Light beams with helical phase-fronts are attractive for many optical applications, such as optical tweezers, particle manipulation, and other optical applications. A superoscillatory metalens has been designed for an azimuthally polarized wave at a wavelength λ = 632.8 nm. Numerical simulation demonstrates that a superoscillation hollow dark spot is generated. The transverse inner FWHM is 0.358λ overcoming the diffraction limit, while the sidelobe ratio can be compressed to 18.3%. More importantly, for such incidence with different orbital angular momentum (OAM) ℓ = 1, 2, and 3, the proposed metalens also presents elegant subwavelength tight focusing performances (the FWHMs are 0.469λ, 0.352λ, and 0.737λ, respectively). Extensive investigations have been made to present the unique characteristics of the generated foci, the phase distribution patterns are given for different OAM values. Small size and ultrathin thickness make such lenses suitable for various optical applications.
Based on the nature of ultra-fast carrier life time in semiconductor quantum well, optical modulation of quantum cascade laser offers an unique way to control intersubband transition through interband transition. This method circumvents the problem of parasitic effects associated with electrical modulation, resulting in a high modulation bandwidth. In addition it allows for fast wavelength modulation on standard type quantum cascade lasers by directly injecting charge carriers to laser active region with near-infrared optical excitation. Here, we demonstrate the first infrared spectroscopic measurement conducted with this all-optical modulation approach. Using wavelength modulation spectroscopy, a 1st order derivative spectrum of methanol vapor gas is observed. Optically based wavelength modulation up to 200 MHz is purely induced by pumping the front facet of quantum cascade laser with an intensity-modulated 1550 nm DFB laser. Compared with conventional direct absorption approach, the noise equivalent sensitivity is improved by a factor of 10 by adding optical modulation in a non-optimized system.
Wavelength conversion (WC) imaging is a methodology that employs temperature sensitive detectors to convert photoinduced
termperature into a detectable optical signal. One specific method is to use molecular detectors such as
thermochromic liquid crystals (TLC), which exhibits thermochromism to observe the surface temperature of an area by
observing the apparent color in the visible spectrum. Utilizing this methodology, an ultra-broadband room temperature
imaging system was envisioned and realized using off the shelf thermochromic liquid crystals. The thermochromic
properties of the sensor were characterized to show a thermochromic coefficient α = 10%/°K and a noise equivalent
power (NEP) of 64 μW. With the TLC camera, images of both pulsed and continuous wave (CW) sources spanning 0.6
μm to 150 μm wavelengths were captured to demonstrate its potential as a portable, low-cost, and ultra-broadband
imaging tool.
In the past two decades, there is an increasing interest in developing new infrared photodetectors based on novel
nanostructures, such as quantum well infrared photodetector (QWIP) and quantum dot infrared photodetector (QDIP).
However, the commonly used electrical read-out approach limits the resolution of QWIP/QDIP infrared imaging to
around 1 mega pixel. In this paper, we reported our theoretical study on an all-optical readout based on quantum dot
phase modulation, which provides a new way for the intersubband infrared detection by measuring the phase change in
the transmitted interband near infrared (NIR) and allows a high-resolution middle infrared (MIR) or far infrared (FIR)
imaging. Utilizing the long life time in the quantum dots, the intersubband infrared resonant light is used to control the
interband NIR resonant light phase. An infrared image can be converted into a visible or near infrared image, which can
be easily captured with a high resolution CCD camera. It provides a new way to obtain a high resolution infrared image.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.