uniform volume gratings is described in which the refractive index modulation and grating vector are allowed to vary with depth. The predictions of the model are compared with the measured angular response of reflection gratings recorded in dichromated gelatin and the variations of the grating parameters with depth are deduced. Gratings produced by different processing techniques are analysed and the effects of processing on grating non-uniformities are discussed.     

Wavelength multiplexing and demultiplexing with one single volume hologram in photorefractive crystal

Based on anisotropic diffraction of a volume phase grating in a photorefractive crystal, we theoretically discuss an optical multi- and demultiplexing scheme implemented by one single grating in photorefractive LiNbO₃ crystal. It shows that our scheme can simultaneously demultiplex 93 channels in the telecommunication wavelength around 1550?nm. Using only one grating to realize WDM can avoid the multiple exposure problems encountered by multiple hologram scheme. Moreover, in our scheme, the transmitted and diffracted beams are orthogonal to each other, thus we don't need to use a normal recording and readout structure. Our theoretical results can be used in the design of a WDM device.