Novel trends in optical non-destructive testing methods

Non-destructive testing (NDT) describes a wide range of methods for measuring and comparing physical quantities against a nominal condition. In this paper we describe and compare different optical NdT (ONDT)-methods with respect to their characteristics and capability for different measurement tasks. ONDT may be specified in two categories, passive and active. The NDT principles of the first category just use a measurement method like view inspection, elipsometry or reflectometry to detect defects which are easily accessible. The principles of the second category use an excitation force, such as heat or mechanical vibration introduced by transducers to detect hidden defects. This category can be specified into two subcategories. The first subcategory "time-/depth-resolved" includes measurement methods delivering detailed information of the geometric features of a hidden defect. Therefore the excitation of the material and the detection of the reaction have to provide a time step which enables depth-solved measurements. Phase-resolved thermography and laser ultrasound are examples for this category. The second subcategory "Integrating" includes measurement technique coupled with an excitation that enables detection of defects but not evaluation of their geometric features. Examples for these measurement techniques are shearography, reflectometry, vibrometry and thermography coupled with excitation method like simple heating or loading with a constant force. We demonstrate experimental results obtained using methods developed in our institute and highlight directions of further development

Wear recording at micro deep drawing tools with comparative digital holography

We present a method to record the wear on samples of micro deep drawing tools. The method is based on the basic idea of comparative holography and captures three dimensionally the surface of the tool in the initial state and compares it with used state after processing several parts. The comparison reveals scratches and other effects caused by wear. In an industrial environment the comparative method must compensate for linear and rotational displacement of the present tool with respect to the initial state. As a consequence to the single-step-measurement with sufficiently high illumination intensity the developed set-up can be made insusceptible against stray light and the method is capable of inline quality control during a production process in a micro deep drawing machine

Novel concept for three-dimensional polymer waveguides for optical on-chip interconnects

We present a simulation study and first experimental implementations for a novel polymer three-dimensional waveguide design. The structures described here allow for new concepts of on-chip communication. By using direct laser writing, free-formed polymer structures can be realized directly on the surface of integrated circuits on wafer- or die-level. Further photonic structures like waveguides, resonators, splitters and couplers can be realized with an extended freedom of design to the third dimension. Our approach opens new possibilities for optical interconnects and routing for on-chip signal transmission with a high fill factor and CMOS compatibility

Qualifying parabolic mirrors with deflectometry

Phase-measuring deflectometry is a full-field gradient technique that lends itself very well to testing reflective optical surfaces. In the past, the industry’s interest has been focussed mainly on the detection of defects and ripples, since it is easy to achieve sensitivity in the nm range. On the other hand, attempts to reconstruct the absolute surface shape from the gradient map have been plagued by systematic errors that accumulate to unacceptable uncertainties during data integration. Recently, thanks to improved measurement and evaluation techniques, the state of the art in absolute surface measurement has reached a level of maturity that allows its practical usage in precision optical manufacturing and qualification systems. We demonstrate the techniques, and the progress, by way of results from mirrors for telescopes, solar concentrators, and precision laboratory assemblies

On the Digital Holographic Interferometry of Fibrous Material, I. Optical Properties of Polymer and Optical Fibers

The digital holographic interferometry (DHI) was utilized for investigating the optical properties of polymer and optical fibers. The samples investigated here were polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymer fiber and graded-index (GRIN) optical fiber. The phase shifting Mach-Zehnder interferometer was used to obtain five phase-shifted holograms, in which the phase difference between two successive holograms is pi/2, for each fiber sample. These holograms were recorded using a CCD camera and were combined to gain a complex wavefield, which was numerically reconstructed using the convolution approach into amplitude and phase distributions. The reconstructed phase distribution was used to determine the refractive index, birefringence and refractive index profile of the studied samples. The mean refractive index has been measured with accuracy up to 4 {\times} 10-4. The main advantage of DHI is to overcome the manual focusing limitations by means of the numerical focusing. The results showed accurate measurements of the optical properties of fibers.Comment: abstract, reference

Proteomic Analyses Reveal Common Promiscuous Patterns of Cell Surface Proteins on Human Embryonic Stem Cells and Sperms

BACKGROUND: It has long been proposed that early embryos and reproductive organs exhibit similar gene expression profiles. However, whether this similarity is propagated to the protein level remains largely unknown. We have previously characterised the promiscuous expression pattern of cell surface proteins on mouse embryonic stem (mES) cells. As cell surface proteins also play critical functions in human embryonic stem (hES) cells and germ cells, it is important to reveal whether a promiscuous pattern of cell surface proteins also exists for these cells. METHODS AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Surface proteins of hES cells and human mature sperms (hSperms) were purified by biotin labelling and subjected to proteomic analyses. More than 1000 transmembrane or secreted cell surface proteins were identified on the two cell types, respectively. Proteins from both cell types covered a large variety of functional categories including signal transduction, adhesion and transporting. Moreover, both cell types promiscuously expressed a wide variety of tissue specific surface proteins, and some surface proteins were heterogeneously expressed. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our findings indicate that the promiscuous expression of functional and tissue specific cell surface proteins may be a common pattern in embryonic stem cells and germ cells. The conservation of gene expression patterns between early embryonic cells and reproductive cells is propagated to the protein level. These results have deep implications for the cell surface signature characterisation of pluripotent stem cells and germ cells and may lead the way to a new area of study, i.e., the functional significance of promiscuous gene expression in pluripotent and germ cells

Real-Space Mesh Techniques in Density Functional Theory

This review discusses progress in efficient solvers which have as their foundation a representation in real space, either through finite-difference or finite-element formulations. The relationship of real-space approaches to linear-scaling electrostatics and electronic structure methods is first discussed. Then the basic aspects of real-space representations are presented. Multigrid techniques for solving the discretized problems are covered; these numerical schemes allow for highly efficient solution of the grid-based equations. Applications to problems in electrostatics are discussed, in particular numerical solutions of Poisson and Poisson-Boltzmann equations. Next, methods for solving self-consistent eigenvalue problems in real space are presented; these techniques have been extensively applied to solutions of the Hartree-Fock and Kohn-Sham equations of electronic structure, and to eigenvalue problems arising in semiconductor and polymer physics. Finally, real-space methods have found recent application in computations of optical response and excited states in time-dependent density functional theory, and these computational developments are summarized. Multiscale solvers are competitive with the most efficient available plane-wave techniques in terms of the number of self-consistency steps required to reach the ground state, and they require less work in each self-consistency update on a uniform grid. Besides excellent efficiencies, the decided advantages of the real-space multiscale approach are 1) the near-locality of each function update, 2) the ability to handle global eigenfunction constraints and potential updates on coarse levels, and 3) the ability to incorporate adaptive local mesh refinements without loss of optimal multigrid efficiencies.Comment: 70 pages, 11 figures. To be published in Reviews of Modern Physic