Rapid and long-range distance measurements are essential in various industrial and scientific applications, and among them, the dual-comb ranging system attracts great attention due to its high precision. However, the temporal asynchronous sampling results in the tradeoff between frame rate and ranging precision, and the non-ambiguity range (NAR) is also limited by the comb cycle, which hinders the further advancement of the dual-comb ranging system. Given this constraint, we introduce a Vernier spectral interferometry to improve the frame rate and NAR of the ranging system. First, leveraging the dispersive time-stretch technology, the dual-comb interferometry becomes spectral interferometry. Thus, the asynchronous time step is unlimited, and the frame rate is improved to 100 kHz. Second, dual-wavelength bands are introduced to implement a Vernier spectral interferometry, whose NAR is enlarged from 1.5 m to 1.5 km. Moreover, this fast and long-range system also demonstrated high precision, with a 22.91-nm Allan deviation over 10-ms averaging time. As a result, the proposed Vernier spectral interferometry ranging system is promising for diverse applications that necessitate rapid and extensive distance measurement.

As the key of embedded displacement measurement, a fiber-optic micro-probe laser interferometer (FMI) is of great interest in developing high-end equipment as well as precision metrology. However, conventional phase-generated carrier (PGC) approaches are for low-speed scenes and local error analysis, usually neglecting the global precision analysis and dynamic effect of system parameters under high-speed measurement, thus hindering their broad applications. We present a high-speed PGC demodulation model and method to achieve subnanometer displacement measurement precision in FMI. This model includes a global equivalent resolution analysis and revelation of the demodulation error mechanism. Utilizing this model, the failure issues regarding the PGC demodulation method under high speed and large range are addressed. Furthermore, an ultra-precision PGC demodulation algorithm based on the combination of static and dynamic delay adaptive regulation is proposed to enable high-speed and large-range displacement measurement. In this paper, the proposed model and algorithm are validated through simulation and experimental tests. The results demonstrate a displacement resolution of 0.1 nm with a standard deviation of less than 0.5 nm when measuring at a high velocity of 1.5 m/s—nearly a tenfold increase of the latest study.

In this paper, we present the experiment and the theory scheme of light-atom interaction in atomic magnetometers by using a hybrid Poincaré beam (HPB) to solve an annoying problem, named “dead zone.” This kind of magnetometer can be sensitive to arbitrary directions of external magnetic fields. The HPB has a complex polarization distribution, consisting of a vector radially polarized beam and a scalar circularly polarized beam in our experiment. These two kinds of beams have different directions of dead zones of external magnetic fields; thereby, the atomic magnetometer with an HPB can avoid the non-signal area when the direction of the external magnetic field is in the plane perpendicular to the light polarization plane. Furthermore, the optical magnetic resonance (OMR) signal using an HPB still has no dead zones even when the direction of the external magnetic field is in the plane parallel to the polarization plane in our scheme. Our work has the potential to simplify and optimize dead-zone-free atomic magnetometers.

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators based on lithium tantalate (LT, LiTaO3) wafers are crucial elements of mobile communication filters. The use of intrinsic LT wafers typically brings about low fabrication accuracy of SAW resonators due to strong UV reflection in the lithography process. This hinders their resonance frequency control seriously in industrial manufacture. LT doping and chemical reduction could be applied to decrease the UV reflection of LT wafers for high lithographic precision. However, conventional methods fail to provide a fast and nondestructive approach to identify the UV performance of standard single-side polished LT wafers for high-precision frequency control. Here, we propose a convenient on-line sensing scheme based on the colorimetry of reduced Fe-doped LT wafers and build up an automatic testing system for industrial applications. The levels of Fe doping and chemical reduction are evaluated by the lightness and color difference of LT-based wafers. The correlation between the wafer visible colorimetry and UV reflection is established to refine the lithography process and specifically manipulate the frequency performance of SAW resonators. Our study provides a powerful tool for the fabrication control of SAW resonators and will inspire more applications on sophisticated devices of mobile communication.

The optical frequency comb serves as a powerful tool for distance measurement by integrating numerous stable optical modes into interferometric measurements, enabling unprecedented absolute measurement precision. Nonetheless, due to the periodicity of its pulse train, the comb suffers from measurement dead zones and ambiguities, thereby impeding its practical applications. Here, we present a linear group delay spectral interferometer for achieving precise full-range distance measurements. By employing a carefully designed linear group delay (LGD) device for phase modulation of the comb modes, interference can occur and be easily measured at any position. Our approach effectively eliminates the dead zones and ambiguities in comb-based ranging, without the need for cumbersome auxiliary scanning reference devices or reliance on complex high-repetition-rate combs or high-resolution spectrometers. We conducted length metrology experiments using a mode-locked comb referenced to a rubidium clock, achieving a large nonambiguity range up to 0.3 m, covering the entire measurement period. The maximum deviation compared to a laser interferometer was less than 1.5 μm, and the minimum Allan deviation during long-term measurements reached 5.47 nm at a 500 s averaging time. The approach ensures high accuracy while maintaining a simple structure, without relying on complex external devices, thereby propelling the practical implementation of comb-based length metrology.

The terahertz (THz) wave is at the intersection between photonics and electronics in the electromagnetic spectrum. Since the vibration mode of many biomedical molecules and the weak interaction mode inside the molecules fall in the THz regime, utilizing THz radiation as a signal source to operate substance information sensing has its unique advantages. Recently, the metamaterial sensor (metasensor) has greatly enhanced the interaction between signal and substances and spectral selectivity on the subwavelength scale. However, most past review articles have demonstrated the THz metasensor in terms of their structures, applications, or materials. Until recently, with the rapid development of metasensing technologies, the molecular information has paid much more attention to the platform of THz metasensors. In this review, we comprehensively introduce the THz metasensor for detecting not only the featureless refractive index but also the vibrational/chiral molecular information of analytes. The objectives of this review are to improve metasensing specificity either by chemical material-assisted analyte capture or by physical molecular information. Later, to boost THz absorption features in a certain frequency, the resonant responses of metasensors can be tuned to the molecular vibrational modes of target molecules, while frequency multiplexing techniques are reviewed to enhance broadband THz spectroscopic fingerprints. The chiral metasensors are also summarized to specific identification chiral molecules. Finally, the potential prospects of next generation THz metasensors are discussed. Compared to featureless refractive index metasensing, the specific metasensor platforms accelerated by material modification and molecular information will lead to greater impact in the advancement of trace detection of conformational dynamics of biomolecules in practical applications.

An imperfect propagation environment or optical system would introduce wavefront aberrations to vortex beams. The phase aberrations and orbital angular momentum in a vortex beam are proved to be mutually restrictive in parameter measurement. Aberrations make traditional topological charge (TC) probing methods ineffective while the phase singularity makes phase retrieval difficult due to the aliasing between the wrapped phase jump and the vortex phase jump. An interactive probing method is proposed to make measurements of the aberrated phase and orbital angular momentum in a vortex beam assist rather than hinder each other. The phase unwrapping is liberated from the phase singularity by an annular shearing interference technique while the TC value is determined by a Moiré technique immune to aberrations. Simulation and experimental results proving the method effective are presented. It is of great significance to judge the characteristics of vortex beams passing through non-ideal environments and optical systems.

A Brillouin dynamic grating (BDG) can be used for distributed birefringence measurement in optical fibers, offering high sensitivity and spatial resolution for sensing applications. However, it is quite a challenge to simultaneously achieve dynamic measurements with both high accuracy and high spatial resolution. In this work, we propose a sensing mechanism to achieve distributed phase-matching measurement using a chirped pulse as a probe signal. In BDG reflection, the peak reflection corresponds to the highest four-wave mixing (FWM) conversion efficiency, and it requires the Brillouin frequency in the fast and slow axes to be equal, which is called the phase-matching condition. This condition changes at different fiber positions, which requires a range of frequency injection for the probe wave. The proposed method uses a chirped pulse as a probe wave to cover this frequency range associated with distributed birefringence inhomogeneity. This allows us to detect distributed phase matching for birefringence changes that are introduced by temperature and strain variations. Thanks to the single shot and direct time delay measurement capability, the acquisition rate in our system is only limited by the fiber length. Notably, unlike conventional BDG spectrum recovery-based systems, the spatial resolution here is determined by both the frequency chirping rate of the probe pulse and the birefringence profile of the fiber. In the experiments, an acquisition rate of 1 kHz (up to fiber length limits) and a spatial resolution of 10 cm using a 20 ns probe pulse width are achieved. The minimum detectable temperature and strain variation are 5.6 mK and 0.37 με along a 2 km long polarization-maintaining fiber (PMF).

Structured light with more extended degrees of freedom (DoFs) and in higher dimensions is increasingly gaining traction and leading to breakthroughs such as super-resolution imaging, larger-capacity communication, and ultraprecise optical trapping or tweezers. More DoFs for manipulating an object can access more maneuvers and radically increase maneuvering precision, which is of significance in biology and related microscopic detection. However, manipulating particles beyond three-dimensional (3D) spatial manipulation by using current all-optical tweezers technology remains difficult. To overcome this limitation, we theoretically and experimentally present six-dimensional (6D) structured optical tweezers based on tailoring structured light emulating rigid-body mechanics. Our method facilitates the evaluation of the methodology of rigid-body mechanics to synthesize six independent DoFs in a structured optical trapping system, akin to six-axis rigid-body manipulation, including surge, sway, heave, roll, pitch, and yaw. In contrast to previous 3D optical tweezers, our 6D structured optical tweezers significantly improved the flexibility of the path design of complex trajectories, thereby laying the foundation for next-generation functional optical manipulation, assembly, and micromechanics.

Flat optics has been considered promising for constructions of spaceborne imaging systems with apertures in excess of 10 m. Despite recent advances, there are long-existing challenges to perform in-phase stitching of multiple flat optical elements. Phasing the segmented planar instrument has remained at the proof of concept. Here, we achieve autonomous system-level cophasing of a 1.5-m stitching flat device, bridging the gap between the concept and engineering implementation. To do so, we propose a flat element stitching scheme, by manipulating the point spread function, which enables our demonstration of automatically bringing seven flat segments’ tip/tilt and piston errors within the tolerance. With phasing done, the 1.5-m system has become the largest phased planar instrument ever built in the world, to our knowledge. The first demonstration of phasing the large practical flat imaging system marks a significant step towards fielding a 10-m class one in space, also paving the way for ultrathin flat imaging in various remote applications.

For improving the performance of optical frequency dissemination and the resolution of its out-of-loop (OOL) characterization, we investigate a compact free-space interferometer design in which a monolithic assembly forms the reference arm. Two interferometer designs are realized, and their environmental sensitivity is analyzed based on the properties of the materials involved. We elucidate that in these designs the temperature sensitivities of the out-of-loop signal paths are greater than for the reference arm. As the estimated temperature-variation-induced frequency transfer errors are observed to be the relevant limitation, the out-of-loop characterization signal can be regarded as a trustworthy upper limit of the frequency transfer error to a remote place. We demonstrate a fractional frequency transfer uncertainty and OOL characterization resolution of ≤2.7×10-21 over many measurement runs. With a value of (0.23±1.07)×10-22 the weighted mean offset is significantly below the best reported results so far.

Recently, optical computing has emerged as a potential solution to computationally heavy convolution, aiming at accelerating various large science and engineering tasks. Based on optical multi-imaging–casting architecture, we propose a paradigm for a universal optical convolutional accelerator with truly massive parallelism and high precision. A two-dimensional Dammann grating is the key element for generating multiple displaced images of the kernel, which is the core process for kernel sliding on the convolved matrix in optical convolutional architecture. Our experimental results indicate that the computing accuracy is typically about 8 bits, and this accuracy could be improved further if high-contrast modulators are used. Moreover, a hybrid analog–digital coding method is demonstrated to improve computing accuracy. Additionally, a convolutional neural network for the standard MNIST dataset is demonstrated, with recognition accuracy for inference reaching 97.3%. Since this architecture could function under incoherent light illumination, this scheme will provide opportunities for handling white-light images directly from lenses without photoelectric conversion, in addition to convolutional accelerators.

The nanomechanical resonator based on a levitated particle exhibits unique advantages in the development of ultrasensitive electric field detectors. We demonstrate a three-dimensional, high-sensitivity electric field measurement technology using the optically levitated nanoparticle with known net charge. By scanning the relative position between nanoparticle and parallel electrodes, the three-dimensional electric field distribution with microscale resolution is obtained. The measured noise equivalent electric intensity with charges of 100e reaches the order of 1 μV⋅cm-1⋅Hz-1/2 at 1.4×10-7 mbar. Linearity analysis near resonance frequency shows a measured linear range over 91 dB limited only by the maximum output voltage of the driving equipment. This work may provide an avenue for developing a high-sensitivity electric field sensor based on an optically levitated nano-resonator.

To further advance nanomaterial applications and reduce waste production during synthesis, greener and sustainable production methods are necessary. Pulsed laser ablation in liquid (PLAL) is a green technique that enables the synthesis of nanoparticles. This study uses synchronous-double-pulse PLAL to understand bubble interaction effects on the nanoparticle size. By adjusting the lateral separation of the pulses relative to the maximum bubble size, an inter-pulse separation is identified where the nanoparticle size is fourfold. The cavitation bubble pair interaction is recorded using a unique coaxial diffuse shadowgraphy system. This system allows us to record the bubble pair interaction from the top and side, enabling the identification of the bubble’s morphology, lifetime, volumetric, and displacement velocity. It is found that the collision and collapse of the bubbles generated at a certain inter-pulse separation results in a larger nanoparticle size. These results mark a significant advancement by controlling the abundance of larger nanoparticles in PLAL, where previous efforts were primarily focused on reducing the average nanoparticle size. The experimentally observed trends are confirmed by numerical simulations with high spatial and temporal resolution. This study serves as a starting point to bridge the gap between upscaled multi-bubble practices and fundamental knowledge concerning the determinants that define the final nanoparticle size.

The time-delay problem, which is introduced by the response time of hardware for correction, is a critical and non-ignorable problem of adaptive optics (AO) systems. It will result in significant wavefront correction errors while turbulence changes severely or system responses slowly. Predictive AO is proposed to alleviate the time-delay problem for more accurate and stable corrections in the real time-varying atmosphere. However, the existing prediction approaches either lack the ability to extract non-linear temporal features, or overlook the authenticity of spatial features during prediction, leading to poor robustness in generalization. Here, we propose a mixed graph neural network (MGNN) for spatiotemporal wavefront prediction. The MGNN introduces the Zernike polynomial and takes its inherent covariance matrix as physical constraints. It takes advantage of conventional convolutional layers and graph convolutional layers for temporal feature catch and spatial feature analysis, respectively. In particular, the graph constraints from the covariance matrix and the weight learning of the transformation matrix promote the establishment of a realistic internal spatial pattern from limited data. Furthermore, its prediction accuracy and robustness to varying unknown turbulences, including the generalization from simulation to experiment, are all discussed and verified. In experimental verification, the MGNN trained with simulated data can achieve an approximate effect of that trained with real turbulence. By comparing it with two conventional methods, the demonstrated performance of the proposed method is superior to the conventional AO in terms of root mean square error (RMS). With the prediction of the MGNN, the mean and standard deviation of RMS in the conventional AO are reduced by 54.2% and 58.6% at most, respectively. The stable prediction performance makes it suitable for wavefront predictive correction in astronomical observation, laser communication, and microscopic imaging.

Nanophotonic waveguides hold great promise to achieve chip-scale gas sensors. However, their performance is limited by a short light path and small light–analyte overlap. To address this challenge, silicon-based, slow-light-enhanced gas-sensing techniques offer a promising approach. In this study, we experimentally investigated the slow light characteristics and gas-sensing performance of 1D and 2D photonic crystal waveguides (PCWs) in the near-IR (NIR) region. The proposed 2D PCW exhibited a high group index of up to 114, albeit with a high propagation loss. The limit of detection (LoD) for acetylene (C2H2) was 277 parts per million (ppm) for a 1 mm waveguide length and an averaging time of 0.4 s. The 1D PCW shows greater application potential compared to the 2D PCW waveguide, with an interaction factor reaching up to 288%, a comparably low propagation loss of 10 dB/cm, and an LoD of 706 ppm at 0.4 s. The measured group indices of the 2D and 1D waveguides are 104 and 16, respectively, which agree well with the simulation results.

The spectral domain interferometer (SDI) has been widely used in dimensional metrology. Depending on the nature of the SDI, both wider spectral bandwidth and narrower linewidth of the light source are paradoxically required to achieve better resolution and longer measurable distances. From this perspective, a broadband frequency comb with a repetition rate high enough to be spectrally resolved can be an ideal light source for SDIs. In this paper, we propose and implement a broadband electro-optic frequency comb to realize a comb-mode resolved SDI. The proposed electro-optic frequency comb was designed with an optically recirculating loop to provide a broadband spectrum, which has a repetition rate of 17.5 GHz and a spectral range of 35 nm. In a preliminary test, we demonstrated absolute distance measurements with sub-100 nm repeatability. Because of these advantages, we believe this electro-optic frequency comb can open up new possibilities for SDIs.

In this work, a novel ultrafast optoelectronic proximity sensor based on a submillimeter-sized GaN monolithic chip is presented. Fabricated through wafer-scale microfabrication processes, the on-chip units adopting identical InGaN/GaN diode structures can function as emitters and receivers. The optoelectronic properties of the on-chip units are thoroughly investigated, and the ability of the receivers to respond to changes in light intensity from the emitter is verified, revealing that the sensor is suitable for operation in reflection mode. Through a series of dynamic measurements, the sensor is highly sensitive to object movement at subcentimeter distances with high repeatability. The sensor exhibits ultrafast microsecond response, and its real-time monitoring capability is also demonstrated by applying it to detect slight motions of moving objects at different frequencies, including the human heart rate, the vibration of the rotary pump, the oscillation of the speaker diaphragm, and the speed of the rotating disk. The compact and elegant integration scheme presented herein opens a new avenue for realizing a chip-scale proximity sensing device, making it a promising candidate for widespread practical applications.

One of the pressing issues for optical neural networks (ONNs) is the performance degradation introduced by parameter uncertainties in practical optical components. Hereby, we propose a novel two-step ex situ training scheme to configure phase shifts in a Mach–Zehnder-interferometer-based feedforward ONN, where a stochastic gradient descent algorithm followed by a genetic algorithm considering four types of practical imprecisions is employed. By doing so, the learning process features fast convergence and high computational efficiency, and the trained ONN is robust to varying degrees and types of imprecisions. We investigate the effectiveness of our scheme by using practical machine learning tasks including Iris and MNIST classifications, showing more than 23% accuracy improvement after training and accuracy (90.8% in an imprecise ONN with three hidden layers and 224 tunable thermal-optic phase shifters) comparable to the ideal one (92.0%).

Fast transient events, such as the disintegration of liquid bodies or chemical reactions between radical species, involve various processes that may occur at different time scales. Currently, there are two alternatives for monitoring such events: burst- or high-speed imaging. Burst imaging at ultrahigh speeds (∼100 MHz to THz) allows for the capture of nature’s fastest processes but only for a narrowly confined period of time and at a repetition rate of ∼10 Hz. Monitoring long lasting, rapidly evolving transient events requires a significantly higher repetition rate, which is met by existing ∼kHz to 1 MHz high-speed imaging technology. However, the use of such systems eliminates the possibility to observe dynamics occurring on the sub-microsecond time scale. In this paper, we present a solution to this technological gap by combining multiplexed imaging with high-speed sensor technology, resulting in temporally resolved, high-spatial-resolution image series at two simultaneous time scales. We further demonstrate how the collection of such data opens up the tracking of rapidly evolving structures up to MHz burst rates over long durations, allowing, for the first time, to our knowledge, the extraction of acceleration fields acting upon the liquid bodies of an atomizing spray in two dimensions at kHz frame rates.

This paper presents a novel design for single-shot terahertz polarization detection based on terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). Its validity has been confirmed by comparing its detection results with those of the THz common-path spectral interferometer through two separate measurements for the orthogonal components. Our results also show that its detection signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) are obviously superior to those of the 45° optical bias THz-TDS by electro-optical sampling due to its operation on common-path spectral interference rather than the polarization-sensitive intensity modulation. The setup works without need of any optical scan, which does not only save time, but also efficiently avoids the disturbances from the fluctuations of the system and environment. Its single-shot mode allows it to work well for the applications with poor or no repeatability.

Distributed optical fiber sensing exploring forward stimulated Brillouin scattering (FSBS) has received wide attention, as it indicates a new sensing method to measure the liquid property surrounding an optical fiber. In the existing techniques, backward stimulated Brillouin scattering is adopted for detection of the sensing signal, which requires time-consuming signal acquisition and post-processing. In this work, an approach that distributedly measures FSBS spectra is proposed and demonstrated based on coherent detection. While an excitation pulse with single-frequency amplitude modulation is used to induce a guided acoustic mode in the fiber, a following pulse is adopted to probe the induced phase modulation. Using a chirped fiber Bragg grating array, an enhanced-backward-propagating sensing signal is generated from the probe pulse. Heterodyne coherent-detection-based phase demodulation is then realized by mixing the sensing signal with a local oscillator. The FSBS spectra can then be reconstructed from the beat signals with only one round of frequency sweeping. With significantly accelerated signal acquisition and simplified post-processing, the proposed distributed acoustic sensing system has achieved spatial resolution of 5 m over a 500-m sensing range.

Fringe projection profilometry (FPP) is widely used in optical three-dimensional (3D) measurements because of its high stability. In FPP, fringe distortion is an inevitable and highly complex systematic error that significantly reduces the 3D measurement accuracy. At this point, the existing causes of fringe distortion represented by gamma distortion, high-order harmonics, and image saturation have been effectively analyzed and compensated to restore high-quality fringe images. In this paper, we innovatively reveal a concealed cause of fringe distortion, i.e., intensity diffusion across pixels, which is induced by photocarrier diffusion between photodiodes. To the best of our knowledge, intensity diffusion has not been studied in the field of fringe restoration. Based on the motion of photocarrier diffusion, we theoretically analyze the mechanism of how the intensity diffusion affects FPP. Subsequently, an intensity diffusion model is established for quantifying the diffused intensity in each pixel, and an intensity diffusion correction algorithm is presented to remove the diffused intensity from the fringe images and correct the fringe distortion. Experiments demonstrate the impact of intensity diffusion on FPP, and the 3D measurement results prove the effectiveness of the proposed methods on improving the 3D measurement accuracy by correcting the fringe distortion.

Tracing a resonance frequency of a high quality factor (Q) optical cavity facilitates subpicometer displacement measurements of the optical cavity via Pound–Drever–Hall (PDH) locking scheme, tightly synchronizing a laser frequency to the optical cavity. Here we present observations of subfemtometer displacements on a ultrahigh-Q single-crystal MgF2 whispering-gallery-mode microcavity by frequency synchronization between a 1 Hz cavity-stabilized laser and a resonance of the MgF2 cavity using PDH laser-cavity locking. We characterize not only the displacement spectral density of the microcavity with a sensitivity of 1.5×10-16 m/Hz1/2 over the Fourier offset frequency ranging from 15 mHz to 100 kHz but also a 1.77 nm displacement fluctuation of the microcavity over 4500 s. Such measurement capability not only supports the analysis of integrated thermodynamical and technical cavity noise but allows for minute displacement measurements using laser-cavity locking for ultraprecise positioning, metrology, and sensing.

We report for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, regenerated polymer optical fiber Bragg gratings (RPOFBGs) in ZEONEX-based polymer optical fibers (POFs). The regeneration temperature can be adjusted using a heat treatment process on the POF before FBG inscription, enabling a scalable improvement of the thermal stability of the RPOFBGs. Thermal sustainability of the RPOFBGs at high temperature conditions was investigated for their prolonged use in diverse environments. Furthermore, these RPOFBGs can withstand strain levels up to 2.8% while maintaining a good linearity, even at temperature of 110°C. The RPOFBGs are capable of short-term operation at elevated temperatures of up to 132°C, which is the standard temperature for steam sterilization with at least a 4 min exposure period. The distinction in the morphologies of the two grades of ZEONEX (E48R and 480R, ZEON Corp.) used to fabricate the optical fiber together with the characteristics of UV irradiated and regenerated gratings is explained using micro-Raman spectroscopy. Collectively, these findings provide new heights for long-term operation of POF Bragg gratings (POFBGs) at elevated temperature environments and would be applicable to a wide range of disciplines.

Optoelectronic tweezer (OET) is a useful optical micromanipulation technology that has been demonstrated for various applications in electrical engineering and most notably cell selection for biomedical engineering. In this work, we studied the use of light patterns with different shapes and thicknesses to manipulate dielectric microparticles with OET. It was demonstrated that the maximum velocities of the microparticles increase to a peak and then gradually decrease as the light pattern’s thickness increases. Numerical simulations were run to clarify the underlying physical mechanisms, and it was found that the observed phenomenon is due to the co-influence of horizontal and vertical dielectrophoresis forces related to the light pattern’s thickness. Further experiments were run on light patterns with different shapes and objects with different sizes and structures. The experimental results indicate that the physical mechanism elucidated in this research is an important one that applies to different light pattern shapes and different objects, which is useful for enabling users to optimize OET settings for future micromanipulation applications.

The miniaturization of the gyroscope is critical for spacecrafts, drones, wellbore surveys, etc. The resonant fiber-optic gyroscope (RFOG) is a competitive candidate due to its potential in both miniaturization and high resolution, while its actual performance is well below expectation because of laser-induced noise and complexity. Here we report the first navigation grade RFOG with a bias instability of 0.009°/h and an angle random walk of 0.0093°/h. The results are realized using a fiber resonator with finesse of 63 containing 100-m long fiber. Compared with the traditional RFOGs using narrow-linewidth lasers, the key feature of the proposed RFOG is that it is driven with a broadband light source. A white-light multibeam interference method is proposed to detect the Sagnac effect, representing the simplest scheme of RFOG to date. The complexity caused by multiple feedback loops and coherent noise suppression in traditional RFOG scheme is avoided. The minimal scheme and simple modulation algorithm will also promote the on-chip waveguide gyroscope.

This paper presents quantitative measurements facilitated with a new optical system that implements a single-shot three-input phase retrieval algorithm. The new system allows simultaneous acquisition of three distinct input patterns, thus eliminating the requirement for mechanical movement and reducing any registration errors and microphonics. We demonstrate the application of the system for measurement and separation of two distinct attenuation measurements of surface waves, namely, absorption and coupling loss. This is achieved by retrieving the phase in the back focal plane and performing a series of virtual optics computations. This overcomes the need to use a complicated series of hardware manipulations with a spatial light modulator. This gives a far more accurate and faster measurement with a simpler optical system. We also demonstrate that phase measurements allow us to implement different measurement methods to acquire the excitation angle for surface plasmons. Depending on the noise statistics different methods have superior performance, so the best method under particular conditions can be selected. Since the measurements are only weakly correlated, they may also be combined for improved noise performance. The results presented here offer a template for a wider class of measurements in the back focal plane including ellipsometry.

Using a fiber network as a huge sensing system will enrich monitoring methods of public infrastructures and geological disasters. With the traditional cross-correlation method, a laser interferometer has been used to detect and localize the vibration event. However, the random error induced by the cross-correlation method limits the localization accuracy and makes it not suitable for ultrahigh precision localizing applications. We propose a novel time shifting deviation (TSDEV) method, which has advantages over the cross-correlation method in practicability and localization accuracy. Three experiments are carried out to demonstrate the novelty of the TSDEV method. In a lab test, vibration localization accuracy of ∼2.5 m is realized. In field tests, TSDEV method enhanced interferometry is applied to monitor the urban fiber link. Traffic vibration events on the campus road and Beijing ring road have been precisely localized and analyzed, respectively. The proposed technique will extend the function of the existing urban fiber network, and better serve the future smart city.

Helical structures exhibit novel optical and mechanical properties and are commonly used in different fields such as metamaterials and microfluidics. A few methods exist for fabricating helical microstructures, but none of them has the throughput or flexibility required for patterning a large surface area with tunable pitch. In this paper, we report a method for fabricating helical structures with adjustable forms over large areas based on multiphoton polymerization (MPP) using single-exposure, three dimensionally structured, self-accelerating, axially tunable light fields. The light fields are generated as a superposition of high-order Bessel modes and have a closed-form expression relating the design of the phase mask to the rotation rate of the beam. The method is used to fabricate helices with different pitches and handedness in the material SU-8. Compared to point-by-point scanning, the method reported here can be used to reduce fabrication time by two orders of magnitude, paving the way for adopting MPP in many industrial applications.

Exploring high sensitivity on the measurement of angular rotations is an outstanding challenge in optics and metrology. In this work, we employ the mn-order Hermite–Gaussian (HG) beam in the weak measurement scheme with an angular rotation interaction, where the rotation information is taken by another HG mode state completely after the post-selection. By taking a projective measurement on the final light beam, the precision of angular rotation is improved by a factor of 2mn+m+n. For verification, we perform an optical experiment where the minimum detectable angular rotation improves 15-fold with HG55 mode over that of HG11 mode, and achieves a sub-microradian scale of the measurement precision. Our theoretical framework and experimental results not only provide a more practical and convenient scheme for ultrasensitive measurement of angular rotations but also contribute to a wide range of applications in quantum metrology.

Strain rate is an important basic physical parameter in the fields of deformation observation, geodetic measurement, and geophysical monitoring. This paper proposes a novel fiber optic strain rate sensor (FOSRS) that can directly measure the strain rate through a differentiating interferometer that converts the strain rate to the optical phase. The sensing principle, sensitivity, resolution, and dynamic range of the proposed FOSRS are theoretically analyzed and verified by experiment. The experimental results show that the developed FOSRS with a 12.1 m sensing fiber has a flat sensitivity of 69.50 dB, a nanostrain rate (nε/s) resolution, and a dynamic range of better than 95 dB. An ultrahigh static resolution of 17.07 pε/s can be achieved by using a 25.277 km sensing fiber for long baseline measurements. The proposed method significantly outperforms existing indirect measurement methods and has potential applications in geophysical monitoring and crustal deformation observation.

Among many multi-dimensional information sensing methods such as structured-light and single-pixel imaging technologies, sinusoidal fringe generation is general and crucial. Current methods of sinusoidal fringe generation force concessions in either the speed or the depth range. To mitigate this trade-off, we have simultaneously achieved both speed breakthrough and depth range enhancement by improving both the optical projection system and binary coding algorithm based on an off-the-shelf projector. Specifically, we propose a multifocal projection system and oblique projection method, which essentially eliminates the existence of a single focal plane in the conventional axisymmetric system and utilizes its anisotropy characteristics to achieve a superior filtering effect. Furthermore, the optimal pulse width modulation technique is introduced to modulate the square binary pattern for eliminating specific harmonics. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed method, for the first time, simultaneously achieved superfast (9524 frames per second) and large-depth-range (560 mm, about three times that of the conventional method) sinusoidal fringe generation with consistently high accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method in multi-dimensional information sensing such as 3D, 4D, and [x, y, z, t; s (strain)].

We reveal the mechanism of the noncoaxial rotational Doppler effect (RDE) of an optical vortex and report its application in discriminating the orientation of the rotating axis of the rotating body. In most cases of the RDE-based measurement, the beam axis must be aligned with the rotating axis of the rotational body to observe a good signal. Once the beam axis is not coaxial with the rotating axis, the RDE frequency shift would change related to the misalignment distance, which can be called the noncoaxial RDE. Here, we take the advantage of the misaligned RDE augment with precise light-field modulation and successfully realize the discrimination of the orientation of the rotating axis relative to the illuminating beam. We clarify the principle of noncoaxial RDE and explain why the incomplete optical vortex (OV) is sensitive to the position of the rotating axis. We switch the OV field into four quadrants synchronized with sampling by the data acquisition system, and conduct Fourier transformation of the signals. Combined with the fitting algorithm, the orientation of the rotating axis can be recognized directly. This method may find applications for the noncontact detection of rotating bodies in both industrial and astronomical scenarios.

Luminescence thermometry can perform noninvasive thermal sensing with high spatial resolution and fast response, emerging as an exciting field of research due to its promising applications in biomedicine. Nevertheless, because of the interaction between light and complex tissues, the reliability and the accuracy of this technique suffer serious interference, which significantly restricts its practical utilization. Here, a strategy to implement effective luminescence nanothermometry is preliminarily proposed by employing the different thermal responses between Yb3+→Nd3+ and Nd3+→Yb3+ energy transfer processes. Different from the traditional ratiometric sensing method, where two luminescence intensities are used as the thermal response parameters, we use two intensity ratios between Yb3+ and Nd3+ near-IR emissions that are obtained under dual excitation as the detecting and reference signals to perform temperature measurement. This multiparameter-based, self-reference thermometry technique, as we define it, exhibits excellent immunity to the influences arising from the fluctuation and loss of pumping sources as well as the luminescence attenuation in media. High thermal sensitivity (∼2.2% K-1) and good resolution (∼0.35°C) are successfully achieved here, accompanied by a measurement error of ∼1.1°C in a biological environment test, while large errors are observed based on the traditional ratiometric approach (∼8.9°C,∼23.2°C). We believe the viewpoint in this work could boost luminescence thermometry and provide an ingenious route toward high-performance thermal sensing for biological systems.

Although optical tweezers can manipulate tiny particles, the distortion caused by the scattering medium restricts their application. Wavefront-shaping techniques such as the transmission matrix (TM) method are powerful tools to achieve light focusing behind the scattering medium. In this paper, we propose a method to focus light through a scattering medium in a large area based on the intensity transmission matrix (ITM). Only relying on the intensity distribution, we can calculate the ITM with the number of measurements equal to that of the control segments. Free of the diffraction limit, our method guarantees high energy usage of the light field. Based on this method, we have implemented particle manipulation with a high degree of freedom on single and multiple particles. In addition, the manipulation range is enlarged more than 20 times (compared to the memory effect) to 200 μm.

We propose a precision phase-generated-carrier (PGC) demodulation method with sub-nanometer resolution that avoids nonlinear errors in a laser wavelength sinusoidal modulation fiber-optic interferometer for long range dynamic displacement sensing. Using orthogonal detection and an AC-DC component extraction scheme, the PGC carrier phase delay (CPD) and laser intensity modulation phase delay can be obtained simultaneously to eliminate the nonlinear error from accompanied optical intensity modulation and CPD. Further, to realize long range displacement sensing, PGC phase modulation depth (PMD), determined by the laser wavelength modulation amplitude and the working distance of the interferometer, is required to maintain an optimal value during measurement, including initial position and dynamic movement. By combining frequency sweeping interference and modified PGC-arctan demodulation to measure real-time working distance, adaptive PMD technology is realized based on proportion control. We construct a fiber-optic Michelson and SIOS commercial interferometer for comparison and perform experiments to verify the feasibility of the proposed method. Experimental results demonstrate that an interferometer with sub-nanometer resolution and nanometer precision over a large range of 400 mm can be realized.

Real-time spectrum sensing is essential to enable dynamic and rapid spectrum sharing of unused frequencies to cater the substantial demands of new wireless services deploying the existing RF bands. In this paper, we present a novel, real-time spectrum sensing approach for widely used RF signals based on Brillouin-scattering-induced transparency (BIT). A temporal discrimination of multi-channel input frequencies is achieved through the group delay tuning by BIT. By tuning the pump power and frequency, the proposed technique is fully reconfigurable and viable for a broad range of spectrum sensing. Several experimental illustrations of the time domain sensing are presented for two-tone channels with 0.9, 1.8, and 5 GHz frequencies to detect the unused spectrum within 3G, 4G, and 5G signals.

Photonic brain-inspired platforms are emerging as novel analog computing devices, enabling fast and energy-efficient operations for machine learning. These artificial neural networks generally require tailored optical elements, such as integrated photonic circuits, engineered diffractive layers, nanophotonic materials, or time-delay schemes, which are challenging to train or stabilize. Here, we present a neuromorphic photonic scheme, i.e., the photonic extreme learning machine, which can be implemented simply by using an optical encoder and coherent wave propagation in free space. We realize the concept through spatial light modulation of a laser beam, with the far field acting as a feature mapping space. We experimentally demonstrate learning from data on various classification and regression tasks, achieving accuracies comparable with digital kernel machines and deep photonic networks. Our findings point out an optical machine learning device that is easy to train, energetically efficient, scalable, and fabrication-constraint free. The scheme can be generalized to a plethora of photonic systems, opening the route to real-time neuromorphic processing of optical data.

Chronic wounds affect around 2% of the world population with an annual multi-billion dollar cost to the healthcare system. This background pushes the development of new therapies and procedures for wound healing and its assessment. Among them, the potential of hydrogen (pH) assessment is an important indicator of the wound healing stage and condition. This paper presents the development of the first optical fiber-embedded smart wound dressing for pH assessment. An intrinsically pH-sensitive optical fiber is fabricated using a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) precursor doped with rhodamine B dye. Raman and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopies are performed in order to verify the presence of rhodamine B and PDMS in the fiber samples. Then, the fiber is embedded in gauze fabric and hydrocolloid wound dressing. In addition, such low Young’s modulus of PDMS fiber enables its use as a highly sensitive pressure sensor, where the results show that the fiber-embedded bandage can measure pressures as low as 0.1 kPa with a high linearity in the range of 0 to 0.3 kPa. The smart bandage is subjected to different pH, which resulted in a wavelength shift of 0.67 nm/pH when the absorption peak at 515 nm was analyzed. Furthermore, pH increase leads to linear decrease of the transmitted optical power (R2 of 0.998), with rise and fall times below 20 s and 30 s, respectively. Therefore, the proposed optical fiber-embedded smart bandage enables the simultaneous assessment of pressure and pH on the wound region.

Precise and fast determination of position and orientation, which is normally achieved by distance and angle measurements, has broad applications in academia and industry. We propose a dynamic three-degree-of-freedom measurement technique based on dual-comb interferometry and a self-designed grating-corner-cube (GCC) combined sensor. Benefiting from its unique combination of diffraction and reflection characteristics, the absolute distance, pitch, and yaw of the GCC sensor can be determined simultaneously by resolving the phase spectra of the corresponding diffracted beams. We experimentally demonstrate that the method exhibits a ranging precision (Allan deviation) of 13.7 nm and an angular precision of 0.088 arcsec, alongside a 1 ms reaction time. The proposed technique is capable of precise and fast measurement of distances and two-dimensional angles over long stand-off distances. A system with such an overall performance may be potentially applied to space missions, including in tight formation-flying satellites, for spacecraft rendezvous and docking, and for antenna measurement as well as the precise manufacture of components including lithography machines and aircraft-manufacturing devices.

Optical imaging through or inside scattering media, such as multimode fiber and biological tissues, has a significant impact in biomedicine yet is considered challenging due to the strong scattering nature of light. In the past decade, promising progress has been made in the field, largely benefiting from the invention of iterative optical wavefront shaping, with which deep-tissue high-resolution optical focusing and hence imaging becomes possible. Most of the reported iterative algorithms can overcome small perturbations on the noise level but fail to effectively adapt beyond the noise level, e.g., sudden strong perturbations. Reoptimizations are usually needed for significant decorrelation to the medium since these algorithms heavily rely on the optimization performance in the previous iterations. Such ineffectiveness is probably due to the absence of a metric that can gauge the deviation of the instant wavefront from the optimum compensation based on the concurrently measured optical focusing. In this study, a square rule of binary-amplitude modulation, directly relating the measured focusing performance with the error in the optimized wavefront, is theoretically proved and experimentally validated. With this simple rule, it is feasible to quantify how many pixels on the spatial light modulator incorrectly modulate the wavefront for the instant status of the medium or the whole system. As an example of application, we propose a novel algorithm, the dynamic mutation algorithm, which has high adaptability against perturbations by probing how far the optimization has gone toward the theoretically optimal performance. The diminished focus of scattered light can be effectively recovered when perturbations to the medium cause a significant drop in the focusing performance, which no existing algorithms can achieve due to their inherent strong dependence on previous optimizations. With further improvement, the square rule and the new algorithm may boost or inspire many applications, such as high-resolution optical imaging and stimulation, in instable or dynamic scattering environments.

Optical clocks with an unprecedented accuracy of 10-18 promise innovations in precision spectroscopy and measurement. To harness the full power of optical clocks, we need optical frequency synthesizers (OFSs) to accurately convert the stabilities and accuracies of optical clocks to other desired frequencies. This work demonstrates such an OFS referenced to an ytterbium optical clock. The OFS is based on an optical frequency comb phase-locked to a commercial rubidium microwave clock; in this way most combs can operate robustly. Despite comb frequency instability at 10-11, the synthesis noise and uncertainty reach 6×10-18 (1 s) and 5×10-21, respectively, facilitating frequency synthesis of the best optical clocks. In the OFS, the coherence of the OFS internal oscillator at 1064 nm is accurately transferred to a 578 nm laser for resolving the hertz-level-linewidth ytterbium clock transition (unaffected by megahertz-linewidth comb lines) and faithfully referencing the OFS to an ytterbium optical clock.

Dispersion engineering and measurement are significant for nonlinear photonic applications using whispering gallery mode microresonators. Specifically, the Kerr microresonator frequency comb as an important example has attracted a great amount of interest in research fields due to the potential capability of full integration on a chip. A simple and cost-efficient way for dispersion measurements is thereby in high demand for designing such a microcomb device. Here, we report a dispersion measurement approach using a fiber ring etalon reference. The free spectral range of the etalon is first measured through sideband modulation, and the dispersion of the etalon is inferred by binary function fitting during the dispersion measurement. This method is demonstrated on two MgF2 disk resonators. Experimental results show good agreement with numerical simulations using the finite element method. Dispersion engineering on such resonators is also numerically investigated.

The Gerchberg–Saxton (GS) algorithm, which retrieves phase information from the measured intensities on two related planes (the source plane and the target plane), has been widely adopted in a variety of applications when holographic methods are challenging to be implemented. In this work, we showed that the GS algorithm can be generalized to retrieve the unknown propagating function that connects these two planes. As a proof-of-concept, we employed the generalized GS (GGS) algorithm to retrieve the optical transmission matrix (TM) of a complex medium through the measured intensity distributions on the target plane. Numerical studies indicate that the GGS algorithm can efficiently retrieve the optical TM while maintaining accuracy. With the same training data set, the computational time cost by the GGS algorithm is orders of magnitude less than that consumed by other non-holographic methods reported in the literature. Besides numerical investigations, we also experimentally demonstrated retrieving the optical TMs of a stack of ground glasses and a 1-m-long multimode fiber using the GGS algorithm. The accuracy of the retrieved TM was evaluated by synthesizing high-quality single foci and multiple foci on the target plane through these complex media. These results indicate that the GGS algorithm can handle a large TM with high efficiency, showing great promise in a variety of applications in optics.

Confocal Raman microscopy is currently used for label-free optical sensing and imaging within the biological, engineering, and physical sciences as well as in industry. However, currently these methods have limitations, including their low spatial resolution and poor focus stability, that restrict the breadth of new applications. This paper now introduces differential-confocal controlled Raman microscopy as a technique that fuses differential confocal microscopy and Raman spectroscopy, enabling the point-to-point collection of three-dimensional nanoscale topographic information with the simultaneous reconstruction of corresponding chemical information. The microscope collects the scattered Raman light together with the Rayleigh light, both as Rayleigh scattered and reflected light (these are normally filtered out in conventional confocal Raman systems). Inherent in the design of the instrument is a significant improvement in the axial focusing resolution of topographical features in the image (to ～1 nm), which, when coupled with super-resolution image restoration, gives a lateral resolution of 220 nm. By using differential confocal imaging for controlling the Raman imaging, the system presents a significant enhancement of the focusing and measurement accuracy, precision, and stability (with an antidrift capability), mitigating against both thermal and vibrational artefacts. We also demonstrate an improved scan speed, arising as a consequence of the nonaxial scanning mode.

Particle nanotracking (PNT) is highly desirable in lab-on-a-chip systems for flexible and convenient multiparameter measurement. An ultrathin flat lens is the preferred imaging device in such a system, with the advantage of high focusing performance and compactness. However, PNT using ultrathin flat lenses has not been demonstrated so far because PNT requires the clear knowledge of the relationship between the object and image in the imaging system. Such a relationship still remains elusive in ultrathin flat lens-based imaging systems because they operate based on diffraction rather than refraction. In this paper, we experimentally reveal the imaging relationship of a graphene metalens using nanohole arrays with micrometer spacing. The distance relationship between the object and image as well as the magnification ratio is acquired with nanometer accuracy. The measured imaging relationship agrees well with the theoretical prediction and is expected to be applicable to other ultrathin flat lenses based on the diffraction principle. By analyzing the high-resolution images from the graphene metalens using the imaging relationship, 3D trajectories of particles with high position accuracy in PNT have been achieved. The revealed imaging relationship for metalenses is essential in designing different types of integrated optical systems, including digital cameras, microfluidic devices, virtual reality devices, telescopes, and eyeglasses, and thus will find broad applications.

Fringe projection profilometry has been increasingly sought and applied in dynamic three-dimensional (3D) shape measurement. In this work, a robust, high-efficiency 3D measurement based on Gray-coded light is proposed. Unlike the traditional method, a tripartite phase unwrapping method is proposed to avoid the jump errors on the boundary of code words, which are mainly caused by the defocusing of the projector and the motion of the tested object. Subsequently, the time-overlapping coding strategy is presented to greatly increase the coding efficiency, decreasing the projected number in each group from seven (i.e., 3+4) to four (i.e., 3+1) for one restored 3D frame. The combination of two proposed techniques allows the reconstruction of a pixel-wise and unambiguous 3D geometry of dynamic scenes with strong noise using every four projected patterns. To the best of our knowledge, the presented techniques for the first time preserve the high anti-noise ability of a method based on the Gray code while overcoming the drawbacks of jump errors and low coding efficiency. Experiments have demonstrated that the proposed method can achieve robust, high-efficiency 3D shape measurement of high-speed dynamic scenes even polluted by strong noise.

Distributed optical fiber Brillouin sensors detect the temperature and strain along a fiber according to the local Brillouin frequency shift (BFS), which is usually calculated by the measured Brillouin spectrum using Lorentzian curve fitting. In addition, cross-correlation, principal component analysis, and machine learning methods have been proposed for the more efficient extraction of BFS. However, existing methods only process the Brillouin spectrum individually, ignoring the correlation in the time domain, indicating that there is still room for improvement. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a BFS extraction convolutional neural network (BFSCNN) to retrieve the distributed BFS directly from the measured two-dimensional data. Simulated ideal Brillouin spectra with various parameters are used to train the BFSCNN. Both the simulation and experimental results show that the extraction accuracy of the BFSCNN is better than that of the traditional curve fitting algorithm with a much shorter processing time. The BFSCNN has good universality and robustness and can effectively improve the performances of existing Brillouin sensors.

Laser-based light detection and ranging (lidar) plays a significant role in both scientific and industrial areas. However, it is difficult for existing lidars to achieve high speed, high precision, and long distance simultaneously. Here, we demonstrate a high-performance lidar based on a chip-scaled soliton microcomb (SMC) that can realize all three specialties simultaneously. Aided by the excellent properties of ultrahigh repetition rate and the smooth envelope of the SMC, traditional optical frequency comb (OFC)-based dispersive interferometry is heavily improved and the measuring dead zone induced by the mismatch between the repetition rate of the OFC and resolution of the optical spectrum analyzer is totally eliminated. Combined with an auxiliary dual-frequency phase-modulated laser range finder, the none-dead-zone measurable range ambiguity is extended up to 1500 m. The proposed SMC lidar is experimentally implemented in both indoor and outdoor environment. In the outdoor baseline field, real-time, high-speed (up to 35 kHz) measurement of a long distance of ～1179 m is achieved with a minimum Allan deviation of 5.6 μm at an average time of 0.2 ms (27 nm at an average time of 1.8 s after high-pass filtering). The present SMC lidar approaches a compact, fast, high-precision, and none-dead zone long-distance ranging system, aimed at emerging applications of frontier basic scientific research and advances in industrial manufacturing.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of recent advances in micro-additive manufacturing enabled by novel optical methods with an emphasis on photopolymerization-based printing processes. Additive manufacturing, also known as three-dimensional (3D) printing, has become an important engineering solution to construct customized components or functional devices at low cost. As a green manufacturing technology, 3D printing has the advantages of high energy efficiency, low material consumption, and high precision. The rapid advancement of 3D printing technology has broadened its applications from laboratory research to industrial manufacturing. Generally, 3D objects to be printed are constructed digitally [e.g., via computer-aided design (CAD) programs] by connecting a 3D dot array, where a dot is defined as a voxel through mechanical, electrical, or optical means. The voxel size ranges from a few orders of magnitude of the wavelength of light to the sub-diffraction limit, achieved by material nonlinearity and precise power thresholding. In recent years, extensive research in optical additive manufacturing has led to various breakthroughs in quality, rate, and reproducibility. In this paper, we review various micro-3D printing techniques, including single-photon and two-photon processes, with a focus on innovative optical methods, e.g., ultrafast beam shaping, digital holography, and temporal focusing. We also review and compare recent technological advances in serial and parallel scanning systems from the perspectives of resolution, rate, and repeatability, where the strengths and weaknesses of different methods are discussed for both fundamental and industrial applications.

We introduce a spectrally resolved Young’s interferometer based on a digital micromirror device, a grating spectrometer, and a set of polarization-modulation elements to measure the spectral coherence (two-point) Stokes parameters of random light beams. An experimental demonstration is provided with a spatially partially coherent superluminescent diode amounting to a complex structure of spatio-spectral coherence induced by a quartz-wedge depolarizer. We also show that the polarization and spatial coherence of light can vary with wavelength on a subnanometer scale. The technique is simple and robust and applies to light beams with any spectral bandwidth.

Photonics-based radar with a photonic de-chirp receiver has the advantages of broadband operation and real-time signal processing, but it suffers from interference from image frequencies and other undesired frequency-mixing components, due to single-channel real-valued photonic frequency mixing. In this paper, we propose a photonics-based radar with a photonic frequency-doubling transmitter and a balanced in-phase and quadrature (I/Q) de-chirp receiver. This radar transmits broadband linearly frequency-modulated signals generated by photonic frequency doubling and performs I/Q de-chirping of the radar echoes based on a balanced photonic I/Q frequency mixer, which is realized by applying a 90° optical hybrid followed by balanced photodetectors. The proposed radar has a high range resolution because of the large operation bandwidth and achieves interference-free detection by suppressing the image frequencies and other undesired frequency-mixing components. In the experiment, a photonics-based K-band radar with a bandwidth of 8 GHz is demonstrated. The balanced I/Q de-chirping receiver achieves an image-rejection ratio of over 30 dB and successfully eliminates the interference due to the baseband envelope and the frequency mixing between radar echoes of different targets. In addition, the desired de-chirped signal power is also enhanced with balanced detection. Based on the established photonics-based radar, inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging is also implemented, through which the advantages of the proposed radar are verified.