2,676 research outputs found
Panoramic-reconstruction temporal imaging for seamless measurements of slowly-evolved femtosecond pulse dynamics
Single-shot real-time characterization of optical waveforms with
sub-picosecond resolution is essential for investigating various ultrafast
optical dynamics. However, the finite temporal recording length of current
techniques hinders comprehensive understanding of many intriguing ultrafast
optical phenomena that evolve over a time scale much longer than their fine
temporal details. Inspired by the space-time duality and by stitching of
multiple microscopic images to achieve a larger field of view in the spatial
domain, here a panoramic-reconstruction temporal imaging (PARTI) system is
devised to scale up the temporal recording length without sacrificing the
resolution. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, the PARTI system is applied to
study the dynamic waveforms of slowly-evolved dissipative Kerr solitons in an
ultrahigh-Q microresonator. Two 1.5-ns-long comprehensive evolution portraits
are reconstructed with 740-fs resolution and dissipative Kerr soliton
transition dynamics, in which a multiplet soliton state evolves into stable
singlet soliton state, are depicted
Temporal solitons in optical microresonators
Dissipative solitons can emerge in a wide variety of dissipative nonlinear
systems throughout the fields of optics, medicine or biology. Dissipative
solitons can also exist in Kerr-nonlinear optical resonators and rely on the
double balance between parametric gain and resonator loss on the one hand and
nonlinearity and diffraction or dispersion on the other hand. Mathematically
these solitons are solution to the Lugiato-Lefever equation and exist on top of
a continuous wave (cw) background. Here we report the observation of temporal
dissipative solitons in a high-Q optical microresonator. The solitons are
spontaneously generated when the pump laser is tuned through the effective zero
detuning point of a high-Q resonance, leading to an effective red-detuned
pumping. Red-detuned pumping marks a fundamentally new operating regime in
nonlinear microresonators. While usually unstablethis regime acquires unique
stability in the presence of solitons without any active feedback on the
system. The number of solitons in the resonator can be controlled via the pump
laser detuning and transitions to and between soliton states are associated
with discontinuous steps in the resonator transmission. Beyond enabling to
study soliton physics such as soliton crystals our observations open the route
towards compact, high repetition-rate femto-second sources, where the operating
wavelength is not bound to the availability of broadband laser gain media. The
single soliton states correspond in the frequency domain to low-noise optical
frequency combs with smooth spectral envelopes, critical to applications in
broadband spectroscopy, telecommunications, astronomy and low phase-noise
microwave generation.Comment: Includes Supplementary Informatio
Performance-driven control of nano-motion systems
The performance of high-precision mechatronic systems is subject to ever increasing demands regarding speed and accuracy. To meet these demands, new actuator drivers, sensor signal processing and control algorithms have to be derived. The state-of-the-art scientific developments in these research directions can significantly improve the performance of high-precision systems. However, translation of the scientific developments to usable technology is often non-trivial. To improve the performance of high-precision systems and to bridge the gap between science and technology, a performance-driven control approach has been developed. First, the main performance limiting factor (PLF) is identified. Then, a model-based compensation method is developed for the identified PLF. Experimental validation shows the performance improvement and reveals the next PLF to which the same procedure is applied. The compensation method can relate to the actuator driver, the sensor system or the control algorithm. In this thesis, the focus is on nano-motion systems that are driven by piezo actuators and/or use encoder sensors. Nano-motion systems are defined as the class of systems that require velocities ranging from nanometers per second to millimeters per second with a (sub)nanometer resolution. The main PLFs of such systems are the actuator driver, hysteresis, stick-slip effects, repetitive disturbances, coupling between degrees-of-freedom (DOFs), geometric nonlinearities and quantization errors. The developed approach is applied to three illustrative experimental cases that exhibit the above mentioned PLFs. The cases include a nano-motion stage driven by a walking piezo actuator, a metrological AFM and an encoder system. The contributions of this thesis relate to modeling, actuation driver development, control synthesis and encoder sensor signal processing. In particular, dynamic models are derived of the bimorph piezo legs of the walking piezo actuator and of the nano-motion stage with the walking piezo actuator containing the switching actuation principle, stick-slip effects and contact dynamics. Subsequently, a model-based optimization is performed to obtain optimal drive waveforms for a constant stage velocity. Both the walking piezo actuator and the AFM case exhibit repetitive disturbances with a non-constant period-time, for which dedicated repetitive control methods are developed. Furthermore, control algorithms have been developed to cope with the present coupling between and hysteresis in the different axes of the AFM. Finally, sensor signal processing algorithms have been developed to cope with the quantization effects and encoder imperfections in optical incremental encoders. The application of the performance-driven control approach to the different cases shows that the different identified PLFs can be successfully modeled and compensated for. The experiments show that the performance-driven control approach can largely improve the performance of nano-motion systems with piezo actuators and/or encoder sensors
Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Camera: Image Analysis, Optimization and Enhancement
Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) is an imaging technique for producing an image based on differences in fluorescence lifetimes. The present thesis is devoted to analyzing a novel Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Camera (FLI-Cam) system. The principle of the applied camera system is based on the Time-of-Flight (ToF) technique, which was originally designed for 3D depth scene imaging. Such a camera provides a high frame rate and realizes direct nanosecond-range fluorescence lifetime sensing. The main scope of this thesis is to deliver an optimized solution and rapid sophisticated algorithm for the FLI-Cam system with high accuracy. New time-gated schemes and heterodyne modulation scheme for FLIM using the pulse-based and continuous-wave-based (phase-based) ToF camera, respectively, are presented. In order to optimize the performance of the FLI-Cam system, a thorough statistical analysis is implemented and the photon economy of our FLIM techniques is investigated. Various operation modes and experimental parameters for the measurement have been studied and optimized. The presented theoretical result is validated by numerical simulations using the Monte Carlo method and real experiments. For the enhancement of the FLIM images from our system, the vector-valued total variation technique is applied to improve the quality of FLIM images for the first time. It shows better performance than other existing approaches
Optical Signal Processing For Data Compression In Ultrafast Measurement
Today the world is filled with continuous deluge of digital information which are ever increasing by every fraction of second. Real-time analog information such as images, RF signals needs to be sampled and quantized to represent in digital domain with help of measurement systems for information analysis, further post processing and storage. Photonics offers various advantages in terms of high bandwidth, security, immunity to electromagnetic interference, reduction in frequency dependant loss as compared to conventional electronic measurement systems. However the large bandwidth data needs to be acquired as per Nyquist principle requiring high bandwidth electronic sampler and digitizer. To address this problem, Photonic Time Stretch has been introduced to reduce the need for high speed electronic measurement equipment by significantly slowing down the speed of sampling signal. However, this generates massive data volume. Photonics-assisted methods such as Anamorphic Stretch Transform, Compressed Sensing and Fourier spectrum acquisition sensing have been addressed to achieve data compression while sampling the information. In this thesis, novel photonic implementations of each of these methods have been investigated through numerical and experimental demonstrations. The main contribution of this thesis include (1) Application of photonic implementation of compressed sensing for Optical Coherence Tomography, Fiber Bragg Grating enabled signal sensing and blind spectrum sensing applications (2) Photonic compressed sensing enabled ultra-fast imaging system (3) Fourier spectrum acquisition for RF spectrum sensing with all-optical approach (4) Adaptive non-uniform photonic time stretch methods using anamorphic stretch transform to reduce the the number of samples to be measured
Optical Signal Processing For Data Compression In Ultrafast Measurement
Today the world is filled with continuous deluge of digital information which are ever increasing by every fraction of second. Real-time analog information such as images, RF signals needs to be sampled and quantized to represent in digital domain with help of measurement systems for information analysis, further post processing and storage. Photonics offers various advantages in terms of high bandwidth, security, immunity to electromagnetic interference, reduction in frequency dependant loss as compared to conventional electronic measurement systems. However the large bandwidth data needs to be acquired as per Nyquist principle requiring high bandwidth electronic sampler and digitizer. To address this problem, Photonic Time Stretch has been introduced to reduce the need for high speed electronic measurement equipment by significantly slowing down the speed of sampling signal. However, this generates massive data volume. Photonics-assisted methods such as Anamorphic Stretch Transform, Compressed Sensing and Fourier spectrum acquisition sensing have been addressed to achieve data compression while sampling the information. In this thesis, novel photonic implementations of each of these methods have been investigated through numerical and experimental demonstrations. The main contribution of this thesis include (1) Application of photonic implementation of compressed sensing for Optical Coherence Tomography, Fiber Bragg Grating enabled signal sensing and blind spectrum sensing applications (2) Photonic compressed sensing enabled ultra-fast imaging system (3) Fourier spectrum acquisition for RF spectrum sensing with all-optical approach (4) Adaptive non-uniform photonic time stretch methods using anamorphic stretch transform to reduce the the number of samples to be measured
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