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Propagation-based X-ray phase-contrast computed tomography (PB-PCCT) has been increasingly popular for distinguishing low contrast tissues. Phase retrieval is an important step to quantitatively obtain the phase information before the tomographic reconstructions, while typical phase retrieval methods in PB-PCCT, such as homogenous transport of intensity equation (TIE-Hom), are essentially low-pass filters and thus improve the signal to noise ratio at the expense of the reduced spatial resolution of the reconstructed image. To improve the reconstructed spatial resolution, measured phase contrast projections with high edge enhancement and the phase projections retrieved by TIE-Hom were weighted summed and fed into an iterative tomographic algorithm within the framework of the adaptive steepest descent projections onto convex sets (ASD-POCS), which was employed for suppressing the image noise in low dose reconstructions because of the sparse-view scanning strategy or low exposure time for single phase contrast projection. The merging strategy decreases the accuracy of the linear model of PB-PCCT and would finally lead to the reconstruction failure in iterative reconstructions. Therefore, the additive median root prior is also introduced in the algorithm to partly increase the model accuracy. The reconstructed spatial resolution and noise performance can be flexibly balanced by a pair of antagonistic hyper-parameters. Validations were performed by the established phase-contrast Feldkamp-Davis-Kress, phase-retrieved Feldkamp-Davis-Kress, conventional ASD-POCS and the proposed enhanced ASD-POCS with a numerical phantom dataset and experimental biomaterial dataset. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the conventional ASD-POCS in spatial evaluation assessments such as root mean square error (a ratio of 9.78%), contrast to noise ratio (CNR) (a ratio of 7.46%), and also frequency evaluation assessments such as modulation transfer function (a ratio of 66.48% of MTF 50% (50% MTF value)), noise power spectrum (a ratio of 35.25% of f 50% (50% value of the Nyquist frequency)) and noise equivalent quanta (1-2 orders of magnitude at high frequencies). Experimental results again confirm the superiority of proposed strategy relative to the conventional one in terms of edge sharpness and CNR (an average increase of 67.35%).

Snapshot multispectral imaging (MSI) has been widely employed in the rapid visual inspection by virtues of the non-invasive detection mode and short integration time. As the critical functional elements of snapshot MSI, narrowband, customizable, and pixel-level multispectral filter arrays (MSFAs) that are compatible with imaging sensors are difficult to be efficiently manufactured. Meanwhile, monolithically integrating MSFAs into snapshot multispectral imagers still remains challenging considering the strict alignment precision. Here, we propose a cost-efficient, wafer-level, and customized approach for fabricating transmissive MSFAs based on Fabry-Perot structures, both in the pixel-level and window-tiled configuration, by utilizing the conventional lithography combined with the deposition method. The MSFA chips own a total dimension covering the area of 4.8 mm × 3.6 mm with 4 × 4 bands, possessing the capability to maintain narrow line widths (∼25 nm) across the whole visible frequencies. After the compact integration with the imaging sensor, the MSFAs are validated to be effective in filtering and target identification. Our proposed fabrication method and imaging mode show great potentials to be an alternative to MSFAs production and MSI, by reducing both complexity and cost of manufacturing, while increasing flexibility and customization of imaging system.

Recently, it has been demonstrated that a nonlinear spatial filter using second harmonic generation can implement a visible edge enhancement under invisible illumination, and it provides a promising application in biological imaging with light-sensitive specimens. But with this nonlinear spatial filter, all phase or intensity edges of a sample are highlighted isotropically, independent of their local directions. Here we propose a vectorial one to cover this shortage. Our vectorial nonlinear spatial filter uses two cascaded nonlinear crystals with orthogonal optical axes to produce superposed nonlinear vortex filtering. We show that with the control of the polarization of the invisible illumination, one can highlight the features of the samples in special directions visually. Moreover, we find the intensity of the sample arm can be weaker by two orders of magnitude than the filter arm. This striking feature may offer a practical application in biological imaging or microscopy, since the light field reflected from the sample is always weak. Our work offers an interesting way to see and emphasize the different directions of edges or contours of phase and intensity objects with the polarization control of the invisible illumination.

The trade-off between spot size and depth of focus (DOF) often limits the performance of optical systems, such as optical coherence tomography and optical tweezers. Although researchers have proposed various methods to extend the DOF in free-space optics, many are difficult to implement in miniaturized optical probes due to space limitations. In this study, we present an optical probe with an extended DOF using a binary phase spatial filter (BPSF). The BPSF pattern was fabricated on the distal tip of an optical probe with a diameter of 1 mm by replica molding soft lithography, which can be easily implemented in a miniaturized optical probe due to its simple configuration. We optimized the BPSF pattern to enhance DOF, spot diameter, and light efficiency. To evaluate the fabricated endoscopic optical probe, we measured the three-dimensional point spread function of the BPSF probe and compared it with a probe without BPSF. The BPSF probe has a spot diameter of 3.56 μm and a DOF of 199.7 μm, while the probe without BPSF has a spot diameter of 3.69 μm and a DOF of 73.9 μm, representing a DOF gain of 2.7. We anticipate that this optical probe can be used in biomedical applications, including optical imaging and optical trapping techniques.

The accurate determination of light absorption coefficients of particles in water, especially in very oligotrophic oceanic areas, is still a challenging task. Concentrating aquatic particles on a glass fiber filter and using the Quantitative Filter Technique (QFT) is a common practice. Its routine application is limited by the necessary use of high performance spectrophotometers, distinct problems induced by the strong scattering of the filters and artifacts induced by freezing and storing samples. Measurements of the sample inside a large integrating sphere reduce scattering effects and direct field measurements avoid artifacts due to sample preservation. A small, portable, Integrating Cavity Absorption Meter setup (QFT-ICAM) is presented, that allows rapid measurements of a sample filter. The measurement technique takes into account artifacts due to chlorophyll-a fluorescence. The QFT-ICAM is shown to be highly comparable to similar measurements in laboratory spectrophotometers, in terms of accuracy, precision, and path length amplification effects. No spectral artifacts were observed when compared to measurement of samples in suspension, whereas freezing and storing of sample filters induced small losses of water-soluble pigments (probably phycoerythrins). Remaining problems in determining the particulate absorption coefficient with the QFT-ICAM are strong sample-to-sample variations of the path length amplification, as well as fluorescence by pigments that is emitted in a different spectral region than that of chlorophyll-a.

We experimentally and numerically developed a tunable absorbing nanoscale thin-film system, comprising of dye molecules doped dielectric coatings on reflecting surfaces, the absorption behaviors of which can be flexibly tuned by adjusting the system parameters, i.e. the coating thickness and the doping concentration of dye molecules. Specifically, with appropriate system parameters, our absorbing thin-film system exhibits very directional and polarization dependent absorption properties, which can be significantly altered if applied with different parameters. Calculations demonstrate the unique absorption behaviors are a result of coupling between molecular absorption and Fabry-Perot resonances in the thin-film cavity. In addition, we theoretically show that both the spectral and directional range of the absorption in the thin-film system can be intentionally regulated by doping dyes with different absorption band and setting proper excitation conditions of Fabry-Perot resonances.

Innovations in laser engineering have yielded several novel configurations for high repetition rate, broad sweep range, and long coherence length wavelength swept lasers. Although these lasers have enabled high performance frequency-domain optical coherence tomography, they are typically complicated and costly and many require access to proprietary materials or devices. Here, we demonstrate a simplified ring resonator configuration that is straightforward to construct from readily available materials at a low total cost. It was enabled by an insight regarding the significance of isolation against bidirectional operation and by configuring the sweep range of the intracavity filter to exceed its free spectral range. The design can easily be optimized to meet a range of operating specifications while yielding robust and stable performance. As an example, we demonstrate 240 kHz operation with 125 nm sweep range and >70 mW of average output power and demonstrate high quality frequency domain OCT imaging. The complete component list and directions for assembly of the laser are posted on-line at www.octresearch.org.

We fabricated reflection color filters of the three primary colors with wide viewing angles using silicon two-dimensional subwavelength gratings on the same quartz substrate. The grating periods were 400, 340, and 300 nm for red, green, and blue filters, respectively. All of the color filters had the same grating thickness of 100 nm, which enabled simple fabrication of a color filter array. Reflected colors from the red, green, and blue filters under s-polarized white-light irradiation appeared in the respective colors at incident angles from 0 to 50°. By rigorous coupled-wave analysis, the dimensions of each color filter were designed, and the calculated reflectivity was compared with the measured reflectivity.

We study theoretically modal properties and parametric dependence of guided-mode resonance bandpass filters operating in the mid- and near-infrared spectral domains. We investigate three different device architectures consisting of single, double, and triple layers based on all-transparent dielectric and semiconductor thin films. The three device classes show high-performance bandpass filter profiles with broad, flat low-transmission sidebands accommodating sharp transmission peaks with their efficiencies approaching 100% with appropriate blending of multiple guided modes. We present three modal coupling configurations forming complex mixtures of two or three distinct leaky modes coupling at different evanescent diffraction orders. These modal compositions produce various widths of sidebands ranging from ~30 nm to ~2100 nm and transmission peak-linewidths ranging from ~1 pm to ~10 nm. Our modal analysis demonstrates key attributes of subwavelength periodic thin-film structures in multiple-modal blending to achieve desired transmission spectra. The design principle is applicable to various optical elements such as high-power optical filters, low-noise label-free biochemical sensor templates, and high-density display pixels.

Two frequency-doubled combs are generated by nonlinear frequency conversion to realize spectroscopic measurements around 775 nm. Frequency-doubled interferograms are corrected in real-time by monitoring the relative instabilities between the combs at their fundamental frequency. Rubidium absorption lines are used to demonstrate the technique's accuracy and serve as absolute references to calibrate the frequency grid of computed spectra. The method allows frequency-doubled interferograms to be averaged without distortion during long periods of time. The calibrated frequency grid is validated by the measurement of the oxygen A-band. Moreover, the measurement analysis of the acetylene ν(1) + 3ν(3) overtone band has revealed some discrepancies with previous publications.

We have investigated parametric seeding of a microresonator frequency comb (microcomb) by way of a pump laser with two electro-optic-modulation sidebands. We show that the pump-sideband spacing is precisely replicated throughout the microcomb's optical spectrum, and we demonstrate a record absolute line-spacing stability for microcombs of 1.6 × 10(-13) at 1 s. The spectrum of a microcomb is complex, and often non-equidistant subcombs are observed. Our results demonstrate that parametric seeding can not only control the subcombs, but can lead to the generation of a strictly equidistant microcomb spectrum.

A transmission-type structure based on woodpile photonic crystal layers is proposed for use in color filters. Selective bandpass filters for red, green, and blue wavelength bands are constructed using optimally designed multilayered woodpile photonic crystals. The R/G/B color filtering for a wide range of incidence angles of light is demonstrated numerically, and the operation principle and design method are described.

An optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) with wideband frequency tunability and stable output based on a bandpass microwave photonic filter (MPF) has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Realized by cascading a finite impulse response (FIR) filter and an infinite impulse response (IIR) filter together, the tunable bandpass MPF successfully replaces the narrowband electrical bandpass filter in a conventional single-loop OEO and serves as the oscillating frequency selector. The FIR filter is based on a tunable multi-wavelength laser and dispersion compensation fiber (DCF) while the IIR filter is simply based on an optical loop. Utilizing a long length of DCF as the dispersion medium for the FIR filter also provides a long delay line for the OEO feedback cavity and as a result, optical tuning over a wide frequency range can be achieved without sacrificing the quality of the generated signal. By tuning the wavelength spacing of the multi-wavelength laser, the oscillation frequency can be tuned from 6.88 GHz to 12.79 GHz with an average step-size of 0.128 GHz. The maximum frequency drift of the generated 10 GHz signal is observed to be 1.923 kHz over 1 hour and its phase noise reaches the -112 dBc/Hz limit of our measuring equipment at 10 kHz offset frequency.

We propose two distinctive designs of metamaterials demonstrating filtering functions in the visible and near infrared region. Since the emissivity is related to the absorption of a material, these filters would then offer a high emissivity in the visible and near infrared, and a low one beyond those wavelengths. Usually, such a system find their applications in the thermo-photovoltaics field as it can find as well a particular interest in optoelectronics, especially for optical detection. Numerical analysis has been performed on common metamaterial designs: a perforated metallic plate and a metallic cross grating. Through all these structures, we have demonstrated the various physical phenomena contributing to a reduction in the reflectivity in the optical and near infrared region. By showing realistic geometric parameters, the structures were not only designed to demonstrate an optical filtering function but were also meant to be feasible on large surfaces by lithographic methods such as micro contact printing or nano-imprint lithography.

Based on the evanescent-field coupling between the cladding modes of two adjacent and parallel all-fiber acousto-optic tunable filters, tunable broadband light coupling with relatively uniform insertion loss of trapping spectrum was achieved. In the experiments, a wide spectral tuning range from 1490 nm to 1610 nm, covering the whole C- and L-band and parts of S-bands, was demonstrated with a wavelength tunability slope of -0.72 nm/kHz. The insertion loss of the trapping spectrum was uniform (around -5.0 dB, which can be improved with a longer evanescent-field coupling length) within the whole tuning spectral range. Such a light coupling structure would be useful in tunable broadband light coupler and broadband optical fiber add/drop multiplexer for applications in coarse wavelength division multiplexing systems.

We propose an equilateral triangle resonator filter with an output waveguide and analyzed by the finite-difference time-domain technique. The filter can realize directional output with a high Q mode by means of the mode-field coupled into the output waveguide, which results a reduction in the scattering loss at the vertices. In addition, to the deformed equilateral triangle resonator filter, an optimum parameter with a cut corner of 0.23 μm, which is equal to that of the input waveguide and can be an optimal cut, is found to help increase in finesse, Q factors, extinction ratio and the output intensity on resonance of the drop port normalized with the through port .

We present 1-to-8 wavelength (de-)multiplexer devices based on a binary tree of cascaded Mach-Zehnder-like lattice filters, and manufactured using a 90 nm CMOS-integrated silicon photonics technology. We demonstrate that these devices combine a flat pass-band over more than 50% of the channel spacing with low insertion loss of less than 1.6 dB, and have a small device size of approximately 500 × 400 µm. This makes this type of filters well suited for application as WDM (de-)multiplexer in silicon photonics transceivers for optical data communication in large scale computer systems.

An infrared Lyot filter was fabricated by integrating a polarization beam splitter and two retarders into a single device. A liquid crystal layer was constructed between two silicon pentaprisms that were designed suitably so that light was incident on this layer at 28°. At this angle, the liquid crystal transmitted p-polarized light (Brewster's angle) and reflected s-polarized light (total internal reflection). The p- or s-polarized light was directed to another liquid crystal layer (retarder) between the prism and a mirror, which induced a wavelength-dependent retardation in the reflection process. Consequently, the light that returned to the beam splitter was transmitted or reflected depending on wavelength.

We demonstrate the design and fabrication of a highly efficient guided-mode resonant color filter array. The device is designed using numerical methods based on rigorous coupled-wave analysis and is patterned using UV-laser interferometric lithography. It consists of a 60-nm-thick subwavelength silicon nitride grating along with a 105-nm-thick homogeneous silicon nitride waveguide on a glass substrate. The fabricated device exhibits blue, green, and red color response for grating periods of 274, 327, and 369 nm, respectively. The pixels have a spectral bandwidth of ~12 nm with efficiencies of 94%, 96%, and 99% at the center wavelength of blue, green, and red color filter, respectively. These are higher efficiencies than reported in the literature previously.

A plasmonic heterograting device, consisting of two juxtaposed parallel gratings with different periods, is demonstrated to function as a compact bandwidth-tunable polarization filter. The essential aspect of the structure is that the grating couples into a photonic mode of the substrate. Using this device, a linearly polarized spectrum can be conveniently and selectively picked out from nonpolarized white light. The bandwidth depends on the incident angle and the overlap of the first-order diffraction spectra of the two different grating, and can be freely narrowed. The tuning characteristics of the heterograting are investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The unique physical features potentially enable the development of new polarization elements and optical devices.

We propose integrated photonic wavelength multiplexers based on serially cascaded channel add-drop filters with an asymmetric frequency response. By utilizing the through-port rejection of the previous channel to advantage, the asymmetric response provides optimal rejection of the adjacent channels at each wavelength channel. We show theoretically the basic requirements to realize an asymmetric filter response, and propose and evaluate the possible implementations using coupled resonators. For one implementation, we provide detailed design formulas based on a coupled-mode theory model, and more generally we provide broad guidelines that enumerate all structures that can provide asymmetric passbands in the context of a pole-zero design approach to engineering the device response. Using second-order microring resonator filter stages as an example, we show that the asymmetric multiplexer can provide 2.4 times higher channel packing (bandwidth) density than a multiplexer using the same order stages (number of resonators) using conventional all-pole maximally-flat designs. We also address the sensitivities and constraints of various implementations of our proposed approach, as it affects their applicability to CMOS photonic interconnects.

In this paper, we verify the effectiveness of the last-stage long memory filter (LMF) in mitigating the long-memory response (LMR) of hardware, i.e. the transmitter and receiver. Based on the experimental results, we draw the following conclusions: 1) LMF can effectively mitigate the LMR impact, such as transmitter reflections, and its efficiency is more significant for high-order QAM signals. 2) Using LMF, a partially-correlated pattern exhibits similar performance to that of an uncorrelated pattern both in back-to-back and after 320-km standard single mode fiber (SSMF) transmission. Moreover, a simple solution to the computational complexity of LMF, effective-tap (ET) LMF, is proposed and demonstrated.

Picosecond-pulse-generation dynamics and pulse-width limiting factors via spectral filtering from intensely pulse-excited gain-switched 1.55-μm distributed-feedback laser diodes were studied. The spectral and temporal characteristics of the spectrally filtered pulses indicated that the short-wavelength component stems from the initial part of the gain-switched main pulse and has a nearly linear down-chirp of 5.2 ps/nm, whereas long-wavelength components include chirped pulse-lasing components and steady-state-lasing components. Rate-equation calculations with a model of linear change in refractive index with carrier density explained the major features of the experimental results. The analysis of the expected pulse widths with optimum spectral widths was also consistent with the experimental data.

We propose three color filters (red, green, blue) based on a two-dimensional (2D) grating, which maintain the same perceived specular colors for a broad range of incident angles with the average polarization. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) method is employed to design these filters for the first time to our knowledge. Two merit functions involving the reflectance curves and color difference in CIEDE2000 formula are respectively constructed to adjust the structural parameters during the optimization procedure. Three primary color filters located at 637nm, 530nm and 446nm with high saturation are obtained with the peak reflectance of 89%, 83%, 66%. The reflectance curves at different incident angles are coincident and the color difference is less than 8 for the incident angle up to 45°. The electric field distribution of the structure is finally studied to analyze the optical property.

We present a CMOS-compatible athermal tunable silicon optical lattice filter composed of 10 cascaded 2 × 2 asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometers. Active tuning experiments show that the filter central wavelength can be red-/blue-shifted by 13.1/21.3 nm with power consumption of 77/96 mW on top/bottom arms. Temperature shift measurements show that the thermal-sensitivity of the filter central wavelength before active tuning is as low as -1.465 pm/°C. The thermal-sensitivity is varied within 26.5 pm/°C to -27.1 pm/°C when the filter central wavelength is tuned in the wavelength range of 1534 nm to 1551 nm. We use the transfer matrix method to theoretically model the lattice filter and its thermal-sensitivity before and after tuning is analyzed and discussed.

A narrow filtering technique based on the spectral overlapping of two uniform FBGs and applied to obtain a Single Longitudinal Mode (SLM) laser is proposed and demonstrated in this work. The two FBGs are spectrally detuned to reduce their coincident reflection response narrowing the equivalent filter bandwidth. A proof-of-concept linear laser has been built and tested exhibiting SLM operation even with temperature and strain variations.

In this paper, we propose an approach to overcome the well-known "diffraction limit" when imaging sources several wavelengths away. We employ superdirectivity antenna concepts to design a well-controlled superoscillatory filter (SOF) based on the properties of Tschebyscheff polynomials. The SOF is applied to the reconstructed images from holographic algorithms which are based on the back-propagation principle. We demonstrate the capability of this approach when imaging point-sources several wavelengths away in one-, two-, and three-dimensional imaging with super-resolution. We also investigate the robustness of the proposed algorithm with the sharpness of the SOF, the presence of noise, the imaging distance, and the size of the scanning aperture.

We propose a novel, high-performance, and practical laser source system for optical clocks. The laser linewidth of a fiber-based frequency comb is reduced by phase locking a comb mode to an ultrastable master laser at 1064 nm with a broad servo bandwidth. A slave laser at 578 nm is successively phase locked to a comb mode at 578 nm with a broad servo bandwidth without any pre-stabilization. Laser frequency characteristics such as spectral linewidth and frequency stability are transferred to the 578-nm slave laser from the 1064-nm master laser. Using the slave laser, we have succeeded in observing the clock transition of (171)Yb atoms confined in an optical lattice with a 20-Hz spectral linewidth.

We compare several schemes for broadband optical frequency comb (OFC) generation based on several nonlinear effects in highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF). Cascaded four wave mixing (CFWM) and self-phase modulation (SPM) processes in HNLF are proved to be effective ways for spectrum broadening. We investigate some parameters affecting the performance of the output OFC in detail. When only CFWM occurs in the HNLF, broadband OFC can be generated with poor power flatness. When only SPM occurs in the HNLF, we obtain a 10 GHz OFC of 103 comb lines within 5-dB power deviation. When both CFWM and SPM simultaneously occur in the HNLF, we obtain a 10 GHz OFC of 143 comb lines within 4.5-dB power deviation. All the OFC generation schemes have the advantages of tunability of central wavelength and repetition frequency.

We demonstrate that one can meet numerous commercial requirements for filters used in dense wavelength-division multiplexing applications using quadruple Vernier racetrack resonators in the silicon-on-insulator platform. Experimental performance shows a ripple of 0.2 dB, an interstitial peak suppression of 39.7 dB, an adjacent channel isolation of 37.2 dB, an express channel isolation of 10.2 dB, and a free spectral range of 37.52 nm.

The coupling coefficients of the cladding-mode resonances of a tilted fiber Bragg grating (TFBG) are linearly increasing or decreasing in different wavelength regions. Based on the Kramers-Kronig relations, when the coupling coefficients are linearly increasing, the phase shifts are linearly increasing correspondingly. This feature is employed, for the first time, for the implementation of a multi-tap continuously tunable microwave photonic filter with complex coefficients by using a TFBG. By locating the optical carriers of single-sideband-modulated signals at the cladding-mode resonances of the TFBG which has linearly increasing depths, linearly increasing phase shifts are introduced to the optical carriers. By beating the optical carriers with the single sidebands, the phase shifts are translated to the microwave signals, and thus complex coefficients with the required linearly increasing phase shifts are generated. The tunability of the complex coefficients is realized by optically pumping the TFBG which is written in an erbium/ytterbium (Er/Yb) co-doped fiber. A proof-of-concept experiment is performed; a three- and four-tap filter with a frequency tunable range of 150 and 120 MHz, respectively, are demonstrated.

A silicon-on-insulator (SOI) narrow-passband filter based on cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs) is theoretically simulated and experimentally demonstrated, indicating that the free spectral range (FSR) of the proposed filter can be significantly enlarged by increasing the number of the MZI stages. A filter using three-stage cascaded MZIs structure is successfully realized in the experiment and a 3-dB bandwidth of about 1.536 GHz and FSR about 13.5 GHz have been achieved. The performance of a downconverting analog photonic link (APL) employing the designed filter for microwave signal processing is also measured and a spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) as high as 104.1dB-Hz(2/3) is observed.

In this paper, we introduce a method for improving the resolution of miniature spectrometers. Our method is based on using filters with random transmittance. Such filters sense fine details of an input signal spectrum, which, when combined with a signal processing algorithm, aid in improving resolution. We also propose an approach for designing filters with random transmittance using optical thin-film technology. We demonstrate that the improvement in resolution is 7-fold when using the filters with random transmittance over what was achieved in our previous work.

On-line and on-wafer characterizations of mechanical properties of Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) with efficiency are very important to the mass production of MEMS foundry in the near future. However, challenges still remain. In this paper, we present an in-plane vibration characterizing method for MEMS comb using optical Fourier transform (OFT). In the experiment, the intensity distribution at the focal plane was captured to characterize the displacement of the vibrator in the MEMS comb structure. A typical MEMS comb was tested to verify the principle. The shape and the movement of MEMS comb was imitated and tested to calibrate the measurement by using a spatial light modulator (SLM). The relative standard deviations (RSD) of the measured displacements were better than 5%, where the RSD is defined as the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean. It is convinced that the presented method is feasible for on-line and on-wafer characterizations for MEMS with great convenience, high efficiency and low cost.

This study introduces a "greener" green monochromatic phosphor-converted light-emitting diode (pc-LED) using a band-pass filter (BPF) combined with a long-pass dichroic filter (LPDF) and a short-pass dichroic filter (SPDF) to improve the color quality of our previously developed LPDF-capped green pc-LED. This can also address the drawbacks of III-V semiconductor-type green LEDs, which show a low luminous efficacy and a poor current dependence of the efficacy and color coordinates compared to blue semiconductor-type LEDs. The optical properties of green monochromatic pc-LEDs using a BPF are compared with those of LPDF-capped green pc-LEDs, which have a broad band spectrum, and III-V semiconductor-type green LEDs by changing the transmittance wavelength range of the BPF and the peak wavelength of the green phosphors. BPF-capped green monochromatic pc-LEDs provide a high luminous efficacy (134 lm/W at 60 mA), and "greener" 1931 Commission Internationale d'Eclairage (CIE; CIEx, CIEy) color coordinates (0.24, 0.66) owing to the narrowed emission spectrum. We also propose a two-dimensional (2D) polystyrene (PS) microbead (2-μm diameter) monolayer as a scattering layer to overcome the poor angular dependence of the color coordinates of the transmitted light through a nano-multilayered dichroic filter such as an LPDF or BPF. The 2D PS scattering layer improves the angular dependence of the green color emitted from a BPF-capped green pc-LED with only 3% loss of luminous efficacy.

The positional alignment of femtosecond laser written Bragg grating waveguides within standard and coreless optical fiber has been exploited to vary symmetry and open strong optical coupling to a high density of asymmetric cladding modes. This coupling was further intensified with tight focusing of the laser pulses through an oil-immersion lens to control mode size against an asymmetric refractive index profile. By extending this Bragg grating waveguide writing into bulk fused silica glass, strong coupling to a continuum of radiation-like modes facilitated a significant broadening to over hundreds of nanometers bandwidth that blended into the narrow Bragg resonance to form into a strongly isolating (43 dB) optical edge filter. This Bragg resonance defined exceptionally steep edge slopes of 136 dB/nm and 185 dB/nm for unpolarized and linearly polarized light, respectively, that were tunable through the 1450 nm to 1550 nm telecommunication band.

We present a simple and effective method to compensate the optical frequency tuning nonlinearity of a tunable laser source (TLS) in a long range optical frequency-domain reflectometry (OFDR) by using the deskew filter, where a frequency tuning nonlinear phase obtained from an auxiliary interferometer is used to compensate the nonlinearity effect on the beating signals generated from a main OFDR interferometer. The method can be applied to the entire spatial domain of the OFDR signals at once with a high computational efficiency. With our proposed method we experimentally demonstrated a factor of 93 times improvement in spatial resolution by comparing the results of an OFDR system with and without nonlinearity compensation. In particular we achieved a measurement range of 80 km and a spatial resolution of 20 cm and 1.6 m at distances of 10 km and 80 km, respectively with a short signal processing time of less than 1 s for 5 × 10(6) data points. The improved performance of the OFDR with a high spatial resolution, a long measurement range and a short process time will lead to practical applications in the real-time monitoring, test and measurement of fiber optical communication networks and sensing systems.

The radial angular filter array (RAFA) consists of a series of radially-distributed micro-machined channels, where the long axes of the channels converge at a focal point. The high aspect ratio of each channel provides a means to reject photons with trajectories outside the acceptance angle of the channel. The output of the RAFA represents the angular distribution of photons emitted from the focal point. A series of RAFAs were designed, fabricated, and tested to evaluate the impact of device geometry, inter-channel cross talk, achromaticity, and channel leakage on device performance. As an application example, an RAFA was used together with an imaging spectrometer to capture angle-resolved spectra of turbid samples.

A single passband microwave photonic filter with ultrawide tunable range based on stimulated Brillouin scattering is theoretically analyzed. Combining the gain and loss spectrums, tuning range with 44GHz is obtained without crosstalk by introducing two pumps. Adding more pumps, Tuning range multiplying with the multiplication factor equaling to the total quantity of pump can be achieved, which has potential application in microwave and millimeter wave wireless communication systems.

We demonstrate, in both theory and experiment, 4-port, electrically tunable photonic filters using silicon contra-directional couplers (contra-DCs) with uniform and phase-shifted waveguide Bragg gratings. Numerical analysis, including both intra- and inter-waveguide couplings, is performed using coupled-mode theory and the transfer-matrix method. The contra-DC devices were fabricated by a CMOS-photonics manufacturing foundry and are electrically tunable using free-carrier injection. A 4-port, grating-based photonic resonator has been obtained using the phase-shifted contra-DC, showing a resonant peak with a 3-dB bandwidth of 0.2 nm and an extinction ratio of 24 dB. These contra-DC devices enable on-chip integration of Bragg-grating-defined functions without using circulators and have great potential for applications such as wavelength-division multiplexing networks and optical signal processing.

Selective coupling a single pair of cores in a photonic crystal fiber with multiple, initially decoupled, cores is demonstrated through the use of a technique to locally post-process the fiber cross section. Coupling occurs when the hole between the selected core pair is collapsed over a short fiber section, which is accomplished by heating the section while the hole is submitted to an air pressure that is lower than that applied to all other holes in the microstructure. The demonstrated couplers present an estimated insertion loss of ~1 dB and exhibit spectral modulations with a depth of up to 18 dB and a high polarization sensitivity that can be exploited for polarization splitting or filtering in space-division-multiplexed optical interconnection and telecommunication links.

We report experiments on a new laser architecture involving phase contrast filtering to coherently combine an array of fiber lasers. We demonstrate that the new technique yields a more stable phase-locking than standard methods using only amplitude filtering. A spectral analysis of the output beams shows that the new scheme generates more resonant frequencies common to the coupled lasers. This property can enhance the combining efficiency when the number of lasers to be coupled is large.

We propose and demonstrate a novel wideband microwave photonic fractional Hilbert transformer implemented using a ring resonator-based optical all-pass filter. The full programmability of the ring resonator allows variable and arbitrary fractional order of the Hilbert transformer. The performance analysis in both frequency and time domain validates that the proposed implementation provides a good approximation to an ideal fractional Hilbert transformer. This is also experimentally verified by an electrical S 21 response characterization performed on a waveguide realization of a ring resonator. The waveguide-based structure allows the proposed Hilbert transformer to be integrated together with other building blocks on a photonic integrated circuit to create various system-level functionalities for on-chip microwave photonic signal processors. As an example, a circuit consisting of a splitter and a ring resonator has been realized which can perform on-chip phase control of microwave signals generated by means of optical heterodyning, and simultaneous generation of in-phase and quadrature microwave signals for a wide frequency range. For these functionalities, this simple and on-chip solution is considered to be practical, particularly when operating together with a dual-frequency laser. To our best knowledge, this is the first-time on-chip demonstration where ring resonators are employed to perform phase control functionalities for optical generation of microwave signals by means of optical heterodyning.

Widely used for the design of resonant electronic devices, Mason's scalar rule is adapted here to the study of resonant subwavelength optical structures. It turns out to be an efficient formalism, especially when dealing with multiple wave interference mechanisms. Indeed it allows to comprehend the underlying physical mechanisms of the structure in a straightforward way and fast analytical formulae can be retrieved. As an illustration, we apply it to the study of dual metallic gratings, which appear to be promissing optical filters as their spectral shape can be tailored according to needs.

We report the generation of tunable single- and dual-wavelength dissipative solitons in an all-normal-dispersion mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time. Besides single-wavelength mode-locking, dual-wavelength mode-locking was achieved using an in-line birefringence fiber filter with periodic multiple passbands, which not only allows multiple wavelengths to oscillate simultaneously but also performs spectrum modulation on highly chirped dissipative pulse. Furthermore, taking advantage of the tunability of the birefringence fiber filter, wavelength tuning for both single- and dual-wavelength dissipative soliton mode-locking was realized. The dual-wavelength operation is also switchable. The all-fiber dissipative laser with flexible outputs can meet diverse application needs.

We propose a novel configuration of the finite-impulse-response (FIR) filter adapted by the phase-dependent decision-directed least-mean-square (DD-LMS) algorithm in digital coherent optical receivers. Since fast carrier-phase fluctuations are removed from the error signal which updates tap coefficients of the FIR filter, we can achieve stable adaptation of filter-tap coefficients for higher-order quadrature-amplitude modulation (QAM) signals. Computer simulations show that our proposed scheme is much more tolerant to the phase noise and the frequency offset than the conventional DD-LMS scheme. Such theoretical predictions are also validated experimentally by using a 10-Gsymbol/s dual-polarization 16-QAM signal.

We report the first experimental demonstration of broadband frequency comb generation from a single-frequency pump laser at 1-μm using parametric oscillation in a high-Q silicon-nitride ring resonator. The resonator dispersion is engineered to have a broad anomalous group velocity dispersion region near the pump wavelength for efficient parametric four-wave mixing. The comb spans 55 THz with a 230-GHz free spectral range. These results demonstrate the powerful advantage of dispersion engineering in chip-based devices for producing combs with a wide range of pump wavelengths.

We propose a novel structure of complex-tap microwave photonic filter (MPF) employing an incoherent broadband optical source (BOS) and a programmable optical spectrum processor. By tailoring the optical spectral amplitude and phase, arbitrary complex continuous-time impulse responses of the MPF can be constructed. Frequency responses with a single flat-top, highly chirped, or arbitrary-shape passband are demonstrated, respectively. The passband center can also be tuned in a wide range only limited by the opto-electrical devices. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first demonstration of an incoherent-BOS-based MPF which is single-bandpass, widely tunable, and highly reconfigurable with complex taps.

We report on the sensing characteristics of rocking filters fabricated in two microstructured fibers with enhanced polarimetric sensitivity to hydrostatic pressure. The filter fabricated in the first fiber shows a very high sensitivity to pressure ranging from 16.2 to 43.4 nm/MPa, depending on the resonance order and features an extremely low cross-sensitivity between pressure and temperature 28 ÷ 89 × 10(3) K/MPa. The filter fabricated in the second fiber has an extreme sensitivity to pressure ranging from -72.6 to -177 nm/MPa, but a less favorable cross-sensitivity between pressure and temperature of 1.05 ÷ 3.50 × 10(3) K/MPa. These characteristics allow using the rocking filters for pressure measurements with mbar resolution.

A tunable, coherence-free, high-resolution microwave photonic bandpass filter, which is compatible to be inserted in a conventional fiber optic link, is presented. It is based on using two cross gain modulation based wavelength converters in a recursive loop. The double cross gain modulation technique solves the semiconductor optical amplifier facet reflection problem in the conventional recursive structure; hence the new microwave photonic signal processor has no coherent interference and no phase-induced intensity noise. It allows arbitrary narrow-linewidth telecommunication-type lasers to be used while enabling stable filter operation to be realized. The filter passband frequency can be tuned by using a wavelength tunable laser and a wavelength dependent time delay component. Experimental results demonstrate robust high-resolution bandpass filter operation with narrow-linewidth sources, no phase-induced intensity noise and a high signal-to-noise ratio performance. Tunable coherence-free operation of the high-resolution bandpass filter is also demonstrated.