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  • Volume 44, Issue 4

    • Volume 44, Issue 4

    Detectors & Imaging

    Nanowire single-photon detectors are fabricated on MgO substrates

    April 1, 2008
    Single-photon detectors are highly desirable for quantum information systems.
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    Optics

    Microspheres simplify nanopatterning processes

    April 1, 2008
    Commercially available microspheres are being used in numerous applications—from creating white-light sources by coating red and green fluorescent microspheres on blue light...
    Optics

    Pump block combines diodes for 350 W output

    April 1, 2008
    Designed and built with laser-diode chips from Bookham’s High Power Laser facility (Zurich, Switzerland), a pump block launched by Visotek (Livonia, MI) delivers 350 W at 976 ...
    Optics

    CMOS photonics breaks through

    April 1, 2008
    A complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) optical-transceiver module has been introduced by Lightwire (Allentown, PA).
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    Lasers & Sources

    Three-wavelength quantum-well structures enable white-light LEDs

    April 1, 2008
    White-light-emitting LEDs are of significant interest because of their potential to replace current light sources with sources offering superior energy efficiency and longer lifetime...

    More content from Volume 44, Issue 4

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    Fiber Optics

    Quantum-Cascade Lasers: Recent advances extend spectral output of QC lasers

    April 1, 2008
    More than a decade after its first demonstration, quantum-cascade laser technology is still progressing rapidly.
    (Courtesy of JILA)
    A CO2-isotope trace from human breath exists in the form of many spectral lines. The graph at lower right is a “subtracted-absorption” image; the graph at top is the absorption spectrum recovered from the subtracted-absorption image.
    Research

    SPECTROSCOPY: Analysis of human breath holds key to disease

    April 1, 2008
    Ordinary human breath is rife with biomolecules that can reveal the presence or absence of certain diseases or metabolic processes.
    FIGURE 1. In the final configuration of Hubble after repairs are completed, COS will replace the old COSTAR corrective-optics module, WFC3 will replace WF/PC2, which was installed in 1993, and STIS and ATS will be repaired. Fine-guidance sensors, gyros, and batteries will also be replaced.
    Optics

    Photonic Frontiers: Upgrading Hubble - Hubble to get its final makeover

    Jeff Hecht
    April 1, 2008
    NASA plans to install two new instruments and repair two others … the mission should make the Hubble Space Telescope better than new.
    (Courtesy of Antonio De Luca)
    In the experimental setup an Nd:YAG laser was used to pump a dye-doped sample freely suspended by means of a squared-comb PVC net (inset photo, left). The spatial distribution of the lasing peaks, which stochastically changes for each pump pulse, is shown in the inset (right bottom).
    Positioning, Support & Accessories

    LASER PHYSICS: Random lasing needs no boundaries

    D. Jason Palmer
    April 1, 2008
    A new demonstration of random lasing in a boundary-free system has shown new avenues to create random lasers in disordered systems.
    (Courtesy of ORC)
    Line structures written along the +y and -y axis of an LiNbO3 sample are imaged using a quantitative phase microscopy system (left). Writing directions of the structures are shown by arrows and the lines were written by a laser beam directed along the z axis. The phase change across the dashed line is graphed (above).
    Research

    MATERIALS SCIENCE: Ultrafast laser reveals nonreciprocal photosensitivity

    Gail Overton
    April 1, 2008
    Researchers at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton (England) and the University of Joensuu (Finland) have presented what they claim is the...
    FIGURE 1. Despite its lower bandwidth and higher insertion loss, the large core diameter of plastic optical fiber combined with its inherent elasticity and ruggedness make it ideal for many applications not suited to glass fiber.
    Fiber Optics

    Plastic Optical Fiber: Plastic optical fiber steps out of the niche

    April 1, 2008
    Apart from low cost, the unique advantages of plastic optical fiber are ease of termination, large core diameter for easy fiber coupling, as well as ruggedness against mechanical...
    (Courtesy Nanjing University)
    A Nd:YAG dual-wavelength oscillating laser with fundamental wavelengths at 1319 and 1064 nm is transformed into an RGB laser with oscillating emission of second-harmonic generated 660 nm (red) and 532 nm (green) light, as well as third-harmonic-generated 440 nm (blue) light from the 1319 nm fundamental wavelength. In effect, the quasi-white-light source is an oscillating RGB source.
    Lasers & Sources

    FREQUENCY CONVERSION: Oscillating RGB emission forges white-light laser

    Gail Overton
    April 1, 2008
    Most visual colors (including white) in projection displays and other lighting applications can be obtained by a weighted combination of red, green, and blue (RGB) light.
    FIGURE 1. A qubit of quantum information can be encoded in the polarization of a single photon (top) with horizontal polarization state (H) encoding the state |0〉, and vertical polarization (V) the state |1〉. A Poincaré sphere (bottom) can be used to plot any polarization, such as horizontal H, vertical V, diagonal D, antiagonal A, right-circular diagonal R, and left-circular L.
    Optics

    Quantum information Processing: Photons promise an exciting route to quantum computing

    April 1, 2008
    Optical quantum computing was a dead-end street until the breakthrough of a scheme based on a massive optical nonlinearity induced by single-photon detection. Today it is a leading...
    (Courtesy of University of St. Andrews)
    Femtosecond pulses traveling within microstructured fiber are generating a supercontinuum (inset).
    Research

    ULTRAFAST PHYSICS: Somewhere over the event horizon, pump-probes shine

    Hassaun A. Jones-Bey
    April 1, 2008
    Black holes may be the bane of science-fiction space heroes, but University of St. Andrews (Scotland) physicist Ulf Leonhardt’s descriptions of them can remind one of a movie ...
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    Optics

    Superresolution Optics: Optical imaging resolves beyond the diffraction limit

    April 1, 2008
    Many attempts have made to improve the resolving power of optical imaging systems since Ernst Abbe discovered at the end of the 19th century that the resolution of an imaging ...
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    Research

    Attosecond sources: Few-cycle laser amplifiers bridge the gap between femto- and attosecond ranges

    April 1, 2008
    Carrier-envelope-phase stabilization of amplified intense few-cycle pulses enables the generation of single attosecond pulses through high-order harmonic generation.
    Some 125 scientists, academicians, and representatives of government and industry from around the world met to discuss the future of biomedical optics at the first International Congress on Biophotonics in February in Sacramento, CA.
    Research

    BIOMEDICAL OPTICS: International congress lays the groundwork for biophotonics roadmap

    Kathy Kincade
    April 1, 2008
    Scientists, academicians, and representatives of government and industry spent several days discussing the future of biomedical optics at the first International Congress on Biophotonic...
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    Research

    Hyperspectral fluorescence images bacterial pigments during photosynthesis

    April 1, 2008
    Scientists at Arizona State Unversity (ASU; Tempe, AZ) are using hyperspectral fluorescence imaging to identify and visualize discrete pigments in live bacteria cells.
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    Optics

    Materials Processing: Picosecond UV lasers pave the way to new applications

    April 1, 2008
    A novel approach to the generation of pulses with durations of only a few picoseconds is based on Raman shifting a light frequency to the Stokes range with simultaneous compression...
    FIGURE 1. A galvanometer laser scanner uses a mirror pair sized to the input beam aperture over a range of rotation angles for the required scan field. Larger beam diameters can be focused to smaller spot sizes, but large mirrors can inhibit scan speed.
    Optics

    Optical Materials: Silicon carbide mirrors benefit high-speed laser scanning

    April 1, 2008
    Light weight, high stiffness, and good thermal conductivity make silicon carbide an ideal substrate for galvanometer mirrors in high-speed laser scanning systems.