Optics letters最新文献

Stereo imaging has been a focal point in fields such as robotics and autonomous driving. This Letter discusses the imaging mechanisms of jumping spiders and human eyes from a biomimetic perspective and proposes a monocular stereo imaging solution with low computational cost and high stability. The stereo imaging mechanism of jumping spiders enables monocular imaging without relying on multiple viewpoints, thus avoiding complex large-scale feature point matching and significantly conserving computational resources. The foveal imaging mechanism of the human eye allows for complex imaging tasks to be completed only on the locally interested regions, resulting in more efficient execution of various visual tasks. By combining these two advantages, we have developed a more computationally efficient monocular stereo imaging method that can achieve stereo imaging on only the locally interested regions without sacrificing the performance of wide field-of-view (FOV) imaging. Finally, through experimental validation, we demonstrate that the method proposed in this Letter exhibits excellent stereo imaging performance.

Three-micrometer mid-infrared (MIR) femtosecond pulse sources with a high repetition rate (HRR) have potential applications in a number of fields such as biological imaging, optical frequency combs, and gas detection. In this paper, by optimizing the fiber length and the cavity structure, we demonstrated a highly stable, self-starting mode-locked fluoride fiber laser (MLFFL) with a fundamental repetition rate of ∼165 MHz and a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 90 dB. As far as we know, this stands as the highest fundamental repetition rate ever acquired directly from an ultrafast MLFFL in the >2.5 µm MIR region. Stable 352-fs pulses at 2795 nm with an average output power of 392 mW and a low integrated relative intensity noise (RIN) of 0.018% [10 Hz, 10 MHz] were generated. The root mean square (RMS) power fluctuation is 0.17% over 2 h, which indicates excellent oscillator stability. This high-performance laser offers a practicable scheme both for scaling the repetition frequency in MIR MLFFLs and high-precision ultrafast applications at longer wavelengths.

The recent flourishing development of two-dimensional (2D) graphene has sparked considerable interest and extensive research on graphene-based optical fiber polarizers. However, studies on graphene-optical fiber polarizers focused on the structure with graphene films attached to side-polished fibers, which face challenges such as low birefringence of 10^-6, low polarization extinction ratio (PER), and narrow polarizing window of tens of nanometers. Here, a fiber polarizer based on a graphene-photonic crystal fiber (Gr-PCF) is proposed firstly, which exhibits high birefringence of ∼2.5 × 10^-3, high PER of ∼111 dB/mm, broad polarizing window of >400 nm, and tunable polarization states. Graphene or graphene/hBN/graphene (Gr/hBN/Gr) heterojunctions are attached to the surface of two square holes in the PCF to make one of the polarizing modes attenuate significantly. The tunability of the Fermi level (E_F) in Gr/hBN/Gr enables the proposed device to function as a polarizer or a polarization-maintaining fiber. The combination of PCF's endless single-mode feature and graphene's broadband optical response feature enables the fiber polarizer to exhibit a wide spectrum range with single-mode transmission characteristics.

Metalenses, boasting outstanding focusing efficiency and high-resolution imaging capabilities, have generated widespread usage in fields such as integrated optics, achromatic imaging, and optical holography. In this study, we have developed a broadband achromatic metalens within the detection range from 3 to 5 µm, and it has a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.71 with a remarkable maximum focusing efficiency of 63.8% at the focal plane within the specified bandwidth. We have further delved into the dispersion control mechanism that combines the geometric and transmission phases and optimized the constructed phase response simulation database using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, ensuring a precise phase matching between the actual wavefront and the ideal focusing wavefront. This metalens with its ability to expand the array size has the potential to create a compact infrared imager, which holds significant importance in achieving efficient detection and integration within infrared detectors.

Spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC) has been crucial for producing non-classical light, such as correlated photon pairs and squeezed states, essential for optical quantum technologies. Recently, thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN)-based devices have enabled high-performance SPDC in on-chip integrated photonic platforms. Here, we developed an X-cut periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) racetrack micro-resonator with a compact footprint and demonstrated bright SPDC photon pair generation characterized by distinct resonances and high extraction efficiency. We separately assessed the internal and loaded photon pair generation rates, measuring them at 4.525 MHz/µW and 62.73 kHz/µW, respectively. Our platform is integrated with maturing electro-/thermo-optic TFLN circuit elements and has meaningful potential for advancing active quantum photonic applications.

All-optical ultrasonic probes exhibit notable benefits in ultrasonic detection and imaging. Typically, two separate optical fibers are used for excitation and detection, yet limited research has explored the integration of both functionalities within a single fiber. In this Letter, to our knowledge, a new method for fabricating an all-fiber self-transceiving ultrasonic probe is proposed with a lateral dimension of less than 500 µm. Double cladding fiber (DCF) is spliced with a short segment of thin-diameter single-mode fiber (TDSMF), which is then embedded into a fiber bubble to form a Fabry-Perot cavity, and the bubble surface is coated with a composite material layer. The pulsed laser propagates through the inner cladding of DCF and leaks from the splicing point of DCF-TDSMF, inducing the material excitation for efficient ultrasound generation. The core-guided detection laser is directed to the TDSMF end, entering the bubble microcavity and inducing an optical interference for weak echo detection. The emitting functionality produces an ultrasound with a -6 dB bandwidth of 17.5 MHz and a peak frequency of 6.29 MHz, which is well-matched with the fiber microcavity's response frequency of 3.29 MHz. Through self-transceiving experiments, low-noise pulse-echo signals are captured at varying working distances of up to 3.78 cm. The proposed probe exhibits great potential in biomedical and industrial fields due to its all-fiber miniaturization and enhanced-distance detection capability.

Integrated power dividers (PDs) are essential in terahertz (THz) communication and radar systems, but miniaturization often leads to performance degradation due to fabrication inaccuracies and sharp bends. Topological photonics offers a solution to these issues, yet creating THz power dividers with arbitrary splitting ratios remains challenging. We present a design methodology for on-chip topological THz power dividers with customizable splitting ratios using valley-locked photonic crystals. These crystals feature a tri-layered structure with two distinct valley Chern number layers and an intermediate semimetal layer. Utilizing the Jackiw-Rebbi model, we show that the characteristic impedance of the valley-locked photonic crystals, and thus the power division ratio, can be tuned by adjusting the semimetal layer width. Our approach is validated through simulations and experiments for both equal (1:1) and unequal (4:9) power ratios. This method enables efficient navigation around sharp bends and robust THz on-chip connectivity.

Strong conical lasing in the violet-blue range of the spectrum from dye doped cholesteric liquid crystals is obtained. In contrast to the previously reported cases, the cone laser emission is sharply increased at the local maximums of the luminescence peaks of the dyes. Besides that, for obtaining the cone lasing strong focusing of the pumping beam is not required. Extremely low pump density is achieved for the cholesteric liquid crystal lasers. It is important that the cone lasing can be observed without simultaneous manifestation of any other laser emissions.

In this Letter, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a high-order non-equal probability quadrature amplitude modulation (NEP-QAM) scheme for visible light communication (VLC) systems, where NEP-72QAM is considered as an example. Nonlinear coding is introduced to generate the NEP-18QAM signal in the first quadrant, which is then jointly mapped with the other two bits to obtain the four-quadrant symmetric NEP-72QAM signal. Moreover, a bit-to-symbol labeling scheme is proposed to achieve thorough Gray mapping. The experimental results show that the NEP-72QAM scheme achieves better performance than the traditional 64QAM scheme regardless of whether the light-emitting diode (LED) operates in the linear or nonlinear range. Compared with the probabilistically shaped 72QAM scheme, the available range of the driving peak-to-peak voltage of the NEP-72QAM scheme is only reduced by 20 mV when 0.92 is used as the normalized generalized mutual information threshold, but the complexity is much lower.

In this Letter, we propose a full-duplex dynamic time division multiple access (FDD-TDMA) scheme for multi-user underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC). It supports full-duplex communication through wavelength division duplex (WDD) and enhances the system throughput using dynamic time resource allocation. Additionally, a clock synchronization and compensation method is proposed for precise clock synchronization without time-keeping. With the proposed FDD-TDMA scheme and the clock synchronization and compensation method, we establish a two-user UWOC system based on on-off keying (OOK) modulation. Experiments are conducted in a 10 m water pool environment. The experimental results show that the designed system can achieve a data rate of 25 Mbps without error codes and 40 Mbps with a bit error rate (BER) below the forward error correction (FEC) limit. The FDD-TDMA scheme notably improves the system throughput when communication demands among users are variable compared to the conventional time division multiple access (TDMA). Moreover, a reduction in phase deviations from microseconds to ten nanoseconds is achieved by the clock synchronization and compensation method.