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  • Volume 45, Issue 3

    • Volume 45, Issue 3

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    Optics

    New products

    March 1, 2009
    Digital light source RS-5-93K characterizes the performance of image sensors and image-sensor systems.
    Research

    Let poor old Galileo rest in peace

    Jeffrey Bairstow
    March 1, 2009
    For the staggering sum of around $400,000, a group of contemporary body-snatchers is planning to open Galileo’s tomb in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence.
    (Courtesy of Sun Microsystems)
    FIGURE 1. A two-dimensional (2-D) microchip uses proximity couplers to optically link processor, memory, and other chips in a grid array (top). Fabrication of all-optical on-chip structures allows photonic connection via replaceable optical proximity couplers between chips for “speed-of-light” connectivity (below), allowing the 2-D microchip to function as efficiently and as fast as if it were a single monolithic chip.
    Research

    PHOTONICS APPLIED: INTEGRATED PHOTONICS: Can optical integration solve the computational bottleneck?

    Gail Overton
    March 1, 2009
    An ambitious DARPA award to Sun Microsystems and its partners to develop a chip-to-chip and intrachip communications platform offers a glimpse into the world of next-generation...
    (Photo by Dan Leafblad)
    In a setup designed to test a space-elevator power-transmitting optical system, light from an LED on a distant tripod reflects off a mirror (left, facing away) to an image sensor (right). The resulting image data is processed to provide a signal that drives the mirror actuators, which in operation will keep the power-transmitting laser beam aligned to its target. In this test, the LED is moved farther down the road in the background out to 1 km to test system performance.
    Research

    OPTICAL POWER TRANSMISSION: Light-powered elevators race to the sky

    John Wallace
    March 1, 2009
    If ever implemented, the proposed Space Elevator–a vehicle able to travel up and down a super-strong cable extending from Earth to geosynchronous orbit and beyond–would drastically...
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    Detectors & Imaging

    Manufacturers’ Product Showcase

    March 1, 2009
    The new 48-page catalog from Fermionics Opto-Technology contains specs, drawings, and photos describing InGaAs photodiodes for communications, monitoring, instrumentation, and...

    More content from Volume 45, Issue 3

    Detectors & Imaging

    Laser-trapped microsphere becomes surface-measuring probe

    March 1, 2009
    A surface probe tipped with a microsphere can be scanned across the surface of a microlens or other microscale component to measure its 3-D coordinates, determining heights to...
    FIGURE 1. Light from the seed laser (not shown), which emits 0.5 J pulses, is injected by the optics toward the left into the diode-pumped, helium-gas-cooled Mercury laser amplifier. The beam is amplified after passing through each laser head twice. Angular multiplexing allows the beam to bypass the initial injection mirror and instead traverse through the box of four mirrors and the Pockels cell to be reinjected for a series of two more passes–a total of four, one-way gain passes through each amplifier. After the final pass, the beam travels to the frequency converter, where the IR light is converted to green light, the second harmonic.
    Research

    HIGH-POWER SOLID-STATE LASERS: The Mercury laser moves toward practical laser fusion

    March 1, 2009
    The diode-pumped Mercury laser will deliver 100 J pulses at 10 Hz under automatic control, advancing the development of high-repetition-rate inertial laser fusion.
    Software

    ZEMAX simulates intraocular lens clinical trial

    March 1, 2009
    If clinical trials could be simulated using software and physical design parameters, companies could speed product development and would have more confidence in initiating such...
    (Courtesy of Thales Research and Technology)
    An external-cavity semiconductor ring-laser gyroscope achieves single-mode operation for high-quality rotation sensing. Two counterpropagating waves reflect off a 1/2VCSEL cavity and interfere in an external cavity, producing the “beat” signal that translates into rotation rate.
    Positioning, Support & Accessories

    OPTICAL GYROSCOPES: External-cavity semiconductor ring-laser gyro achieves single-mode operation

    Gail Overton
    March 1, 2009
    A team of scientists is the first to develop an external-cavity semiconductor ring-laser gyroscope that achieves single-mode operation.
    FIGURE 1. the 2DSI experimental setup includes an interferometer (beamsplitter C), which comprises a piezoelectrically vibrated mirror (mirror A).
    Test & Measurement

    FEMTOSECOND-PULSE CHARACTERIZATION: Novel 2DSI method measures sub-two-cycle laser pulses

    March 1, 2009
    A new pulse-characterization technique is designed for few- and single-cycle laser pulses. Called two-dimensional spectral shearing interferometry (2DSI), it has been demonstrated...
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    Research

    Putting solar cells in reverse highlights their defects

    March 1, 2009
    Researchers at the University of Leipzig (Leipzig, Germany) and Q-Cells (Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany) have come up with a new way to test multicrystalline solar cells to optoelectronical...
    FIGURE 1. In an amorphous-silicon thin-film solar cell an 8 nm p-type top layer, a 0.5 to 1 µm intrinsic middle layer, and a 20 nm n-type bottom layer are sandwiched between the top transparent oxide conductor and the rear contact. Most absorption is in the intrinsic layer.
    Research

    PHOTONIC FRONTIERS: THIN-FILM PHOTOVOLTAICS: The key to success is higher efficiency

    Jeff Hecht
    March 1, 2009
    Thin-film solar cells are making a run at the crystalline-silicon solar cells that dominate today’s photovoltaic market. Their allure is lower cost for large installations needed...
    Research

    Low-loss LSRPP waveguides could lead to inexpensive integrated optical devices

    March 1, 2009
    For a sufficiently thin metal stripe embedded in a dielectric material, light coupled into the stripe becomes a long-range surface-plasmon polariton (LRSPP); the simplicity and...
    FIGURE 1. Multispectral tuning (left) and polarization control (right) can be achieved with quantum-dot-based sensors that have plasmon-assisted photonic-crystal cavities (data is from a UNM/Caltech collaboration).
    Detectors & Imaging

    NEXT-GENERATION DETECTORS: Detector evolution results in ‘infrared retina’

    March 1, 2009
    With a single focal-plane array but multiple detector functionalities, an “infrared retina” can be combined with powerful signal-processing techniques to form a “poor man’s” infrared...
    Research

    Phase-encoded photons enable secret Sagnac communications

    March 1, 2009
    Though significant progress has been made in quantum communications using polarization-entangled photons practical implementation is difficult, considering that single-mode fiber...
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    Research

    Double helix-PSF enables superresolution 3-D imaging

    March 1, 2009
    Researchers at Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA) and the University of Colorado at Boulder have demonstrated for the first time a method for 3-D optical imaging of objects smaller...
    FIGURE 1. Commercially available mirror substrate materials rank differently in terms of dynamic stiffness–a parameter that is ideally as high as possible for improved performance.
    Optics

    OPTICS FOR SCANNING: Rapid scanning applications drive mirror design

    March 1, 2009
    Successful scanning requires integration of the mirror, its mounting, and the motor into a system called “M Cubed”–an integration process that requires tradeoffs in terms of materials...
    Lasers & Sources

    Subwavelength all-dielectric disk laser is mass-manufacturable

    March 1, 2009
    A subwavelength all-dielectric microdisk laser developed at Yale University (New Haven, CT), Northwestern University (Evanston, IL), and the National Institute of Standards and...
    Research

    Continuous CO2 emissions tester uses QC laser

    March 1, 2009
    Scientists from the Swiss materials science and technology institution EMPA (www.empa.ch) have integrated a 4.3-µm-wavelength, pulsed, few-milliwatt power, distributed-feedback...
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    Optics

    LCoS WaveShaper does more than filtering

    March 1, 2009
    Introduced at SPIE’s Photonics West 2009, the WaveShaper liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS)-based family of optical processors from Finisar (Sunnyvale, CA) offer more than just ...