Measurement of the absolute wavefront curvature radius in a heterodyne interferometer

We present an analytical derivation of the coupling parameter relating the angle between two interfering beams in a heterodyne interferometer to the differential phase-signals detected by a quadrant photo-diode. This technique, also referred to as Differential Wavefront Sensing (DWS), is commonly used in space-based gravitational wave detectors to determine the attitude of a test-mass in one of the interferometer arms from the quadrant diode signals. Successive approximations to the analytical expression are made to simplify the investigation of parameter dependencies. Motivated by our findings, we propose a new measurement method to accurately determine the absolute wave-front curvature of a single measurement beam. We also investigate the change in coupling parameter when the interferometer "test-mirror" is moved from its nominal position, an effect which mediates the coupling of mirror displacement noise into differential phase-measurements.Comment: double-spaced, 21 pages, 5 figure

FPGA-Based Smart Sensor for Online Displacement Measurements Using a Heterodyne Interferometer

The measurement of small displacements on the nanometric scale demands metrological systems of high accuracy and precision. In this context, interferometer-based displacement measurements have become the main tools used for traceable dimensional metrology. The different industrial applications in which small displacement measurements are employed requires the use of online measurements, high speed processes, open architecture control systems, as well as good adaptability to specific process conditions. The main contribution of this work is the development of a smart sensor for large displacement measurement based on phase measurement which achieves high accuracy and resolution, designed to be used with a commercial heterodyne interferometer. The system is based on a low-cost Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) allowing the integration of several functions in a single portable device. This system is optimal for high speed applications where online measurement is needed and the reconfigurability feature allows the addition of different modules for error compensation, as might be required by a specific application

Characterisation of Optical Fibers Using Dual-Comb Swept-Wavelength Interferometry

The growth in data traffic coupled with trends in internet use will result in a requirement for interfaces of the network to reach Tb/s data rate in the future. Considering this, novel transmission techniques that can increase the date rate with orders of magnitude must be considered. One such example is space-division multiplexing (SDM) fibers. Application of novel fibers and SDM components in communication systems is always coupled with limitations and distortions of the signal due to crosstalk, dispersion, differential mode group delay (DMGD) and other effects. They can be calculated, studied and partially mitigated if the transfer function of the fiber under test is known. Thus, it is essential to characterize the fiber\u27s and other component\u27s transfer matrix using fast and accurate measurement techniques. Moreover, these characterisation measurements can be used for building channel models, which can assist in simulations of the transmission and estimation of ultimate system performance.In this thesis various techniques for SDM devices characterisation are described and a novel method based on dual-comb spectroscopy and swept-wavelength interferometry is proposed and evaluated. The presented technique, dual-comb swept-wavelength interferometry (DC-SWI), is studied in terms of capabilities, advantages and limitations with application on different devices under test. This experimental scheme is also used for characterisation of a coupled-core fiber, where the transfer function and DMGD values were extracted.Furthermore, different channel models describing the properties of SDM fiber links are briefly reviewed and discussed

Injection-locked Semiconductor Lasers For Realization Of Novel Rf Photonics Components

This dissertation details the work has been done on a novel resonant cavity linear interferometric modulator and a direct phase detector with channel filtering capability using injection-locked semiconductor lasers for applications in RF photonics. First, examples of optical systems whose performance can be greatly enhanced by using a linear intensity modulator are presented and existing linearized modulator designs are reviewed. The novel linear interferometric optical intensity modulator based on an injection-locked laser as an arcsine phase modulator is introduced and followed by numerical simulations of the phase and amplitude response of an injection-locked semiconductor laser. The numerical model is then extended to study the effects of the injection ratio, nonlinear cavity response, depth of phase and amplitude modulation on the spur-free dynamic range of a semiconductor resonant cavity linear modulator. Experimental results of the performance of the linear modulator implemented with a multi-mode Fabry-Perot semiconductor laser as the resonant cavity are shown and compared with the theoretical model. The modulator performance using a vertical cavity surface emitting laser as the resonant cavity is investigated as well. Very low Vπ in the order of 1 mV, multi-gigahertz bandwidth (-10 dB bandwidth of 5 GHz) and a spur-free dynamic range of 120 dB.Hz2/3 were measured directly after the modulator. The performance of the modulator in an analog link is experimentally investigated and the results show no degradation of the modulator linearity after a 1 km of SMF. The focus of the work then shifts to applications of an injection-locked semiconductor laser as a direct phase detector and channel filter. This phase detection technique does not iv require a local oscillator. Experimental results showing the detection and channel filtering capability of an injection-locked semiconductor diode laser in a three channel system are shown. The detected electrical signal has a signal-to-noise ratio better than 60 dB/Hz. In chapter 4, the phase noise added by an injection-locked vertical cavity surface emitting laser is studied using a self-heterodyne technique. The results show the dependency of the added phase noise on the injection ratio and detuning frequency. The final chapter outlines the future works on the linear interferometric intensity modulator including integration of the modulator on a semiconductor chip and the design of the modulator for input pulsed light

Distributed Fiber Ultrasonic Sensor and Pattern Recognition Analytics

Ultrasound interrogation and structural health monitoring technologies have found a wide array of applications in the health care, aerospace, automobile, and energy sectors. To achieve high spatial resolution, large array electrical transducers have been used in these applications to harness sufficient data for both monitoring and diagnoses. Electronic-based sensors have been the standard technology for ultrasonic detection, which are often expensive and cumbersome for use in large scale deployments. Fiber optical sensors have advantageous characteristics of smaller cross-sectional area, humidity-resistance, immunity to electromagnetic interference, as well as compatibility with telemetry and telecommunications applications, which make them attractive alternatives for use as ultrasonic sensors. A unique trait of fiber sensors is its ability to perform distributed acoustic measurements to achieve high spatial resolution detection using a single fiber. Using ultrafast laser direct-writing techniques, nano-reflectors can be induced inside fiber cores to drastically improve the signal-to-noise ratio of distributed fiber sensors. This dissertation explores the applications of laser-fabricated nano-reflectors in optical fiber cores for both multi-point intrinsic Fabry–Perot (FP) interferometer sensors and a distributed phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (φ-OTDR) to be used in ultrasound detection. Multi-point intrinsic FP interferometer was based on swept-frequency interferometry with optoelectronic phase-locked loop that interrogated cascaded FP cavities to obtain ultrasound patterns. The ultrasound was demodulated through reassigned short time Fourier transform incorporating with maximum-energy ridges tracking. With tens of centimeters cavity length, this approach achieved 20kHz ultrasound detection that was finesse-insensitive, noise-free, high-sensitivity and multiplex-scalability. The use of φ-OTDR with enhanced Rayleigh backscattering compensated the deficiencies of low inherent signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The dynamic strain between two adjacent nano-reflectors was extracted by using 3×3 coupler demodulation within Michelson interferometer. With an improvement of over 35 dB SNR, this was adequate for the recognition of the subtle differences in signals, such as footstep of human locomotion and abnormal acoustic echoes from pipeline corrosion. With the help of artificial intelligence in pattern recognition, high accuracy of events’ identification can be achieved in perimeter security and structural health monitoring, with further potential that can be harnessed using unsurprised learning

Optical Propagation and Communication

Contains an introduction and reports on three research projects.Maryland Procurement Office Contract MDA 903-94-C6071Maryland Procurement Office Contract MDA 904-93-C4169U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Grant F49620-93-1-0604U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Grant F49620-96-1-0028U.S. Army Research Office Grant DAAH04-95-1-0494U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Grant F49620-95-1-0505U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Grant F49620-96-1-0126U.S. Army Research Office Grant DAAH04-93-G-0399U.S. Army Research Office Grant DAAH04-93-G-018

Design and Analysis of Binary Driven Coherent M-ary Qam Transmitter for Next Generation Optical Networks

This work presents a design for a binary driven optical square M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) transmitter for high speed optical networks. The transmitter applies tandem quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulators to eliminate the need for linear broadband amplifiers and high-resolution digital to analog converters (DACs), which are both required by conventional transmitters. The transmitter design could be scaled to any order of square M-ary QAM by simply adding more QPSK modulators in tandem. It also provides a Gray coded symbol constellation, insuring the lowest bit error rate possible during symbol recovery. We also provide the design for the coupling ratios of the optical couplers that take into account the insertion loss of the optical components, in order to generate a proper 16-QAM and 64-QAM symbol constellation with equally-spaced symbols. Additionally, we analyze the impact of coupling ratio errors as well as phase errors on the bit error rate (BER) performance and constellation diagrams. The performance is tested using the OptiSystem simulation at 50 Gbaud and under presence of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), which demonstrated high quality symbol constellation and a BER performance similar to theoretical expectations. For 16-QAM, a BER better than 10-4 and power penalty of about 2 dB are achieved for coupling ratio errors less than 10 %, or phase errors within ±7 degrees. The 64-QAM transmitter, on the other hand, demonstrated a BER better than 10-4 and power penalty of about 1 dB for coupling ratio errors less than 4%, or phase errors within ±2 degrees. Adviser: Lim Nguye

Developing coherent optical wavelength conversion systems for reconfigurable photonic networks

In future optical networks that employ wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), the use of optical switching technologies on a burst or packet level, combined with advanced modulation formats would achieve greater spectral efficiency and utilize the existing bandwidth more efficiently. All-optical wavelength converters are expected to be one of the key components in these broadband networks. They can be used at the network nodes to avoid contention and to dynamically allocate wavelengths to ensure optimum use of fiber bandwidth. In this work, a reconfigurable wavelength converter comprising of a Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA) as the nonlinear element and a fast-switching sampled grating distributed Bragg reflector (SG-DBR) tunable laser as one of the pumps is developed. The wavelength conversion of 12.5-Gbaud quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) and Pol-Mul QPSK signals with switching time of tens of nanoseconds is experimentally achieved. Although the tunable DBR lasers can achieve ns tuning time, they present relatively large phase noise. The phase noise transfer from the pump to the converted signal can have a deleterious effect on signal quality and cause a performance penalty with phase modulated signals. To overcome the phase noise transfer issue, a wavelength converter using tunable dual-correlated pumps provided by the combination of a single-section quantum dash passively mode-locked laser (QD-PMLL) and a programmable tunable optical filter is designed and the wavelength conversion of QPSK and 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) signals at 12.5 GBaud is experimentally investigated. Nonlinear distortion of the wavelength converted signal caused by gain saturation effects in the SOA can significantly degrade the signal quality and cause difficulties for the practical wavelength conversion of sig nal data with advanced modulation formats. In this work, the machine learning clustering based nonlinearity compensation method is proposed to improve the tolerance to nonlinear distortion in an SOA based wavelength conversion system with 16 QAM and 64 QAM signals