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Ultrafast laser welding technology for transparent materials has developed rapidly in recent years; however, high-strength non-optical contact transparent material welding has been a challenge. This work presents a welding method for silica glass using a double-pulse femtosecond (fs) laser and optimizes the laser processing parameters to enhance the welding performance. The welding characteristics of silica glass are analyzed under different time delays by controlling the pulse delay of double pulses. In addition to comprehensively study the influence of various experimental conditions on double-pulse fs laser welding, multi-level tests are designed for five factors, including average laser power, pulse delay, scanning interval, scanning speed, and repetition rate. Finally, by optimizing the parameters, a welding strength of 57.15 MPa is achieved at an average power of 3500 mW, repetition rate of 615 kHz, pulse delay of 66.7 ps, scanning interval of 10 µm, and scanning speed of 1000 µm/s. This work introduces a new approach to glass welding and presents optimal parameters for achieving higher welding strength, which can be widely used in aerospace, microelectronic packaging, microfluidics, and other fields.

Vibration sensors are widely applied in the detection of faults and analysis of operational states in engineering machinery and equipment. However, commercial vibration sensors with a feature of high hardness hinder their usage in some practical applications where the measured objects have irregular surfaces that are difficult to install. Moreover, as the operating environments of machinery become increasingly complex, there is a growing demand for sensors capable of working in wet and humid conditions. Here, we present a flexible, superhydrophobic vibration sensor with parallel microcracks. The sensor is fabricated using a femtosecond laser direct writing ablation strategy to create the parallel cracks on a PDMS film, followed by spray-coating with a conductive ink composed of MWCNTs, CB, and PDMS. The results demonstrate that the developed flexible sensor exhibits a high-frequency response of up to 2000 Hz, a high acceleration response of up to 100 m/s2, a water contact angle as high as 159.61°, and a linearity of 0.9812 between the voltage signal and acceleration. The results indicate that the sensor can be employed for underwater vibration, sound recognition, and vibration monitoring in fields such as shield cutters, holding significant potential for mechanical equipment vibration monitoring and speech-based human–machine interaction.

The development of high-energy continuous wave (CW) laser has enabled the generation of output powers ranging from 300 to 500 kW. Understanding the ablation mechanism of CW lasers at high laser fluence is crucial for the design of effective high-energy laser protection materials. We note that the particle-like impurities present in the protective coating material can induce defects on the ceramic-like target surface during high-energy CW laser ablation, which can alter the laser absorptivity and manifest a completely different ablation mechanism. Here, we systematically investigate the mechanism of high-energy CW laser ablation of alumina ceramic, with a specific focus on the roles of defect induction, energy transfer, and impact sputtering in the dynamic ablation of target. Specifically, the transient processes between high-energy CW laser and ceramic target will be investigated in terms of the evolution results of the ablation region, the microscopic characteristics of the ablated material, the high time-resolved on-line monitoring, and the multiphase hydrodynamics simulation. Finally, the transparent property of molten alumina ceramic to laser is proved to allow for penetrating damage to ceramic-metal composites.

Vibration sensors are widely used in many fields like industry, agriculture, military, medicine, environment, etc. However, due to the speedy upgrading, most sensors composed of rigid or even toxic materials cause pollution to the environment and give rise to an increased amount of electronic waste. To meet the requirement of green electronics, biodegradable materials are advocated to be used to develop vibration sensors. Herein, a vibration sensor is reported based on a strategy of pencil-drawing graphite on paper. Specifically, a repeated pencil-drawing process is carried out on paper with a zigzag-shaped framework and parallel microgrooves, to form a graphite coating, thus serving as a functional conductive layer for electromechanical signal conversion. To enhance the sensor’s sensitivity to vibration, a mass is loaded in the center of the paper, so that higher oscillation amplitude could happen under vibrational excitation. In so doing, the paper-based sensor can respond to vibrations with a wide frequency range from 5 Hz to 1 kHz, and vibrations with a maximum acceleration of 10 g. The results demonstrate that the sensor can not only be utilized for monitoring vibrations generated by the knuckle-knocking of plastic plates or objects falling down but also can be used to detect vibration in areas such as the shield cut head to assess the working conditions of machinery. The paper-based MEMS vibration sensor exhibits merits like easy fabrication, low cost, and being environmentally friendly, which indicates its great application potential in vibration monitoring fields.

Improving the spot brightness and uniformity of arrangement of the array laser is conducive to ensuring the beam quality of the fiber laser. Based on the light tracing principle, the optical model performance of two common fiber lasers was first analyzed. Then, a novel rotationally polarized optical model with high power and spot uniformity was designed and optimized on the basis of the aforementioned analysis. The results of the evaluation metrics of the multi-indicator optical model show that the spot uniformity of our proposed model improved by 24.03%, the power improved by 0.55%, and the maximum light distance was shortened from 120 mm to 82.58 mm. Further, the results of the coupling tolerance analysis of the optical elements show that the total coupling efficiency was 89.04%. The coupling power and tolerance relationships did not produce degradation compared with the traditional model. Extensive comparative results show that the designed rotationally polarized optical path model can effectively improve the optical coupling efficiency and spot uniformity of arrayed semiconductor lasers.

Infrared small target detection is one of the vital tasks in various infrared detection applications and has some typical challenges, such as small and dim target, background noise, and complex scenes. To address the problem, a context-guided reverse attention network is proposed to detect infrared small target by introducing context-guided module (CGM), multiscale aggregation block (MAB), and reverse attention module (RAM). The CGM is designed to capture the inherent property of semantic information from multiscale encode layer in pixel-level recognition. In order to eliminate the impact of low-level feature on computational complexity and ensure the detection performance, we design the MAB to aggregate multiscale feature. The RAM is integrated in decoder layer to combine the features from MAB and CGM for fusing the localization information and multiscale structural information. Extensive experiments on infrared small target datasets demonstrate that our method can achieve high detection accuracy and low false alarm rate compared with some state-of-the-art model-driven and data-driven methods.

The study to obtain a sound joint between aluminum and steel is rather challenging due to the large mismatch in thermal properties and the formation of brittle IMCs, especially for press-hardened steel attributing to its martensite microstructure. In this present study, dissimilar joining of 5052 aluminum and press-hardened steel was comprehensively explored by employing laser offset welding without any fillers and interlayers. The influence of laser offset on welding appearance and mechanical properties was evaluated. The microstructure analysis, bonding mechanism, and fracture behavior were identified and characterized by means of optical microscope (OM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The satisfactory welding appearance and mechanical property of 129.6 MPa was obtained at the laser offset of 0.2 mm. The interface microstructure was composed of continuous Fe2Al5, acicular Fe4Al13 and islands IMCs. In addition, micro cracks could be initiated spontaneously in Fe2Al5 layer due to the residual stress, whereas a consecutive crack seems be induced by a micro pore defect. No matter what the fracture mode was during tensile test, the fracture surface was localized at the welded interface.

Cylindrical vibratory gyroscope is a kind of mode-matched gyros, and the frequency split would affect its sensitivity significantly. Frequency tuning is a major method to decrease the split. In the process of frequency tuning, the natural frequency should be measured firstly, and the measurement error is one of the decisive factor of tuning accuracy. Due to the measurement error of frequency is Normal Distribution, its effects on frequency tuning are studied by theoretical and simulation analysis from the statistical aspect. Firstly, the influence of frequency splitting on gyro sensitivity is studied, which shows the importance of reducing frequency splitting. Then the effect of different measuring accuracy on the measured value is analyzed. Thirdly, the tuning error that caused by the measurement error is researched in the process of trimming, and the tuning error is derived by theoretical analysis. Simulation and experiment results under different measurement error exemplify the value of tuning error. Finally, the optimal measurement accuracy that ensures achieving tuning accuracy is discussed.

Infrared antireflection of a zinc sulfide (ZnS) surface is important to improve performance of infrared detector systems. In this paper, double-pulse femtosecond laser micro-machining is proposed to fabricate a subwavelength quasi-periodic array (SQA) on ZnS substrate for infrared antireflection. The SQA consisting of approximately 30 million holes within a 2 × 2 cm2 area is uniformly formed in a short time. The double-pulse beam can effectively suppress the surface plasma shielding effect, resulting in obtaining a larger array depth. Further, the SQA depth is tunable by changing pulse energy and pulse delay, and can be used to readily regulate the infrared transmittance spectra as well as hydrophobicity. Additionally, the optical field intensity distributions of the SQA simulated by the rigorous coupled-wave analysis method indicate the modulation effect by the array depth. Finally, the infrared imaging quality captured through an infrared window embedded SQA is evaluated by a self-built infrared detection system.

Abstract A novel fiber inline Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is proposed for simultaneous measurement of curvature and temperature. The sensor composes of single mode-multimode-dispersion compensation-multimode-single mode fiber (MMF-DCF-MMF) structure, using the direct fusion technology. The experimental results show curvature sensitivities of −12.82 nm/m−1 and −14.42 nm/m−1 in the range of 0–0.65 m−1 for two resonant dips, as well as temperature sensitivities of 57.6 pm/°C and 74.3 pm/°C within the range of 20 °C–150 °C. In addition, the sensor has unique advantages of easy fabrication, low cost, high fringe visibility of 24dB, and high sensitivity, which shows a good application prospect in dual-parameters of sensing of curvature and temperature.

In this study, the mechanical and optical properties of silica-based planar lightwave circuit (PLC) optical splitters under uniaxial tensile loading are studied by building an in situ experimental test platform. The tensile test results revealed that the adhesively-bonded fiber array-PLC chip joints are weak areas of the PLC optical splitter. Combined with the real-time monitoring of the optical performance index insertion loss (IL) during the tensile test, it was found that the changing trend of ΔIL-time curves is related to the deformation, damage, and debonding process of the weak area. Based on the experimental results and phenomena, the correspondence between ΔIL at 1.55 μm wavelength and the damage degree of PLC optical splitters is established, that is, ΔIL in (−5 dB; 0 dB], (−15 dB; −5 dB], and (−∞, −15 dB] belong to light damage, moderate damage, and severe damage, respectively. This research can provide a useful reference for damage characteristics analysis and reliability design of PLC optical splitters.

In the past 20 years, semiconductor lasers have been widely used in medical, industrial, and communication applications, providing a revolutionary and powerful platform for the fifth generation and advanced manufacturing. Semiconductor laser has the advantages of small size, lightweight, high reliability and easy modulation, becoming increasingly popular. However, due to the laser diode emission mechanism limitation, the beam quality is inferior and cannot be directly applied and required to be handled by beam shaping. However, the packaging of multiple beam shaping optical components is accompanied by risks due to misalignment. The misalignment error of the optical components has a great hidden danger to the laser performance. As semiconductor lasers' power gradually increases, lasers' thermal management technology is also increasingly strict. Therefore, this article first reviews the beam shaping technology of semiconductor laser diode array. Secondly, the analysis of the influence of the array semiconductor laser optical device's misalignment is reviewed, and a feasible solution is proposed. Finally, it summarizes the researches on thermal management in high-power semiconductor lasers. This article aims to give readers a comprehensive and broad understanding of semiconductor laser packaging's technical difficulties and to recognize each corresponding solution.

The core device of dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) system is a wavelength division multiplexer/demultiplexer, among which the arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) device has the most superior optical performances. The optical performances of AWG are mainly affected by the structure parameters such as the waveguide spacing, the width and length of the tapered waveguide and the number of arrayed waveguides. Taking the 40-channel AWG as the research object, by combining theory with simulation, this paper analyzed the influence mechanisms and laws of AWG structure parameters on its optical performances including insertion loss, loss non-uniformity, adjacent crosstalk, and 3 dB bandwidth. Then, the sensitivities analysis of AWG optical performance was carried out by using the direct derivation method and the finite difference method in the sensitivities analysis method, so as to obtain the influence degree of each structure parameter on the optical performances. Finally, based on the influence rules and sensitivities of structure parameters on optical performances, this paper adopted some methods to optimize the structure parameters of AWG, and optimized the insertion loss, loss non-uniformity, adjacent crosstalk, and 3 dB bandwidth to about 1 dB, 0.35 dB, −30 dB, and 0.42 nm, respectively. The research methods and conclusions of this paper can provide references for the optimization of optical performances and layout design of other types of AWG.

As a special kind of Bragg grating, phase-shifted fiber Bragg grating (PS-FBG) has attracted extensive attention because of its extremely narrow transmission window and excellent sensing performance. The main purpose of this manuscript is to discuss the PS-FBG with special sensing characteristics and explore the influence of different inscription technologies on the sensing characteristics of PS-FBG by comparing the existing inscription methods. The sensing characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of PS-FBG with different structures are analyzed.

The high-quality, high-efficiency micro-hole drilling of structural ceramics to improve the thermal conductivity of hot-end parts or achieve high-density electronic packaging is still a technical challenge for conventional processing techniques. Recently, the laser drilling method (LDM) has become the preferred processing tool for structural ceramics, and it plays an irreplaceable role in the industrialized processing of group holes on structural ceramic surfaces. A variety of LDMs such as long pulsed laser drilling, short pulsed laser drilling, ultrafast pulsed laser drilling, liquid-assisted laser drilling, combined pulse laser drilling have been developed to achieved high-quality and high-efficiency micro-hole drilling through controlling the laser–matter interaction. This article reviews the characteristics of different LDMs and systematically compares the morphology, diameter, circularity, taper angle, cross-section, heat affect zone, recast layer, cracks, roughness, micro–nano structure, photothermal effect and photochemical reaction of the drilling. Additionally, exactly what processing parameters and ambient environments are optimal for precise and efficient laser drilling and their recent advancements were analyzed. Finally, a summary and outlook of the LDM technology are also highlighted.

Laser offset welding of 5052 aluminum to press-hardened steel using a brass interlayer was carried out. The cross-sectioned macrostructure and tensile strength were governed by varying the thickness of the brass interlayer. The maximum tensile strength reached 56.4 MPa when the thickness of brass interlayer was 0.05 mm. Subsequently, the interface microstructure, the nanoindentation characterization, and the fracture behavior were evaluated experimentally by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS), and micro-X-ray diffraction (micro-XRD), respectively. It was found that the intermetallic compound (IMC) layer at the interface consisted of an Fe2Al5 layer and an FeAl layer, and the estimated nanohardness of Fe2Al5, FeAl, and Fe3Al were 16.11 GPa, 9.48 GPa, and 4.13 GPa, respectively. The fracture of the joint with the 0.05 mm brass interlayer was a mixture of cleavage fracture and intergranular fracture, while that of the joint with the 0.1 mm brass interlayer exhibited the characterization of a major dendrite arm, leaving a metallurgical connected zone consisting of the Al2Cu and the α-Al phase.

In order to improve the performance of silver nanowire (AgNW) flexible transparent conductive films (FTCFs), including the conductivity, uniformity, and reliability, the welding of high repetition rate femtosecond (fs) laser is applied in this work. Fs laser irradiation can produce local enhancement of electric field, which induce melting at the gap of the AgNWs and enhance electrical conductivity of nanowire networks. The overall resistivity of the laser-welded AgNW FTCFs reduced significantly and the transparency changed slightly. Meanwhile, PET substrates were not damaged during the laser welding procedure in particular parameters. The AgNW FTCFs can achieve a nonuniformity factor of the sheet resistance as 4.6% at an average sheet resistance of 16.1 Ω/sq and transmittance of 91%. The laser-welded AgNW FTCFs also exhibited excellent reliability against mechanical bending over 10,000 cycles. The welding process may open up a new approach for improvement of FTCFs photoelectric property and can be applied in the fabrication of silver nanostructures for flexible optoelectronic and integration of functional devices.

Laser welding–brazing of 5A06 aluminum to Ti6Al4V titanium in a butt configuration was carried out to discuss the influences of welding parameters on dissimilar joint properties. The effects of laser offset, welding speed, and laser power on the spreading length of the molten aluminum liquid, interface fracture zone width (IFZW), fracture roughness, intermetallic compounds (IMCs) thickness, and tensile strength were also investigated. The microstructure and fracture of the joint were also studied. The results show that the tensile strength of the joint is not only influenced by the thickness and type of IMCs, but also influenced by the spreading ability of the aluminum liquid, the fracture area broken at the Ti/fusing zone (FZ) interface, and the relative area of the brittle and ductile fracture in FZ. A dissimilar butt joint with an IMC thickness of 2.79 μm was obtained by adjusting the laser offset, welding speed, and laser power to 500 μm, 11 mm/s and 1130 W, respectively. The maximum tensile strength of the joint was up to 183 MPa, which is equivalent to 83% of the tensile strength of the 5A06 aluminum alloy.

Silica optical film specifications are determined by their processing capability and their fabrication stability. Here, a statistical process control (SPC) approach usually used in planar lightwave circuits (PLC) is adopted to analyze the stability of the silica optical film fabrication process. Apart from the raw materials, certain key external factors have to be taken into consideration during the PLC process, such as temperature, relative humidity, process variation and machine aging. The fabrication process can be adjusted according to SPC-based results in real-time, so as to produce high quality silica optical film. By using this method, it is possible to assess the effectiveness of older production lines and extend their production capacity at minimal cost.

We demonstrated a fiber in-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) coated with platinum (Pt) for the simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature. The sensor was fabricated by splicing a section of multimode fiber (MMF) between two single mode fibers (SMFs) and the Pt coating was prepared by iron sputtering technology. Fine interference fringes of over 20 dB with a compact size of 20 mm were achieved. The experimental results of the two different resonant dips showed strain sensitivities of −2.06 pm/με and −2.21 pm/με, as well as temperature sensitivities of 55.2 pm/°C and 53.4 pm/°C, respectively. Furthermore, it was found that the Pt coating can improve the strain sensitivity significantly, resulting in an increase of about 54.5%. In addition, the sensor has advantages of easy fabrication, low cost, and high sensitivity, showing great potential for the dual-parameter sensing of strain and temperature.

To improve the jet performance of a bi-piezoelectric jet dispenser, mathematical and simulation models were established according to the operating principle. In order to improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulation calculation, a viscosity model of the fluid was fitted to a fifth-order function with shear rate based on rheological test data, and the needle displacement model was fitted to a nine-order function with time based on real-time displacement test data. The results show that jet performance is related to the diameter of the nozzle outlet and the cone angle of the nozzle, and the impacts of the flow channel structure were confirmed. The approach of numerical simulation is confirmed by the testing results of droplet volume. It will provide a reliable simulation platform for mechanical collision-based jet dispensing and a theoretical basis for micro jet valve design and improvement.

A highly sensitive strain sensor based on a novel fiber in line Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) was demonstrated experimentally. The MZI was realized by splicing a section of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with the same length of thin core fiber (TCF) between two single mode fibers (SMFs). The fringe visibility of MZI can reach as high as 20 dB in air. In particular, the strain sensitivity of −1.95 pm/με was achieved within a range from 0 to 4000 με. Furthermore, the strain properties of different length of MZI was investigated. It was found that the sensitivity was weekly dependent on the length of MZI. The strain sensitivities corresponding to the MZI with 35 mm PCF, 40 mm PCF and 45 mm PCF at 1550 nm band were −1.78 pm/με, −1.73 pm/με and −1.63 pm/με, respectively. Additionally, the sensor has advantages of simple fabrication, compact size and high sensitivity as well as good fringe visibility.

The eigenfrequency of a resonator plays a significant role in the operation of a cylindrical shell vibrating gyroscope, and trimming is aimed at eliminating the frequency split that is the difference of eigenfrequency between two work modes. In this paper, the effects on eigenfrequency under resonator-top trimming methods that trim the top of the resonator wall are investigated by simulation and experiments. Simulation results show that the eigenfrequency of the trimmed mode increases in the holes-trimming method, whereas it decreases in the grooves-trimming method. At the same time, the untrimmed modes decrease in both holes-trimming and grooves-trimming methods. Moreover, grooves-trimming is more efficient than holes-trimming, which indicates that grooves-trimming can be a primary trimming method, and holes-trimming can be a precision trimming method. The rigidity condition after grooves-trimming is also studied to explain the variation of eigenfrequency. A femtosecond laser is employed in the resonator trimming experiment by the precise ablation of the material. Experimental results are in agreement with the simulation results.

The demand for flexible pressure sensors with high performance is increasing with the growing wearable technology market. According to the developing requirement for green electronics, paper-based sensors, which are more environmentally friendly, have received more and more attention. However, the intrinsic mechanical properties of paper materials limit the sensing performance of paper-based sensors, such as restricted working range and response bandwidth. Herein, a rigid–soft hybrid design strategy is proposed to improve the sensing performance of paper-based pressure sensors, and bioinspired microstructures are introduced into the architecture of sensors for further improvement. As a result, the prepared paper-based pressure sensor has a faster response/recovery speed (<50 ms), a wide sensing range (1 MPa) and frequency response bandwidth (0.05–1000 Hz) and excellent cycling stability (5000 cycles). In addition, the paper-based pressure sensor is superhydrophobic with a water contact angle of 152.62°. Based on the excellent sensing performance and waterproofness, the paper-based pressure sensor can be used as a wearable device for detecting joint movements or gait of humans/robots in both air and underwater. In addition, it can be used to send communication signals, showing great potential for applications in future underwater rescue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]