Sensors based on optical resonators often have their measurement range limited by their cavity linewidth, particularly in the measurement of time-varying signals. This paper introduces a method for optical frequency shift detection using multiple harmonics to expand the dynamic range of sensors based on optical resonators. The proposed method expands the measurement range of optical frequency shift beyond the cavity linewidth while maintaining measurement accuracy. The theoretical derivation of this method is carried out based on the equation of motion for an optical resonator and the recursive relationship of the Bessel function. Experimental results show that the dynamic range is expanded to 4 times greater than the conventional first harmonic method while still maintaining accuracy. Furthermore, we present an objective analysis of the correlation between the expansion factor of the method and the linewidth and free spectrum of the optical resonator.

The compact, sensitive, and multidimensional displacement measurement device plays a crucial role in semiconductor manufacture and high-resolution optical imaging. The metasurface offers a promising solution to develop high-precision displacement metrology. In this work, we proposed and experimentally demonstrated a two-dimensional displacement (XZ) measurement device by a dielectric metasurface. Both transversal and longitudinal displacements of the metasurface can be obtained by the analysis of the interference optical intensity that is generated by the deflected light beams while the metasurface is under linearly polarized incidence. We experimentally demonstrated that displacements down to 5.4 nm along the x-axis and 0.12 µm along the z-axis can be resolved with a 900 µm × 900 µm metasurface. Our work opens up new possibilities to develop a compact high-precision multidimensional displacement sensor.

The pandemic of respiratory diseases enlightened people that monitoring respiration has promising prospects in averting many fatalities by tracking the development of diseases. However, the response speed of current optical fiber sensors is still insufficient to meet the requirements of high-frequency respiratory detection during respiratory failure. Here, a scheme for a fast and stable tachypnea monitor is proposed utilizing a water-soluble C60-Lys ion compound as functional material for the tracking of humidity change in the progression of breath. The polarization of C60-Lys can be tuned by the ambient relative humidity change, and an apparent refractive index alteration can be detected due to the small size effect. In our experiments, C60-Lys is conformally and uniformly deposited on the surface of a tilted fiber Bragg grating (TFBG) to fabricate an ultra-fast-response, high-sensitivity, and long-term stable optical fiber humidity sensor. A relative humidity (RH) detecting sensitivity of 0.080 dB/% RH and the equilibrium response time and recovery time of 1.85 s and 1.58 s are observed, respectively. Also, a linear relation is detected between the resonance intensity of the TFBG and the environment RH. In a practical breath monitoring experiment, the instantaneous response time and recovery time are measured as 40 ms and 41 ms, respectively, during a 1.5 Hz fast breath process. Furthermore, an excellent time stability and high repeatability are exhibited in experiments conducted over a range of 7 days.

We propose an absolute distance measurement method that employs heterodyne and superheterodyne combined interferometers to achieve synchronous detection and demodulation of multiwavelengths. Coarse and fine synthetic wavelengths are generated by a dual-longitudinal-mode He–Ne laser and four acoustic optical frequency shifters. Further, to improve phase synchronization measurement for multiwavelengths, we analyze the demodulation characteristics of coarse and fine measurement signals and adopt a demodulation method suitable for both signals. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve high-precision synchronous demodulation of multiwavelengths, and standard deviation is 1.7 × 10-5 m in a range of 2 m.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) allows a direct and precise measurement of laser welding depth by coaxially measuring the keyhole depth and can be used for process monitoring and control. When OCT measurement was taken during single-beam laser welding, the keyhole instability of aluminum welding resulted in highly scattered OCT data and complicated the welding depth extraction methods. As a combination of an inner core beam and an outer ring beam, a novel adjustable ring mode (ARM) laser for producing a stable keyhole was applied to the OCT measurement. Different ARM laser power arrangements were conducted on aluminum and copper. The results indicated that the ring beam greatly improved the stability of the core beam-induced keyhole, and smooth welding depth can be extracted from the concentrated OCT data.

A new electronic speckle pattern interferometry method is proposed to realize in situ deformation measurements. The feature of the method is the combination of a high-speed camera and multiple laser Doppler vibrometers (LDVs) for synchronous measurements. The high-speed camera is used to record and select effective interferograms, while the LDVs are used to measure the rigid body displacement caused by vibrations. A series of effective interferograms with known shifted phase values are obtained to calculate the deformation phase. The experimental results show that the method performs well in measuring static and dynamic deformations with high accuracy in vibrating environments.

We demonstrate a simultaneous transmission of time-frequency and data over a 160-km urban business network in Shanghai. The signals are transmitted through a cascaded optical link consisting of 48 km and 32 km, which are connected by an optical relay. The metrological signals are inserted into the communication network using dense wavelength division multiplexing. The influence of the interference between different signals has been discussed. The experimental results demonstrate that the radio frequency (RF) instability can reach 2.1×10-14 at 1 s and 2.3×10-17 at 10,000 s, and the time interval transfer of one pulse per second (1 PPS) signal with less than 10 ps at 1 s is obtained. This work paves the way for the widespread dissemination of ultra-stable time and frequency signals over the communication networks.

Overlay (OVL) for patterns placed at two different layers during microchip production is a key parameter that controls the manufacturing process. The tolerance of OVL metrology for the latest microchip needs to be at nanometer scale. This paper discusses the influence on the accuracy and sensitivity of diffraction-based overlay (DBO) after developing inspection and after etching inspection by the asymmetrical deformation of the OVL mark induced by chemical mechanical polishing or etching. We show that the accuracy and sensitivity of DBO metrology can be significantly improved by matching the measuring light wavelength to the thickness between layers and by collecting high-order diffraction signals, promising a solution for future OVL metrology equipment.

In the femtosecond two-photon polymerization (2PP) experimental system, optical aberrations degrade the fabrication quality. To solve this issue, a multichannel interferometric wavefront sensing technique is adopted in the adaptive laser processing system with a single phase-only spatial light modulator. 2PP fabrications using corrected high-order Bessel beams with the above solution have been conducted, and high-quality microstructure arrays of microtubes with 20 µm diameter have been rapidly manufactured. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated by comparing the beam intensity distributions and 2PP results before and after aberration corrections.

Modulation of a vector light field has played an important role in the research of nanophotonics. However, it is still a great challenge to accurately measure the three-dimensional vector distribution at nanoscale. Here, based on the interaction between the light field and atomic-sized nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center in diamonds, we demonstrate an efficient method for vectorial mapping of the light-field distribution at nanoscale. Single NV centers with different but well-defined symmetry axes are selected and then interact with the same tightly focused light field. The excitation of a single NV center is related to the angle between the NV center axis and the polarization of the light field. Then the fluorescence patterns of different NV centers provide the information on the vectorial light field distribution. Subsequently analyzing the fluorescence patterns with the help of a deep neural network, the intensity and phase of the light-field vectorial components are fully reconstructed with nanometer resolution. The experimental results are in agreement with theoretical calculations. It demonstrates that our method can help to study light–matter interaction at nanoscale and extend the application of vector light fields in research on nanophotonics.

Aiming at coherence degradation during target detection, a suppressing method based on frequency-modulated continuous wave coherent lidar is proposed. Combined with a random iteration algorithm, a long-pulse echo signal with coherent degradation is matched with random phase noise of a certain frequency and achieves coherence restoration. Simulation and field experiment results show that this proposed method can recover the intrapulse coherence in long-pulse echo signals. In addition, for the real target echo signal at 4.2 and 19.8 km, the peak signal-to-noise ratio processed by this method is increased by 0.35 times and 4 times after pulse compression, respectively.

We proposed and experimentally demonstrated an all-fiber sensor for measuring bend with high sensitivity based on a ring core fiber (RCF) modal interferometer. The sensor was fabricated by splicing a segment of RCF between two pieces of multimode fiber (MMF) and single-mode fiber (SMF) at the ends of the MMF as lead-in and lead-out. Due to the first segment of the MMF, the transmitted light is coupled into the ring core, silica center, and cladding of the RCF, exciting multiple modes in the RCF. By the modal interferences in the structure, bending sensing can be realized by interrogating the intensity of the interference dip. Experimental results show a high bending sensitivity of -25.63 dB/m-1 in the range of 1.0954 m-1 to 1.4696 m-1. In addition, the advantages of the bend sensor, such as small size, low temperature sensitivity, and simple fabrication process, can be used for curvature measurement in building health monitoring.

We propose a high-sensitivity bidirectional torsion sensor using a helical seven-core fiber taper embedded in multimode fiber (MHSTM). Sensors with different taper waists and helical pitches are fabricated, and their transmission spectra are obtained and analyzed. The waist and length of the sandwiched seven-core fiber are finally determined to be 68 µm and 3 mm, respectively. The experimental results show that the clockwise and counterclockwise torsion sensitivities of the proposed sensor are 2.253 nm/(rad/m) and -1.123 nm/(rad/m), respectively. When tapered waist diameter reduces to 48 µm, a superior torsion sensitivity of 5.391 nm/(rad/m) in the range of 0–4.24 nm/(rad/m) is obtained, which is 46 times as large as the traditional helical seven-core fiber structure. In addition, the MHSTM structure is also relatively stable to temperature variations.

The self-mixing interferometry (SMI) technique is an emerging sensing technology in microscale particle classification. However, due to the nature of the SMI effect raised by a microscattering particle, the signal analysis suffers from many problems compared with a macro target, such as lower signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), short transit time, and time-varying modulation strength. Therefore, the particle sizing measurement resolution is much lower than the one in typical displacement measurements. To solve these problems, in this paper, first, a theoretical model of the phase variation of a single-particle SMI signal burst is demonstrated in detail. The relationship between the phase variation and the particle size is investigated, which predicts that phase observation could be another alternative for particle detection. Second, combined with continuous wavelet transform and Hilbert transform, a novel phase-unwrapping algorithm is proposed. This algorithm can implement not only efficient individual burst extraction from the noisy raw signal, but also precise phase calculation for particle sizing. The measurement shows good accuracy over a range from 100 nm to 6 μm with our algorithm, proving that our algorithm enables a simple and reliable quantitative particle characteristics retrieval and analysis methodology for microscale particle detection in biomedical or laser manufacturing fields.

Fabrication of high-quality optics puts a strong demand on high-throughput detection of macroscopic bulk defects in optical components. A dark-field line confocal imaging method is proposed with two distinct advantages: (i) a point-to-line confocal scheme formed by a columnar elliptical mirror and an optical fiber bundle breaks through the constraint on light collection angle and field of view in the traditional line confocal microscopy using an objective, allowing for an extended confocal line field of more than 100 mm while maintaining a light collection angle of 27°; (ii) the bulk defects are independently illuminated as a function of time to eliminate the cross talk in the direction of the confocal slit, thus preserving point confocality and showing the optical section thicknesses to be 162 µm in the axial direction, and 19 and 22 µm in the orthogonal transverse directions. The experimental results verify that the method has a minimum detectable bulk defect of less than 5 µm and an imaging efficiency of 400 mm2/s. The method shows great potential in high-throughput and high-sensitivity bulk defects detection.

Laser ranging with frequency comb intermode beats (IMBs) has been suffering from random phase drifts (RPDs) for two decades. In this study, we reveal the influence of signal transmission path on the RPDs and propose a real-time suppression method using two IMBs of similar frequencies from different combs. As the two IMBs obtain similar RPDs during their transmission through same signal paths, the RPD of the original probing signal IMB is suppressed by deducting the RPD of the newly added local IMB in real time. In our experiments, a real-time suppression of RPDs is achieved using IMBs of 1001 and 1000 MHz. For the sampling time of 100 s, the effect of 19-fold suppression has been achieved. The proposed method provides a new solution for the long-standing phase drift problem in laser ranging with comb IMBs.

Usually, a multilens optical system is composed of multiple undetectable sublenses. Wavefront of a multilens optical system cannot be measured when classical transmitted phase measuring deflectometry (PMD) is used. In this study, a wavefront measuring method for an optical system with multiple optics is presented based on PMD. A paraxial plane is used to represent the test multilens optical system. We introduce the calibration strategy and mathematical deduction of gradient equations. Systematic errors are suppressed with an N-rotation test. Simulations have been performed to demonstrate our method. The results showing the use of our method in multilens optical systems, such as the collimator and single-lens reflex camera lenses show that the measurement accuracy is comparable with those of interferometric tests.

Although previously reported terahertz absorbers can achieve high-sensitivity refractive index sensing, the resonant peak is too broad, which leads to a low figure of merit (FOM). Transmissive sensors based on bound states in the continuum (BIC) can achieve high FOM, but they have some limitations in high sensitivity. Herein, we propose a periodic triple parallel metal bars structure to obtain high quality, a strong field, and multiple hot spots by the Friedrich–Wintgen BIC. Numerical results show the sensitivity and FOM can reach 1877 GHz/RIU and 665, respectively. Compared to the previously reported transmissive sensors based on BIC, the sensitivity has been greatly improved.

We propose a new method for the development of multi-beam systems for the spatial alignment and stability of beams based on the error separation technique. This method avoids alignment errors caused by coupling effect of piezoelectric devices, inaccurate correction calculations, and detection mode of the angular deviation. According to the results by external detectors, the error value of spatial alignment and the root mean square (RMS) of deviations under control during 1 h can be equivalent to approximately 0.87 and 1.06 nm at the sample plane under an oil immersion lens (focal length f=2 mm). The RMS of deviations is less than one-third of those currently reported for multi-beam systems; therefore, higher alignment and stability accuracy can be achieved with our proposed method.

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are progressively favored for room-temperature magnetic field measurement. The signal to noise ratio (SNR) optimization for NV diamond magnetometry generally concentrates on signal amplitude enhancement rather than efficient noise processing. Here, we report a compound filter system combining a wavelet denoising method and an adaptive filter for the realization of an efficient weak magnetic measurement with a high SNR. It allows enhanced magnetic field measurement with an average SNR enhancement of 17.80 dB at 50 nT within 500 mHz to 100 Hz and 14.76 dB at 500 mHz within 50 nT to 1100 nT. The introduction of this system in NV diamond magnetometry is aimed to improve signal quality by effectively eliminating the noise and retaining ideal signals.

Fluorescence detection is widely used in biology and medicine, while the realization of on-chip fluorescence detection is vital for the portable and point-of-care test (POCT) application. In this Letter, we propose an efficient fluorescence excitation and collection system using an integrated GaN chip consisting of a slot waveguide and a one-dimensional photonic crystal (1D PC) waveguide. The slot waveguide is used to confine the excitation light for intense light–sample interaction, and the one-trip collection efficiency at the end of slot waveguide is up to 14.65%. More interestingly, due to the introduction of the 1D PC waveguide, the fluorescence signal is directly filtered out, and the excitation light is reflected to the slot waveguide for multiple excitations. Its transmittances for the designed exciting wavelength of 520 nm and the fluorescent wavelength of 612 nm are 0.2% and 85.4%, respectively. Finally, based on numerical analysis, the total fluorescence collection efficiency in our system amounts to 15.93%. It is the first time, to our knowledge, that the concept of an all-in-one-chip fluorescence detection system has been proposed, which paves the way for on-chip fluorescence excitation and collection, and may find potential applications of miniaturized and portable devices for biomedical fluorescence detection.

We propose a method for reconstructing non-diffuse surfaces based on the π-phase-shifted two-plus-one phase-shifting method. First, we introduce a 2fH + a + 2fM + 2fL method for unwrapped phase extraction. Subsequently, we introduce a new set of π-phase-shifted 2fH + a/2 + 2fM + 2fL fringe patterns with halved background intensity. The saturated pixels will be replaced with the unsaturated pixels in the π-phase-shifted fringe patterns. Finally, we analyze eight fringe replacement cases and give the corresponding phase calculation, and further give the general formulas. Experiments confirm that the sum of the phase error of the proposed method is 81.4% lower than that of the traditional method, and 61.5% lower than that of the adaptive fringe projection method.

In this Letter, we propose a simple structure of an orthogonal type double Michelson interferometer. The orthogonal detection method overcomes the problems of uneven ranging sensitivity and the inability of traditional interferometers to determine the displacement direction. The displacement measurement principle and signal processing method of the orthogonal double interferometer are studied. Unlike the arctangent algorithm, the displacement analysis uses the arc cosine algorithm, avoiding any pole limit in the distance analysis process. The minimum step size of the final experimental displacement system is 5 nm, which exhibits good repeatability, and the average error is less than 0.12 nm.

Studies on the kinetics of gas-phase chemical reactions currently rely on calculations or simulations and lack simple, fast, and accurate direct measurement methods. We developed a tunable laser molecular absorption spectroscopy measurement system to achieve direct measurements of such reactions by using wavelength modulated spectroscopy and performed online measurements and diagnostics of molecular concentration, reaction temperature, and pressure change during the redox reaction of ozone with nitrogen oxides (NOx) with 0.1 s temporal resolution. This study provides a promising diagnostic tool for studying gas-phase chemical reaction kinetics.

Nitrogen-vacancy color centers can perform highly sensitive and spatially resolved quantum measurements of physical quantities such as magnetic field, temperature, and pressure. Meanwhile, sensing so many variables at the same time often introduces additional noise, causing a reduced accuracy. Here, a dual-microwave time-division multiplexing protocol is used in conjunction with a lock-in amplifier in order to decouple temperature from the magnetic field and vice versa. In this protocol, dual-frequency driving and frequency modulation are used to measure the magnetic and temperature field simultaneously in real time. The sensitivity of our system is about 3.4 nT/Hz and 1.3 mK/Hz, respectively. Our detection protocol not only enables multifunctional quantum sensing, but also extends more practical applications.

Film thickness measurement can be realized using white light interferometry, but it is challenging to guarantee high precision in a large range of thicknesses. Based on scanning white light interferometry, we propose a spectral-temporal demodulation scheme for large-range thickness measurement. The demodulation process remains unchanged for either coatings or substrate-free films, while some adjustments are made according to the estimated optical thickness. Experiments show that the single-point repeatabilities for 500 nm SiO2 coating and 68 µm substrate-free Si film are no more than 0.70 nm and 1.22 nm, respectively. This method can be further developed for simultaneous measurement of surface profile and film thickness.

Based on Autler–Townes splitting and AC Stark shifts, we present a Rydberg atom-based receiver for determining the amplitude modulation (AM) frequency among a wideband carrier range utilizing a cesium atomic vapor cell. To verify this approach, we measured the signal-to-noise ratio and the data capacity with a 10 kHz AM frequency in the carrier range from 2 GHz to 18 GHz. Without changing the lasers, the working band can be easily extended to a higher range by optimizing the feed antenna and experimental configurations.

We propose a dual-mode optically pumped magnetometer (OPM) that can flexibly switch between single-beam modulation mode and double-beam DC mode. Based on a 4 mm×4 mm×4 mm miniaturized vapor cell, the double-beam DC mode achieves a sensitivity of 7 fT/Hz1/2 with probe noise below 4 fT/Hz1/2 and working bandwidth over 65 Hz. This mode is designed to precisely measure the noise floor of a mu-metal magnetic shield. The single-beam modulation mode (sensitivity 20 fT/Hz1/2) exhibits bandwidth characteristics suitable for biomagnetic measurements. Thus, our design is suitable for a miniaturized OPM with multiple functions, including magnetic-shield background noise measurement and medical imaging.

Real-time monitoring of wavelength is important for high-speed wavelength phase-shifting interferometry. In this paper, a wavelength sensor based on a polarization-maintaining fiber interferometer with four-quadrant demodulation was proposed. We built the wavelength sensing system with resolution better than 0.005 pm and 0.1 ms sampling interval and measured the response time of the tuned wavelength at 35 ms in the phase-shifting process of a commercial wavelength phase-shifting free-space interferometer, as well as the wavelength drift velocity of 0.01 pm per second in the hysteresis process. The optical fiber wavelength sensor with four-quadrant demodulation provides a real-time wavelength sensing scheme for high-speed wavelength phase-shifting interferometers.

A sensor based on light-induced thermoelastic spectroscopy (LITES) with a fiber-coupled multipass cell was demonstrated for carbon monoxide (CO) detection. The fiber-coupled structure has the merits of reducing optical interference and difficulty in optical alignment and increasing system robustness. A 1.57 µm continuous wave distributed feedback diode laser was used as the excitation source. A minimum detection limit of 9 ppm was obtained, and the calculated normalized noise equivalent absorption coefficient was 1.15×10-7 cm-1·W·Hz-1/2. The reported CO-LITES sensor showed excellent linear concentration response and system stability.

We demonstrate the stabilization of an optical frequency comb (OFC) using a segment of fiber delay line as a reference. A mode-locked Er-doped fiber laser is phase locked to a kilometer-long fiber delay line using three different schemes. The short-term stability of the comb modes in the OFC stabilized by these schemes is obviously enhanced, down to the 10-12 level at millisecond average time. Among these three schemes, phase locking two bunches of comb modes in the OFC to the same fiber delay line exhibits the lowest residual phase noise. Fiber-delay-line-referenced OFCs can provide reliable laser sources in precise metrology owing to the advances of low cost, compactness, and high integration.

The propagating of laser-generated ultrasonic waves in K9 glass was investigated. Many methods have been developed to detect the laser ultrasound since laser ultrasonic waves can be used to measure material parameters or characterize materials properties. In order to reduce the measuring time, a Mach–Zehnder interferometer, a full field measuring tool, was preferred in this paper. The ultrasonic wave was produced on the K9 glass surface by a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser absorbed in a liquid layer. The interferograms were then taken at various delay times by a CCD camera after single pulse induced laser ultrasonic waves. Ultrasonic waves in the K9 glass can be observed from interferogram images. The results provide an understanding of laser ultrasound propagation in K9 glass in the lifetime.

We demonstrate a multi-channel pseudo-random coding single-photon ranging system. A pseudo-random multiplexing technique is proposed, which realizes multi-channel pseudo-random ranging only by using one single-photon detector and processing circuit. Compared with the time division multiplexing technique, it will not reduce the maximum unambiguous range while increasing the number of the ranging channel. Eight-channel pseudo-random coding single-photon ranging was realized with the ranging accuracy better than 2 cm. Moreover, photon counting imaging was realized through scanning the laser beams of the eight-channel pseudo-random ranging system. There is no crosstalk between channels, which is suitable for multi-beam long-distance single-photon Lidar.

A high performance optical sensor based on a double compound symmetric gratings (DCSGs) structure is designed. The reflection spectrum of the DCSG is investigated by utilizing a method that combines a theoretical model with the eigenmode information of the grating structure. The theoretical results, which are observed to agree well with those acquired by rigorous coupled-wave analysis, show that the linewidth of the reflection spectrum decreases upon the increasing distance between the grating strips. This research work will lay a foundation for studying high performance integrated optical sensors in miniature nanostructures.

We present and demonstrate a multifunctional single-fiber optical tweezer for particle trapping and transport. The fiber probe of fiber optical tweezers is constructed as a planar structure. Laser sources with wavelengths of 650 nm and 980 nm in a single-mode fiber excite the linearly polarized LP11 mode and LP01 mode beams, respectively. These two laser beams can achieve non-contact trapping and long-distance transport of particles after passing through a flat-facet fiber probe, respectively. This structure makes it possible to perform non-contact trapping and transport of particles by combining multiple wavelengths and multiple modes.

A high-sensitivity DC magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) apparatus is described in this Letter. Via detailed analysis on several dominating noise sources, we have proposed solutions that significantly lower the MOKE noise, and a sensitivity of 1.5×10-7 rad/Hz is achieved with long-term stability. The sensitivity of the apparatus is tested by measuring a wedge-shaped Ni thin film on SiO2 with Ni thickness varying from 0 to 3 nm. A noise floor of 1.5×10-8 rad is demonstrated. The possibility of further improving sensitivity to 10-9 rad via applying AC modulation is also discussed.

In this paper, we present a suppression method for the thermal drift of an ultra-stable laser interferometer. The detailed analysis on the Michelson interferometer indicates that the change in optical path length induced by temperature variation can be effectively reduced by choosing proper thickness and/or incident angle of a compensator. Taking the optical bench of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna Pathfinder as an example, we analyze the optical bench model with a compensator and show that the temperature coefficient of this laser interferometer can be reduced down to 1 pm/K with an incident angle of 0.267828 rad. The method presented in this paper can be used in the design of ultra-stable laser interferometers, especially for space-based gravitational waves detection.

In this paper, a novel liquid level sensor with ultra-high sensitivity is proposed. The proposed sensor is configured by a slice-shaped composite long period fiber grating (SSC-LPFG). The SSC-LPFG is prepared by polishing two opposite sides of a composite multimode–single-mode–multimode fiber structure using a CO2 laser. The method improves the sensitivity of the sensor to external environment. Based on the simulation calculation, a liquid level sensor with a length of 3 mm is designed. The experimental transmission spectrum agrees well with the simulation result. The experimental results show that the sensitivity reaches 7080 pm/mm in the liquid level range of 0–1400 μm in water. The temperature sensitivity is 24.52 pm/°C in the range of 20°C–90°C. Due to the ultra-high sensitivity, good linearity, and compact structure, the SSC-LPFG has potential application in the field of high-precision liquid level measurement.

A key limitation in the observation of instruments used in operations and heart sutures during a procedure is the scattering and absorption during optical imaging in the presence of blood. Therefore, we propose a novel real-time fiber-optic infrared imaging system simultaneously capturing a flexible wide field of view (FOV) and large depth of field infrared image in real time. The assessment criteria for imaging quality of the objective and coupling lens have been optimized and evaluated. Furthermore, the feasibility of manufacturing and assembly has been demonstrated with tolerance sensitivity and the Monte Carlo analysis. The simulated results show that the optical system can achieve a large working distance of 8 to 25 mm, a wide FOV of 120°, and the relative illuminance is over 0.98 in the overall FOV. To achieve high imaging quality in the proposed system, the modulation transfer function is over 0.661 at 16.7 lp/mm for a 320×256 short wavelength infrared camera sensor with a pixel size of 30 µm.

The femtosecond laser has been an efficient tool for optical fiber high temperature sensor construction. Here, we review the progress of optical fiber high temperature sensors based on femtosecond laser fabricated fiber gratings and various types of fiber in-line interferometers in silica fibers and sapphire fibers.

A full-open-cavity wavelength-tunable random fiber laser (WT-RFL) with compact structure and hundreds of picometers tuning range is proposed and demonstrated. A π fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is used in the WT-RFL as a filter to select lasing wavelengths. The two random Bragg grating arrays (RBGAs) and a section of high gain erbium-doped fiber result in a low lasing threshold and high stability. A numerical model to analyze the tunable characteristics is developed. The results show that the laser threshold is 22 mW, and the maximum peak-power fluctuation is 0.55 dB. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that a compact and full-open-cavity WT-RFL with two RBGAs and a π-FBG is proposed.

A novel reconstruction method of nanometer micro-displacement of Fabry–Perot (F-P) interference is proposed in this study. Hilbert transforms are performed for F-P interference fringes, and the obtained signal performs tangent operation with the original signal. Finally, the validity of the proposed algorithm and the structure are verified by simulation and several experimental measurements for vibration. Results from the experiments show that the maximum relative error is 4.9%.

The distributed optical fiber surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors have attracted wide attention in biosensing and chemical sensing applications. However, due to the limitation of their sensing structure, it is difficult to adjust their resonant wavelength and sensitivity. Here, novel and flexible cascaded helical-core fiber (HCF) SPR sensors are proposed theoretically and experimentally for distributed sensing applications. It is shown that the resonant wavelength and sensitivity of the sensors can be conveniently controlled by adjusting the twist pitch of the helical core. A high sensitivity of 11,180 nm/RIU for refractive-index measurement ranging from 1.355 to 1.365 is realized experimentally when the twist pitch of the helical core is 1.5 mm. It is worth noting that the sensitivity can be further improved by reducing the twist pitch. For example, the sensitivity of the sensor with a twist pitch of 1.4 mm can theoretically exceed 20,000 nm/RIU. This work opens up a new way to implement multi-parameter or distributed measurement, especially to establish sensing networks integrated in a single-core fiber or a multi-core fiber.

We develop a low frequency fiber Fabry–Perot (F-P) seismometer based on transfer function analysis. The seismometer structure and demodulation system accuracy are limitations of low frequency seismic monitoring. The transfer function of the F-P seismometer is analyzed, and the mass displacement spectrum (MDS) is introduced. MDS provides guidance for mechanical structure design and optical interferometer analysis to achieve low noise. The F-P seismometer prototype is built. The experiment shows that the prototype has an average noise of 6.74 ng/√Hz below 50 Hz, and its noise is less than that of the global new high noise model within 0.16–50 Hz, whose potential is considerable.

We propose and investigate a compact optical fiber sensor that aims to measure the torsion in both amount and direction with high sensitivity. This sensor is configured by a triangular-prism-shaped long-period fiber grating, which is fabricated by the high frequency CO2 laser polished method. The unique design of the triangular-shaped structure breaks the rotational symmetry of the optical fiber and provides high sensitivity for torsion measurement. In preliminary experiments, the torsion response of the sensor achieves a good stability and linearity. The torsion sensitivity is 0.54 nm/(rad/m), which renders the proposed structure a highly sensitive torsion sensor.

A fiber-optic sensor for the simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature is proposed and experimentally demonstrated based on Fabry–Pérot (FP) interference and the antiresonance (AR) mechanism. The sensor was implemented using a single-mode fiber (SMF)–hollow-core fiber–SMF structure. A temperature sensitivity of 21.11 pm/°C was achieved by tracing the troughs of the envelope caused by the AR mechanism, and a strain sensitivity of 2 pm/με was achieved by detecting the fine fringes caused by the FP cavity. The results indicate that the dual-parameter sensor is stable and reliable.

Natural logarithm wavelength modulation spectroscopy (ln-WMS) is demonstrated in this Letter. Unlike the conventional wavelength modulation spectroscopy (WMS)-2f technique, it is a linear method even for large absorbance, which is the core advantage of ln-WMS. The treating method used in ln-WMS is to take the natural logarithm of the transmitted intensity. In order to determine the proper demodulation phase, the η-seeking algorithm is introduced, which minimizes the absolute value of the first harmonic within the non-absorbing region. Subsequently, the second harmonic of the absorption signal is extracted by setting the demodulating phase as 2η. To illustrate the validity of ln-WMS, it was applied to water vapor experimentally. The result shows that even if the absorbance (base-e) is between 1.60 and 6.26, the linearity between ln-WMS-2f and volume fraction is still established. For comparison, measurement with conventional WMS-2f was also done, whose response no longer kept linearity. The η values retrieved in continuous measurements and the residuals were shown so as to evaluate the performance of the η-seeking algorithm. Time consumed by this algorithm was roughly 0.28 s per measurement. As an alternative WMS strategy, ln-WMS has a wide range of potential applications, especially where the absorbance is large or varies over a wide area.

We report a spatially modulated polarimetry scheme by using a zero-order vortex half-wave retarder (ZVHR) and a spatial Fourier analysis method. A ZVHR is employed to analyze the input polarized light and convert it into a vectorial optical field, and an analyzer is set after the ZVHR to form an hourglass intensity pattern due to the spatial polarization modulation. Then, the input light’s Stokes parameters can be calculated by spatial Fourier analysis of the hourglass pattern with a single shot. The working principle of the polarimeter has been analyzed by the Stokes–Mueller formalism, and some quantitative measuring experiments of different polarization states have been demonstrated. The experimental results indicate that the proposed polarimeter is accurate, robust, and simple to use.

A broadband instantaneous multi-frequency measurement system based on chirped pulse compression, which potentially has a sub-megahertz (MHz) accuracy and a hundred-gigahertz (GHz) measurement range, is demonstrated. A signal-under-test (SUT) is converted into a carrier-suppressed double-sideband (CS-DSB) signal, which is then combined with an optical linearly frequency-modulated signal having the sweeping range covering the +1st-order sideband of the CS-DSB signal. With photodetection, low-pass filtering, and pulse compression, accurate frequencies of the SUT are obtained via locating the correlation peaks. In the experiment, single- and multi-frequency measurements with a measurement range from 3 to 18 GHz and a measurement accuracy of <±100 MHz are achieved.

In this Letter, the periodical errors, which are caused by the nonlinear effect of the commercial projector and camera, are analyzed as a more generic single-coefficient model. The probability density function of the wrapped phase distributions is used as a tool to find the compensation coefficient. When the compensation coefficient is detected, on the premise of ensuring accuracy, a correlation algorithm process is used to replace the traditional iterative process. Therefore, the proposed algorithm improves the efficiency of coefficient detection dramatically. Both computer simulation and experiment show the effectiveness of this method.

In order to improve the accuracy and universality of the rotational speed measurement, an instantaneous rotational speed measurement method based on laser Doppler technology is proposed. The composition and working principle of the new system are discussed in detail. Theoretical and experimental results show that the new rotational speed measurement system belongs to the non-contact method, which eliminates the quantization error of the contact method and greatly improves the applicability and accuracy. Compared to the commonly used method, the measurement accuracy of the new rotational speed measurement system will not be affected by the system’s installation angle deviation, and it does not need to measure the radius of the rotating body, so the influence of the radius fluctuation of the rotating body on the measurement accuracy can be avoided while outputting the rotational speed in real time. The relative error of the rotational speed measurement is less than 0.06% (1σ).