Microfluidic Optical Shutter Flexibly x-y Actuated via Electrowetting-on-Dielectrics with <20 ms Response Time

Tunable microoptics deals with devices of which the optical properties can be changed during operation without mechanically moving solid parts. Often a droplet is actuated instead, and thus tunable microoptics is closely related to microfluidics. One such device/module/cell type is an optical shutter, which is moved in or out of the path of the light. In our case the transmitting part comprises a moving transparent and electrically conductive water droplet, embedded in a nonconductive blackened oil, that is, an opaque emulsion with attenuation of 30 dB at 570 nm wavelength over the 250 μm long light path inside the fluid (15 dB averaged over the visible spectral range). The insertion loss of the cell is 1.5 dB in the “open shutter” state. The actuation is achieved via electrowetting-on-dielectrics (EWOD) with rectangular AC voltage pulses of 2·90 V peak-to-peak at 1 kHz. To flexibly allow for horizontal, vertical, and diagonal droplet movement in the upright x-y plane, the contact structures are prepared such that four possible stationary droplet positions exist. The cell is configured as two capacitors in series (along the z axis), such that EWOD forces act symmetrically in the front and back of the 60 nl droplet with a response time of <20 ms.

Finite Element Analysis of Thermal Effects in Diode End-Pumped Solid-State Lasers

Thermal effects are the main obstacle to getting high power and good beam quality in diode end-pumped solid-state lasers. In this work, a theoretical investigation of thermal effects in single and dual end-pumped solid-state lasers is carried out using finite element analysis (FEA) for a selected number of widely used laser producing materials, namely, Nd:YAG, Yb:YAG, and Nd:KGW. Crystals with different dimensions are also investigated both in single and in dual end-pumped configuration. Finally, the effect of using composite crystals on thermal lensing is investigated. An experiment to measure the thermal focal length for two different crystals was carried out and a comparison with FEA computed focal length of the thermal lens is made. In all cases studied in this work, results show clear effects of thermal lensing with some differences depending on crystal type, pump power, and size.

Long-Term Structural Modification of Water under Microwave Irradiation: Low-Frequency Raman Spectroscopic Measurements

Raman scattering has been used to study the influence of 2.45 GHz microwave on the structure of water. It has been shown that treatment of the distilled water samples by electromagnetic field leads to long-term changes in the vibrational density of states. It was established that the retention time of structural changes of the water samples depends on the sample volume. The experimental results have been interpreted on the basis of the percolation model. It has been suggested that the change in the chemical composition of the water treated by microwaves can lead to a change in the structure of the percolation cluster formed by the network of hydrogen bonds. The time of the equilibrium structure recovery of the percolation cluster after termination of the microwaves depends on the cluster size and is much slower than the recovery in the chemical composition of water.

Comparison of the Optical Amplifiers EDFA and SOA Based on the BER and Q-Factor in C-Band

Currently it is not possible to create a fully optical communication system without a software tool which simulates an optical communication line in real conditions prior to its construction. The aim of this article is to establish a comparison between the EDFA (erbium doped fibre amplifier) and SOA (semiconductor optical amplifier) optical amplifiers in the WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) system. The system contains a four-channel WDM with speed of 10 Gbps and optical fibre with length of 80 km. Simulations are conducted in the programme environment “OptSim.” The quality of the optical communication system is evaluated by the BER (bit error rate) and Q-factor for individual wavelengths, namely, of 1558 nm and 1562 nm, which are within the C-band.

Optical Network Technologies for Future Digital Cinema

Digital technology has transformed the information flow and support infrastructure for numerous application domains, such as cellular communications. Cinematography, traditionally, a film based medium, has embraced digital technology leading to innovative transformations in its work flow. Digital cinema supports transmission of high resolution content enabled by the latest advancements in optical communications and video compression. In this paper we provide a survey of the optical network technologies for supporting this bandwidth intensive traffic class. We also highlight the significance and benefits of the state of the art in optical technologies that support the digital cinema work flow.

Spherical Aberration of Point Spread Function with Asymmetric Pupil Mask

Point spread function underneath spherical wave aberration with antiphase apodization has been obtained by one-dimensional pupil mask functions. In the presence of spherical aberration, suppression of optical side-lobes has increased on one side of the point spread function with the width of the periphery strips within the pupil mask. On introducing wave aberration effect, there exists dependence of the lateral resolution of central peak of the asymmetric point spread function on the amount of amplitude masking. However, the magnitude of intensity of central peak is originated be to amplified by the highest degree of amplitude and phase masking. Additionally, for aberrated asymmetric PSF, FWHM increases and it further decreases with the control parameters of amplitude and phase mask. The magnitude of this corollary can quantify the super resolution of diffracted structures under spherical aberration.

A Polymer Film Dye Laser with Spatially Modulated Emission Controlled by Transversely Distributed Pumping

Spatial modulation of laser emission controlled by the structure of excitation light field was demonstrated. A dye doped polymer film as an active medium was sandwiched between two laser mirrors forming a laser cell. The pumping was performed by an interference pattern formed with two mutually coherent beams of the second harmonic of a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser (532 nm) and located in the plane of the laser cell. The laser emission was observed normally on the plane of the cell. The cross section of the obtained laser emission was modulated in intensity with an interval between maximums depending on the period of the pumping interference pattern. Thus, the emitted light field qualitatively looks like diffraction from an elementary dynamic hologram, that is, a holographic diffraction grating.

Modeling Nonlinear Acoustooptic Coupling in Fiber Optics Based on Refractive Index Variation due to Local Bending

A detailed procedure is presented to compute analytically the acoustooptic coupling coefficient between copropagating core and lowest-order cladding modes in tapered fiber optics. Based on the effect of the local bending, the linear and nonlinear variations in the refractive index are modeled. A set of equations and parameters are presented in order to calculate the influence of acoustooptic effect in nonlinear pulse propagation. We will show that as the tapered fiber diameter decreases more energy can be transferred to the cladding and the nonlinear phenomena can compensate the coupling coefficients effects.

Infrared Radiation Assisted Stokes’ Law Based Synthesis and Optical Characterization of ZnS Nanoparticles

The strategy and technique exploited in the synthesis of nanostructure materials have an explicit effect on the nucleation, growth, and properties of product materials. Nanoparticles of zinc sulfide (ZnS) have been synthesized by new infrared radiation (IR) assisted and Stokes’ law based controlled bottom-up approach without using any capping agent and stirring. IR has been used for heating the reaction surface designed in accordance with the well-known Stokes law for a free body falling in a quiescent fluid for the synthesis of ZnS nanoparticles. The desired concentration of aqueous solutions of zinc nitrate (Zn(NO3)2·4H2O) and thioacetamide (CH3CSNH2) was reacted in a controlled manner by IR radiation heating at the reaction area (top layer of reactants solution) of the solution which results in the formation of ZnS nanoparticles at ambient conditions following Stokes’ law for a free body falling in a quiescent fluid. The phase, crystal structure, and particle size of as-synthesized nanoparticles were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The optical properties of as-synthesized ZnS nanoparticles were studied by means of optical absorption spectroscopic measurements. The optical energy band gap and the nature of transition have been studied using the well-known Tauc relation with the help of absorption spectra of as-synthesized ZnS nanoparticles.

Encryption of 3D Point Cloud Object with Deformed Fringe

A 3D point cloud object encryption method was proposed with this study. With the method, a mapping relationship between 3D coordinates was formulated and Z coordinate was transformed to deformed fringe by a phase coding method. The deformed fringe and gray image were used for encryption and decryption with simulated off-axis digital Fresnel hologram. Results indicated that the proposed method is able to accurately decrypt the coordinates and gray image of the 3D object. The method is also robust against occlusion attacks.