Four-dimensional dynamic flow measurement by holographic particle image velocimetry

The ultimate goal of holographic particle image velocimetry (HPIV) is to provide space- and time-resolved measurement of complex flows. Recent new understanding of holographic imaging of small particles, pertaining to intrinsic aberration and noise in particular, has enabled us to elucidate fundamental issues in HPIV and implement a new HPIV system. This system is based on our previously reported off-axis HPIV setup, but the design is optimized by incorporating our new insights of holographic particle imaging characteristics. Furthermore, the new system benefits from advanced data processing algorithms and distributed parallel computing technology. Because of its robustness and efficiency, for the first time to our knowledge, the goal of both temporally and spatially resolved flow measurements becomes tangible. We demonstrate its temporal measurement capability by a series of phase-locked dynamic measurements of instantaneous three-dimensional, three-component velocity fields in a highly three-dimensional vortical flow--the flow past a tab

Imaging blood cells through scattering biological tissue using speckle scanning microscopy

Using optical speckle scanning microscopy [1], we demonstrate that clear images of multiple cells can be obtained through biological scattering tissue, with subcellular resolution and good image quality, as long as the size of the imaging target is smaller than the scanning range of the illuminating speckle pattern.Comment: Copyright statement remove

Multi-stability in an optomechanical system with two-component Bose-Einstein condensate

We investigate a system consisting of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate interacting dispersively with a Fabry-Perot optical cavity where the two components of the condensate are resonantly coupled to each other by another classical field. The key feature of this system is that the atomic motional degrees of freedom and the internal pseudo-spin degrees of freedom are coupled to the cavity field simultaneously, hence an effective spin-orbital coupling within the condensate is induced by the cavity. The interplay among the atomic center- of-mass motion, the atomic collective spin and the cavity field leads to a strong nonlinearity, resulting in multi- stable behavior in both matter wave and light wave at the few-photon level.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Dynamics of filament formation in a Kerr medium

We have studied the large-scale beam breakup and filamentation of femtosecond pulses in a Kerr medium. We have experimentally monitored the formation of stable light filaments, conical emission, and interactions between filaments. Three major stages lead to the formation of stable light filaments: First the beam breaks up into a pattern of connected lines (constellation), then filaments form on the constellations, and finally the filaments release a fraction of their energy through conical emission. We observed a phase transition to a faster filamentation rate at the onset of conical emission. We attribute this to the interaction of conical emissions with the constellation which creates additional filaments. Numerical simulations show good agreement with the experimental results

Second harmonic generating (SHG) nanoprobes: a new tool for biomedical imaging

Fluorescence microscopy has profoundly changed how cell and molecular biology is studied in almost every aspect. However, the need of characterizing biological targets is largely unmet due to deficiencies associated with the use of fluorescent agents. Dye bleaching, dye signal saturation, blinking, and tissue autofluorescence can severely limit the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Given the photophysical properties are fundamentally different to the fluorescent agents currently used in biomedical research, second harmonic generating (SHG) nanoprobes can be suitable for biomedical imaging and can eliminate most of the drawbacks encountered in classical fluorescence systems

Optical parametric generation in periodically poled KTiOPO4 via extended phase matching

We report an experimental demonstration of optical parametric generation in a periodically poled KTiOPO4 crystal based on the principle of mirrorless optical parametric oscillation. A femtosecond pump pulse spectrally centered at 792 nm from a Ti:sapphire amplifier is prechirped to minimize Kerr effects. The pump pulse is then injected into the nonlinear crystal and down converted to signal and idler pulses, approximately centered at 1584 nm, via amplified spontaneous parametric down conversion in a copropagating type-II quasiphase matching configuration. The maximum internal downconversion efficiency is 43%, the highest ever reported for optical parametric generators based on KTiOPO4 crystals. Such a device may find applications in optical signal processing and biological imaging

Quantization Design for Distributed Optimization

We consider the problem of solving a distributed optimization problem using a distributed computing platform, where the communication in the network is limited: each node can only communicate with its neighbours and the channel has a limited data-rate. A common technique to address the latter limitation is to apply quantization to the exchanged information. We propose two distributed optimization algorithms with an iteratively refining quantization design based on the inexact proximal gradient method and its accelerated variant. We show that if the parameters of the quantizers, i.e. the number of bits and the initial quantization intervals, satisfy certain conditions, then the quantization error is bounded by a linearly decreasing function and the convergence of the distributed algorithms is guaranteed. Furthermore, we prove that after imposing the quantization scheme, the distributed algorithms still exhibit a linear convergence rate, and show complexity upper-bounds on the number of iterations to achieve a given accuracy. Finally, we demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithms and the theoretical findings for solving a distributed optimal control problem

Nonlinear Optical Properties of Core-Shell Nanocavities for Enhanced Second-Harmonic Generation

A nonlinear optical plasmonic core-shell nanocavity is demonstrated as an efficient, subwavelength coherent light source through second-harmonic generation. The nonlinear optical plasmonic nanocavity incorporates a noncentrosymmetric medium, which utilizes the entire mode volume for even-order nonlinear optical processes. In previous plasmonic nanocavities, enhancement of such processes was only possible at the interface but symmetry prohibited in the body. We measured an enhancement of over 500 times in the second-harmonic radiation power. Calculations show that an enhancement of over 3500 times is achievable