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The phase behaviour of three groups of binary mixtures of dendronized fullerene liquid crystals was studied. In the LT phase formed by blends, a preference for the long-chain component to occupy the outermost of the three fullerene layers was shown.

Ultrafast all-optical switches based on epsilon-near-zero (ENZ)-enhanced nonlinear refraction in transparent conducting oxides have achieved exciting results in realizing large absolute modulations. However, broad-band, polarization-independent, and wide-angle ultrafast all-optical switches have been challenging to produce, due to the inherent narrow band, polarization-dependent, and angle-dependent characteristics of the ENZ effect. To this end, we propose an ultrafast all-optical switch based on the enhanced nonlinear absorption of corrugated indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films. Taking advantage of the perfect absorption and localized field enhancement of the ENZ and localized surface plasmon resonance modes, we significantly enhanced the nonlinear absorption of the corrugated ITO film in the 1450-1650 nm telecom band. The experimental results show that the nonlinear saturable absorption coefficient of the corrugated ITO film at 1450 nm was as high as -1.5 × 10

We propose a thermal modulation structure made of two identical SiO2 slabs coated by Dirac semimetal (DSM) films and separated by a nanoscale vacuum gap. The energy transmission probability reveals...

Liquid crystal (LC) adaptive optics systems (AOS) can potentially be used in ground-based large aperture telescopes, because of their high spatial resolution, low cost and compact size. However, their disadvantages, such as low energy efficiency and slow response speed, still hinder their application. In this paper, we demonstrate solutions to these problems. With newly synthesized fast nematic LC material and using an overdriving technique, the response time of a LC wavefront corrector was reduced to 0.75 ms. Under an open-loop control scheme, a novel optical system was designed to improve the energy efficiency of LC AOS. With those problems resolved, a LC AOS was built for a 1.23-m telescope. This system has a disturbance rejection bandwidth of 80 Hz, and could fully use the energy of 400–900 nm wavebands. Observation results showed that the diffraction limit resolution imaging of the telescope could be obtained after correction, which indicates that the LC AOS is ready to be used in ground-based telescopes for visible waveband imaging.

Ultrathin planar transparent conducting oxide (TCO) films are commonly used to enhance the optical response of epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) devices; however, our results suggest that thickness-dependent loss renders them ineffective. Here, we investigated the thickness-dependent loss of indium tin oxide (ITO) films and their effect on the ENZ-enhanced optical responses of ITO and ITO/SiO2 multilayer stacks. The experimental and computational results show that the optical loss of ITO films increases from 0.47 to 0.70 as the thickness decreases from 235 to 52 nm, which results in a reduction of 60% and 45% in the maximum field enhancement factor of a 52-nm monolayer ITO and 4-layer ITO/SiO2 multilayer stack, respectively. The experimental results show that the ENZ-enhanced nonlinear absorption coefficient of the 52-nm single-layer ITO film is -1.6 × 103 cm GW-1, which is 81% lower than that of the 235-nm ITO film (-8.6 × 103 cm GW-1), indicating that the thickness-dependent loss makes the ultrathin TCO films unable to obtain greater nonlinear responses. In addition, the increased loss reduces the cascading Berreman transmission valley intensity of the 4-layer ITO/SiO2 multilayer stack, resulting in a 42% reduction in the ENZ-enhanced nonlinear absorption coefficient compared to the 235-nm ITO film and a faster hot electron relaxation time. Our results suggest that the thickness and loss trade-off is an intrinsic property of TCO films and that the low-loss ultrathin TCO films are the key to the robust design and fabrication of novel ENZ devices based on flat ultrathin TCO films.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has been widely reported to improve the sensitivity of Raman spectra. Ordinarily, the laser is focused on the sample to measure the Raman spectrum. The size of the focused light spot is comparable with that of micro-nano structures, and the number of micro-nano structures contained in the light spot area (defined as duty cycle) will severely affect the spectrum intensity. In this study, flower-like silver nanostructures were fabricated with a soft lyotropic liquid crystal template in order to investigate the effect of duty cycle. They were observed under a scanning electron microscope, and their spectrum enhancement factor was computed with the obtained Raman spectrum. Then, their duty cycles were measured using a SERS substrate at different locations. A formula was derived to represent the relation between the duty cycle of the nanoflowers and the Raman spectral intensity. This work could promote the actual applications of SERS in high-sensitivity spectrum testing.

This study proposes a simple method of designing a high-speed liquid crystal variable retarder (LCVR) with reflection mode. First, a series of simple formulas is provided for analysing the effects ...

This report focuses on the damage characteristics of the indium-tin-oxide (ITO) layer and the polyimide (PI) layer, which are two constituent components of a LCD. This investigation is different from the previous study, in which the alignment layer was deposited directly on a glass substrate. The PI alignment layer is pinned on the ITO film to imitate the structure of the LCD as much as possible in our current study. The damage process of the ITO/Glass sample involves melting, vaporization near the laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT), and removal at a higher fluence. However, the damage process of the PI/ITO/Glass sample involves thermally induced plastic deformation, followed by cooling when the irradiation fluence is near the LIDT, and rupture when the irradiation fluence is higher. The LIDTs of the PI/ITO/Glass samples, as determined by the on-line CCD detection technique, are higher than those of the ITO/Glass samples. The favorable mechanical properties of the PI are primarily responsible for this result.

A set of liquid crystal adaptive optics system for visible light is installed for 2-meter telescope in Changchun, China. To get higher resolution images after adaptive optics, phase diversity (PD) is applied. Two liquid crystal spatial light modulators were used for two polarized states of light, and they were also used for two channel correction of focused image and diversity image. Observations about star HD 29139 were performed on March 23, 2018. The results of the star with the PD show that the full width half maximum was decreased from about 10 pixels to 4 pixels, corresponding to angular resolution improved from 0.5” to 0.2”. The peak intensity was improved by 66.7% after the PD. The root mean square of the wavefront estimated using the PD agrees with the Strehl ratio of observed image after adaptive optics. The observed results indicate that the PD technique can significantly improve the image resolution after liquid crystal adaptive optics.

Two-photon light-sheet microscopy (TP-LSM) system performance is greatly degraded by specimen-induced aberrations in illumination path, which limit the field of view, axial resolution and excitation efficiency of the system. Adaptive optics (AO) is an effective method for attenuating these effects. For the design and evaluation of an AO system, a comprehensive analysis of the effects of aberrations is needed. In this paper, a TP-LSM system is simulated, and new indexes based on integral intensity are introduced for the evaluation of an aberrated light-sheet. Then, the influences of each Zernike mode and random aberrations on the illumination path of the TP-LSM system are investigated with a numerical simulation method. Results show that high-order aberrations have little effect on the axial resolution and excitation efficiency of the system and only low-order components require correction. The random aberrations varied in strength with the depth of the specimens, so the number of corrected Zernike modes is variable. A general formula is generated for the estimation of the number of modes that should be detected and corrected under different aberrations and different numerical aperture of the objective. The results can provide important guidance in the design and evaluation of AO units for TP-LSM systems.

The performance of free-space laser communication (FSLC) is greatly decreased by horizontal atmospheric turbulence. Adaptive optics is used to overcome horizontal turbulence. This study investigated the effect of the 3 dB bandwidth of an adaptive optics system (AOS) on FSLC performance by using power-in-bucket (PIB) method, which considers the effect of receiving aperture and then, can accurately evaluate of the effect of system bandwidth on the communication performance. A 9 km horizontal maritime link experiment was performed through adaptive correction to validate the theoretical analysis. Results indicate that the effect of system bandwidth can be accurately evaluated using PIB method. This work provides a basis for designing and evaluating AOSs for FSLC.

The isoplanatic patch of the human eye is a key parameter for the adaptive optics system (AOS) designed for retinal imaging. The field of view (FOV) usually sets to the same size as the isoplanatic patch to obtain high resolution images. However, it has only been measured at a specific wavelength. Here we investigate the wavelength dependence of this important parameter. An optical setup is initially designed and established in a laboratory to measure the isoplanatic patch at various wavelengths (655 nm, 730 nm and 808 nm). We established the Navarro wide-angle eye model in Zemax software to further validate our results, which suggested high consistency between the two. The isoplanatic patch as a function of wavelength was obtained within the range of visible to near-infrared, which can be expressed as: θ =0.0028 λ − 0 . 74 . This work is beneficial for the AOS design for retinal imaging.

We present a weighted method of wavefront reconstruction for multiple laser guide stars (LGS) adaptive optics (AO) system. Unlike simple averaging method in the traditional ground layer adaptive optics (GLAO), the weighted method generates different weighting factors according to LGSs’ different positions for the reconstructed wavefront from different LGSs. And then the target aberration to correct could be obtained with summation of these wavefronts multiplied by their correspondent weighting factors. Wide-field simulations are presented and analyzed. Experiments in the lab are conducted to validate the method. The weighted method is better than the average method especially near the center area of FOV. At center of FOV, the SR is improved by about 0.2 compared to the average method and the SR decreases with enlargement of FOV. For the first time, the weighted wavefront reconstruction method effectively decreases the reconstruction error in multi-LGSs AO system. The simulation and experimental result show that weighted method is also promising to improve the imaging resolution of LGS adaptive optics systems in astronomical observations.

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in optoelectronic applications of transparent conductive oxide (TCO) thin-film-based materials and devices fabricated using patterning techniques. Meanwhile, femtosecond laser processing is a convenient method that further improves the performance of TCO-based functional devices and expands their application prospects. In this study, we proposed a simple and effective strategy to determine the fluences required for laser processing TCOs. We investigated the modification of an indium tin oxide (ITO) film induced by a femtosecond laser (45/150 fs, 800 nm) at different pulse fluences. The results reveal that the laser modification of ITO films is highly dependent on the irradiated pulse fluences. Several distinct types of final micro/nanostructures were observed and may be attributed to superficial amorphization, spallation ablation, stress-assisted delamination, boiling evaporation, and phase explosion. The final micro/nanostructures were studied in detail using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and a surface profiler. At a lower fluence above the melting but below the ablation threshold, a laterally parabolic amorphous layer profiled with maximum thicknesses of several tens of nanometers was quantitatively attained. At a higher fluence, stress-assisted delamination and superheated liquid-induced micro-honeycomb structures emerged. Furthermore, the electron and lattice temperature evolutions were also obtained using a two-temperature model to prove the ablation mechanism and ascertain the micro/nanostructure formation principle. The predicted surface temperatures confirmed film amorphization without ablation below 0.23 J/cm2. These results reveal the interaction mechanism between femtosecond laser pulse and ITO film including the competition between the free electron heating of intraband transition and the multiphoton absorption of the interband transition, which promotes the potential applications for femtosecond laser processing TCO films and other wide-band-gap semiconductors such as photodetectors, solar cells, UV-light-emitting diodes, and flat-panel displays.

Free-space laser communication (FSLC) has attracted wide attention and developed rapidly due to its high bandwidth and strong capability to resist interception and interference. However, communication performance is severely affected by atmospheric turbulence. In this paper we consider the end face of the coupling fiber and adopted power-in-the-bucket (PIB) as the evaluation criterion instead of the traditionally used coupling efficiency. The relationship between FSLC performance (PIB) and adaptive optics parameters (corrected Zernike modes number) is derived for the first time. We simulated and conducted an 8.9 km horizontal FSLC experiment to analyze the effects of corrected modes on communication performance. The simulation and experiment results consistently show that, for turbulence of r0 = 7.51 cm, it is sufficient to correct the first 30 modes. The bit error rate (BER) and the PIB reached values of about 10−7 and 70%, respectively. For r0 = 4.43 cm correction of the first 22 modes, yielded BER and PIB values of around 10−5 and 55%, respectively. For r0 = 1.7 cm, no matter how many Zernike modes are corrected, the BER and PIB values are about 10−3 and 20% respectively. This experiment and its results provide an important reference for corrected modes on communication performance under different turbulence strengths.

Flowerlike silver nanostructure substrates were fabricated in liquid crystalline phase and the distance dependent property of metal enhanced fluorescence for such substrate was studied for the first time. The distance between silver nanostructures and fluorophore was controlled by the well-established layer-by-layer (LbL) technique constructing alternate layers of poly (allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) and poly (sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS). The Rhodamine 6G (R6G) molecules were electrostatically attached to the outmost negative charged PSS layer. The fluorescence enhancement factor of flowerlike nanostructure substrate increased firstly and then decreased with the distance increasing. The best enhanced fluorescence intensity of 71 fold was obtained at a distance of 5.2 nm from the surface of flowerlike silver nanostructure. The distance for best enhancement effect is an instructive parameter for the applications of such substrates and could be used in the practical MEF applications with the flowerlike nanostructure substrates fabricated in such way which is simple, controllable and cost-effective.

There are more than eight large aperture telescopes (larger than eight meters) equipped with adaptive optics system in the world until now. Due to the limitations such as the difficulties of increasing actuator number of deformable mirror, most of them work in the infrared waveband. A novel two-step high-resolution optical imaging approach is proposed by applying phase diversity (PD) technique to the open-loop liquid crystal adaptive optics system (LC AOS) for visible light high-resolution adaptive imaging. Considering the traditional PD is not suitable for LC AOS, the novel PD strategy is proposed which can reduce the wavefront estimating error caused by non-modulated light generated by liquid crystal spatial light modulator (LC SLM) and make the residual distortions after open-loop correction to be smaller. Moreover, the LC SLM can introduce any aberration which realizes the free selection of phase diversity. The estimating errors are greatly reduced in both simulations and experiments. The resolution of the reconstructed image is greatly improved on both subjective visual effect and the highest discernible space resolution. Such technique can be widely used in large aperture telescopes for astronomical observations such as terrestrial planets, quasars and also can be used in other applications related to wavefront correction.

Thermal annealing effect on an organic distributed feedback (DFB) laser excited from a semiconducting polymer gain layer, poly(2-methoxy-5-(2’-ethyl-hexyloxy)-p-phenyl-envinylene) (MEH-PPV), is reported. The morphology, absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectral characteristics of the MEH-PPV film annealed at different temperatures were analyzed. The amplified spontaneous emission (ASE), the optical gain and loss coefficients were also investigated. The organic lasing behaviors including threshold, energy conversion efficiency and polarization state in a DFB laser device were studied. The results show that the optical properties of the organic semiconducting laser can be enhanced by thermal annealing effect. The single mode laser emission at 622.4 nm with lower lasing threshold 0.2 μJ/pulse and higher energy conversion efficiency 6.71% was achieved with thermal annealing at 120 °C. The thermal annealing treatment decreases laser threshold and increases laser energy conversion efficiency dramatically, which shows the potential in ultra-low cost organic semiconducting polymer DFB lasers.

Rational design of liquid crystals (LCs) with excellent phase state and rotational viscosity has been a crucial technique for response speed improvement of LC wavefront corrector. A complete process for theoretically evaluating the phase state and rotational viscosity of fast response LCs using a fully atomistic molecular dynamics is reported. Predicted trends in molecular order, phase-transition temperature between metastable states and rotational viscosity show excellent agreement with experimental results. We also demonstrate that overestimation of the attraction both between and within molecules in the general Amber force field mainly leads to a systematic shift in the phase-transition temperature, rotational viscosity and figure-of-merit for fast response LCs. With further optimisations of intermolecular potential, simulation procedure and data processing, this fully atomistic simulation will be a useful evaluation method of response performance of LC materials.

Electron multiplying charge-coupled-device (EMCCD) applied in Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor (S–H WFS) makes the wavefront sensing more efficient for adaptive optics (AO). However when the brightness of the observed target changes in large ranges in a few minutes, a fixed electron multiplying (EM) gain may not be optimum. Thus an auto-gain-control (AGC) method based on the spots image of the S–H WFS is proposed. The designed control value is the average value of the maximum signals of all the light spots in a frame. It has been demonstrated in the experiments that the control value is sensitive to the change of the target brightness, and is stable in the presence of detecting noises and turbulence influence. The goal value for control is predetermined based on the linear relation of the signal with the EM gain and the number of photons collected in sub-apertures. The conditions of the self-protection of the EMCCD are also considered for the goal value. Simulations and experiments indicate that the proposed control method is efficient, and keeps the sensing in a high SNR which reaches the upper SNR limit when sensing with EMCCD. The self-protection of the EMCCD is avoided during the whole sensing process.

The interaction matrix significantly affects the correction accuracy of wavefront correctors. For diffractive liquid crystal wavefront correctors (LCWFCs), the diffraction wavefront error must be taken into account to improve the accuracy of the interaction matrix. In this paper, a tunable Zernike polynomial coefficient method is demonstrated that decreases the effect of the diffraction wavefront error on the interaction matrix. Moreover, to eliminate the effect of the random error, a least squares method is combined with the tunable coefficient method. Experimental results show that, with the combined method, the error of the interaction matrix is decreased by a factor of 2.5 compared to that when the least squares method is used alone. Furthermore, an open loop adaptive correction experiment was performed and a considerable improvement of the image resolution was obtained by the novel method. Therefore, this method is very useful for liquid crystal adaptive optics systems to acquire the high correction accuracy.

Quasi-CW laser damage process of indium tin oxide (ITO) thin film was investigated. The ITO film with thickness of 300 nm was deposited on fused silica substrate by magnetron sputtering. Experiments were conducted on quasi-CW laser with wavelength of 1064 nm, and the test was executed in single shot test with radiation time of 60 s. The damage morphologies were observed via optical microscope and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The apparent damage started with change in color which the morphologies were visible to the naked eyes. With the power density higher than the laser induced damage threshold (LIDT), there were cracks in the center of the damage site. The temperature distribution of the ITO thin film was investigated based on the heat equation.

Open loop liquid crystal adaptive optics (LC AO) has overcome the disadvantage of low energy efficiency after years of research, and its use is very promising in ground-based large aperture telescopes for visible band imaging. However, the low system bandwidth of open loop LC AO still limits its application. In order to solve this problem, we bring the concept of proportional-derivative control (which is widely used in closed loop systems) into open loop LC AO in this paper. Experiment results verified that the system −3 dB rejection bandwidth could improve from 75 Hz to 112 Hz when tip-tilt aberration is introduced, and the mean relative contrast ratio of imaging results could improve 80% when high-order aberrations are introduced. The proposed control method has significant meaning in promoting the application of open loop LC AO in ground-based large aperture telescopes for visible imaging.

The adaptive optics system (AOS) has been used to eliminate the effect of atmospheric turbulence for free-space optical communications. The AOSs are designed based on the statistical average performance of the turbulence. In reality, the amplitude of turbulence changes drastically, and the AOS cannot always detect and correct the aberrations appropriately. To prevent the amplitude of turbulence from exceeding the designed range of the Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor (SH WFS), the combination of the wavefront sensorless and SH WFS methods is proposed to extend the detection range. First, the control scheme is demonstrated, and the numerical simulation is performed. Then, the validation experiments are performed with static and dynamic turbulence. Results show that the proposed method is valid and that the effective communication time is greatly lengthened.

In this study, a 1064-nm quasi-continuous-wave laser was employed to anneal the indium tin oxide (ITO) films, thereby prominently prompting transparency in the near-infrared region with insignificant variation in resistivity. The decrease in carrier density due to laser annealing contributed to the improvement in transparency. Interestingly, the depth-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy distinguishes between two different mechanisms for tailoring the properties of the free carriers. Tin oxide reduction in the oxygen-deficient zone of the ITO films at a depth of approximately more than 80 nm was more significant than that in the oxygen-rich zone within the top 80-nm thin layer. In addition, the elimination of oxygen vacancies in the oxygen-rich environments did not indicate apparent advantage when compared with that in the oxygen-deficient environments owing to the oxygen supplied during the tin oxide reduction process. These results provide an alternative laser annealing technologies for tailoring the properties of the free carriers and elucidating the fundamental mechanisms in oxygen-rich and oxygen-deficient environments in an annealing process.

We propose a voltage-tunable hyperbolic dispersion metamaterial (HDM) consisting of silver nanowires and nematic liquid crystals (NLCs). The metamaterial shows a novel electro-optic effect, in which the dispersion relation switches between elliptic and hyperbolic dispersions at the visible waveband with an external electric field. HDM functionality is analysed in detail based on the effective medium theory. 5CB NLC is chosen for the simulation, and tunability is achieved between 454 and 475 nm. The effects of filling ratio on tunability are also analysed. Tunable bandwidth widens from 21 to 45 nm with decreased filling ratio from 0.27 to 0.09. Finally, the effects of birefringence (Δn) are considered. Tunable bandwidth widens from 21 to 63 nm as Δn changes from 0.2 to 0.6. These novel tunable performances of the HDM can be applied to optical devices and optical systems.

An experimental analysis was conducted to investigate the fitting error of diffractive liquid crystal wavefront correctors (LCWFCs). First, an experiment was performed to validate the theoretical equations presented in our previous work Cao et al., 2009 [9] . The results showed an apparent discrepancy between the theoretical and measured results for the fitting error. This difference was examined and the influence of nonlinearities and rounding errors generated by the LCWFC was analyzed and discussed. Finally, the fitting error formula of the LCWFC was modified to obtain a more effective tool for the design of LCWFCs for atmospheric turbulence correction. These results will be useful for researchers who design liquid crystal adaptive optics systems for large-aperture ground-based telescopes.

This Letter presents an optical design method based on the Seidel aberration theory for dynamic refocus systems. The function of a dynamic refocus system is to increase the amount of return photons when a pulsed laser travels over an extended height range. In this study, the dynamic refocus system is a short focal image system. The aberrations of the dynamic refocus system are calculated individually. Aplanatic lenses are used to eliminate the main spherical aberration. A field lens is used to change the stop position in order to eliminate comas and astigmatism. The effectiveness of the initial design results are confirmed, and the designed dynamic refocus objective with an aperture of F-number 0.98 and a focal length of 14.325 mm is achieved. The total motion of the dynamic refocus mirror is approximately 216 μm at heights that ranged from 8 to 18 km. The optimum result shows that the dynamic refocus system is an ideal optical image system at each conjugating height with 10 km sample thicknesses.

We have analyzed and discussed a flat-top Brewster filter that works in full conical mounting. Results reveal that flat-top reflection band can be formed by merging double peaks that corresponded to guided modes with different polarization states. Merging is achieved by adjusting the incident angle in the design. When the proposed single-layer waveguide grating structure is irradiated with transverse magnetic (TM) polarized plane wave at the Brewster angle, the filter has a highly efficient flat-top reflection spectral response with central wavelength of 547 nm, bandwidth of 15.5 nm (R > 90%), and sideband reflectance of

In this study, we investigated the temperature dependence of the initial deformation and cracks of indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films deposited on a fused silica substrate using a 1064-nm quasi-continuous-wave laser. We observed that the laser-induced morphology threshold of the film shows a dramatic thickness effect. The laser-induced morphology threshold of a 100-nm ITO film is four times that of a 300-nm ITO film. Initial laser-induced surface morphologies of the initial deformation and cracks will occur as long as temperature rises to about 520 K and 1250 K, respectively, irrespective of the thickness of a film. Experimental results indicate that a thin ITO film is more likely to tolerate laser irradiation because of lower absorptivity than a thicker ITO film. Studying the temperature effect helps clarify more about the laser annealing process, which is a promising process in improving the performance of the ITO films.

An eigenmode method is proposed to estimate the correction performance of atmospheric turbulence based on a deformable mirror (DM). On the basis of the eigenmode, a formula that describes the relationship among residual error, eigenmode N, and turbulence strength D/r0 (D, telescope aperture, r 0 , atmospheric coherence length) is derived. The eigenmode and the Zernike polynomial methods are compared, too. An experiment is conducted, and results validate the theoretical equations. Hence, the correction performance of atmospheric turbulence may be estimated with the eigenmode method. This result is helpful for conveniently designing and evaluating the adaptive optics system used for turbulence correction.

We demonstrate stopband modulation in a corrugated parallel plate waveguide (PPWG) in terahertz (THz) frequency. Different from the traditional approaches to achieve narrow band-pass filter, a method based on the junction of two stopbands is provided. Two stopbands can come closer through adjustment of plate distance and controlling the grooves depth, which generate a narrowband transmission region. It is found that plate distance can control the interval of two stopbands. On optimization of plate distance, the filter can achieve a range of zero-sideband, high transmissivity (T=99.8%), narrow linewidth (5.8 GHz), and high-quality factor (Q ≈ 220). Furthermore, we also present the designs of tunable filter and modulate performance when liquid crystal (LC) is used as waveguide material. So, an excellent tunable filtering characteristic has been achieved. Finally, this work provides a new possibility for the designing of narrow band-pass filter devices.

Quasi-CW laser damage behaviors of indium tin oxide (ITO) single-layer and polyimide (PI) on ITO bi-layer were investigated. The ITO single-layer with thickness of 25nm was deposited on fused silica substrate by magnetron sputtering, and the PI/ITO bi-layer was prepared by spin coating 80nm PI film on the 25nm ITO single-layer. Single-shot, with radiation time of 120 seconds, laser induced damage threshold (LIDT) of the samples were determined according to ISO 21254. The damage morphologies were mapped by optical profiler. It showed interesting phenomena that the PI top layer increased LIDT of the sample. The typical damage morphologies were blisters, and the height of the blisters increased as the laser power density increases. The formation and evolution of the blisters were analyzed.

Atmospheric turbulence seriously affects the quality of free-space laser communication. The Strehl ratio (SR) is used to evaluate the effect of atmospheric turbulence on the receiving energy of free-space laser communication systems. However, the SR method does not consider the area of the laser-receiving end face. In this study, the power-in-the-bucket (PIB) method is demonstrated to accurately evaluate the effect of turbulence on the receiving energy. A theoretical equation is first obtained to calculate PIB. Simulated and experimental validations are then performed to verify the effectiveness of the theoretical equation. This work may provide effective guidance for the design and evaluation of free-space laser communication systems.

The performance of free-space optics communication (FSOC) is greatly degraded by atmospheric turbulence. Adaptive optics (AO) is an effective method for attenuating the influence. In this paper, the influence of the spatial and temporal characteristics of turbulence on the performance of AO in a FSOC system is investigated. Based on the Greenwood frequency (GF) and the ratio of receiver aperture diameter to atmospheric coherent length (D/r 0 ), the relationship between FSOC performance (CE) and AO parameters (corrected Zernike modes number and bandwidth) is derived for the first time. Then, simulations and experiments are conducted to analyze the influence of AO parameters on FSOC performance under different GF and D/r 0 . The simulation and experimental results show that, for common turbulence conditions, the number of corrected Zernike modes can be fixed at 35 and the bandwidth of the AO system should be larger than the GF. Measurements of the bit error rate (BER) for moderate turbulence conditions (D/r 0 = 10, f G = 60 Hz) show that when the bandwidth is two times that of GF, the average BER is decreased by two orders of magnitude compared with f G /f 3dB = 1. These results and conclusions can provide important guidance in the design of an AO system for FSOC.

We demonstrated flower-like 3D Ag-Au hetero-nanostructures on an indium tin oxide glass (ITO glass) for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) applications. The flower-like 3D Ag nanostructures were obtained through electrodeposition with liquid crystalline soft template which is simple, controllable and cost effective. The flower-like 3D Ag-Au hetero-nanostructures were further fabricated by galvanic replacement reaction of gold (III) chloride trihydrate (HAuCl4·3H2O) solution and flower-like Ag. The flower-like Ag-Au hetero-nanostructure exhibited stronger SERS effects and better chemical stability compared with flower-like Ag nanostructure. The localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) spectra, field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) photos and Ag-Au ratios were studied which show that the surface morphology and shape of the flower-like Ag-Au hetero-nanostructure play significant roles in enhancing SERS. The flower-like 3D Ag-Au hetero-nanostructures fabricated by electrodeposition in liquid crystalline template and galvanic replacement reaction are simple, cheap, controllable and chemical stable. It is a good candidate for applications in SERS detection and imaging.

A series of 4ʹ-(4-alkyl-phenyl)-2ʹ,6ʹ-difluorotolane isothiocyanate liquid crystal (LC) compounds were synthesised, and their phase transitions and electrooptical properties were investigated. These compounds exhibit high birefringence, about 0.47–0.52. As the number of carbon atoms in the alkyl chains increases, these LC compounds can exhibit smectic phases. When these LCs were mixed into the commercial LCs, the birefringence values of LC mixtures become higher than pure commercial LCs, and the visco-elastic coefficients of five LC mixtures are very close to each other at every test temperature. The results of response properties indicate that the compounds with a tri-fluorine substitution and n-propyl end group possess better response performance than the others. These LC compounds are particularly attractive for achieving fast response times in LC optic devices.

Zonal method is widely used to reconstruct the wave-front. Up to now, the iterative algorithms have been used to reconstruct the arbitrary shape wave-front with high reconstruction accuracy. However, it has the shortcomings of long time consumption. To reduce the time delay, a shaped based method is proposed by adding the shape information into the geometry matrix. The simulated and experimental results indicate that the reconstruction accuracy of proposed method is similar to that of the iterative LS-based method, but the computation time of our method is 3 times less than that of the iteration method. Consequently, the high accuracy and low time consumption are simultaneously achieved with the proposed method.

In order to detect the aberration from a wide field of view (FOV) on the retina with adaptive optics, we present a multiple-object Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor (MOSHWFS) design. The simulated results indicate that the wavefront from our MOSHWFS can be reconstructed for multiple objects, and the measurement error can be less than λ/7 with an MOSHWFS with an FOV of 6.7°, for maximum eye aberration. The experimental result with two objects indicates that the measurement error can be less than λ/14, with the root mean square of the reference wavefront as 0.798λ and 0.895λ, respectively.

In this paper, we propose a roll angle measurement method with a large range based on the photoelectronic autocollimator. According to the corresponding relationship between the rotation position of the measured shaft and the spot position on the circular trajectory, the roll angle is calculated quickly and conveniently using a simple algorithm. Only a mirror, a coupler and a fine shaft are contained in the measurement system besides the photoelectronic autocollimator. Aiming at the terrible measurement error induced by the axis wobbly error, two measurement schemes are proposed, which are linking the fine precision shaft to the measured shaft for reducing the axis wobbly error and using the segment measurement to enlarge the radius of the circular trajectory. The experimental results show that the measurement error is decreased by ±0.38°. The roll angle error of the mechanism is ±0.14°, and the measurement precision is about ±2′. The proposed method can be widely used in the engineering fields.

We investigate a specific diversity phase for phase diversity (PD) phase retrieval, which possesses higher accuracy than common PD, especially for large-scale and high-frequency wavefront sensing. The commonly used PD algorithm employs the image intensities of the focused plane and one defocused plane to build the error metric. Unlike the commonly used PD, we explore a bisymmetric defocuses diversity phase, which employs the image intensities of two symmetrical defocused planes to build the error metric. This kind of diversity phase, named PD-BD (bisymmetric defocuses phase diversity), is analysed with the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB). Statistically, PD-BD shows smaller CRLBs than the commonly used PD, which indicates stronger capacity of phase retrieval. Numerical simulations also verify that PD-BD has higher accuracy of phase retrieval than the commonly used PD when dealing with large-scale and high-frequency wavefront aberrations. To further affirm that PD-BD possesses higher accuracy of wavefront sensing than PD, we also perform a simple verification experiment.

The average orientation of a liquid crystal (LC) director to the grating formation, morphology, and switching properties of a holographic polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (HPDLC) grating was systematically investigated in this study. The grating possessed high diffraction efficiency and low scattering with the LC director being parallel to the grating vector. The scanning electron microscope confirmed the well-defined morphology with the LC director being parallel to the grating vector. The grating was easily switched when the LC director was perpendicular to the grating vector. Moreover, polarization excitation was performed to investigate the polarization dependence behavior of the HPDLC-distributed feedback (DFB) laser. The results confirmed that the HPDLC grating is suitable as a laser oscillation when the LC director is parallel to the grating vector. Finally, the tuning range was obtained for the HPDLC DFB laser by applying an external electric field. The tunability, ease of fabrication, and mass production make the HPDLC DFB lasers suitable as smart laser sources for spectroscopy and communication.

Systematic experiments were performed to investigate solvent-dependent morphology and aggregation of the semiconducting polymer film poly[2-methoxy-5-(2′-ethyl-hexyloxy)-1,4-phenylene-vinylene] (MEH-PPV), which was span-cast from nonaromatic strong polarity solvents tetrahydrofuran (THF), trichloromethane (TCM) and aromatic weak polarity solvents chlorobenzene (CB), toluene, and p-xylene. The results indicated that the conformation of the spin-cast MEH-PPV films with weak aggregation such as THF and TCM demonstrated excellent lasing emission performances because of inhibiting the fluorescence quenching induced by bi-molecule process. The Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) images confirmed the distinct morphologies of the spin-cast MEH-PPV films. The amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) was investigated in a simple asymmetric slab planar waveguide structure by methods of variable stripe length (VSL) and shifting excitation stripe (SES). The amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) experiments confirmed the distinct polymer chain conformation. The conformation, which preserved from the spin-cast process, indicated the distinct interactions between solvents and MEH-PPV polymer chains. The pure film spectra were performed to confirm the effect of distinct conformation on the material energy level. This work provides insights into the morphology and aggregation effect of the spin-cast polymer films on the performances of lasers.

Organic solid-state tri-wavelength lasing was demonstrated from dye-doped holographic polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (HPDLC) distributed feedback (DFB) laser with semiconducting polymer poly[-methoxy-5-(2′-ethyl-hexyloxy)-1,4-phenylene-vinylene] (MEH-PPV) and laser dye [4-(dicyanomethylene)-2-methyl-6-(p-dimethylaminostyryl)-4H-pyran] (DCM) by a one-step holography technique, which centered at 605.5 nm, 611.9 nm, and 671.1 nm. The temperature-dependence tuning range for the tri-wavelength dye-doped HPDLC DFB laser was as high as 8 nm. The lasing emission from the 9th order HPDLC DFB laser with MEH-PPV as active medium was also investigated, which showed excellent s-polarization characterization. The diffraction order is 9th and 8th for the dual-wavelength lasing with DCM as the active medium. The results of this work provide a method for constructing the compact and cost-effective all solid-state smart laser systems, which may find application in scientific and applied research where multi-wavelength radiation is required.