Severe climate sway in coherent CDMA-OSSB-FSO transmission system

Free space optics (FSO) link at high transmission rate is delimited due to its perceptivity to diversified surroundings especially in hilly regions. A demonstration of CDMA-FSO coherent detection system is reported in this work to achieve a prolonged 10 Gbps-FSO link with acceptable SNR under the impact profound haze, rain and fog environment. Further, the work is extended to weigh the proposed CO-CDMA-OSSB-FSO transmission system against OFDM-OSSB-FSO direct detection system 0045 and 0050.     

Simple and flexible generation of vestigial side band modified duobinary return-to-zero signals at 10, 20 and 40 Gb/s

We propose and demonstrate a simple and flexible approach to generate vestigial side band modified duobinary return-to-zero (VSB MD-RZ) signals at 10-40 Gb/s, using a dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator and a detuned optical band-pass filter. The performance of the proposed VSB MD-RZ signal is investigated by comparing with double side band MD-RZ (DSB MD-RZ) and conventional VSB MD-RZ. Bit error ratio (BER) measurement at 10 Gb/s shows an error free operation for the generated signal. Good performance is further observed after 100 km of single-mode-fiber transmission at 40 Gb/s.     

Lateral flow immunoassay using magnetoresistive sensors

Magnetic particles have been adapted for use as labels in biochemical lateral flow strip tests. Standard gold particle lateral flow assays are generally qualitative; however, with magnetic particles, quantitative results can be obtained by using electronic detection systems with giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensors. As described here, these small integrated sensor chips can detect the presence of magnetic labels in capture spots whose volume is approximately 150 μm×150 μm×150 μm. The range of linear detection is better than two orders of magnitude; the total range is up to four orders of magnitude. The system was demonstrated with both indirect and sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) for protein detection of rabbit IgG and interferon-γ, respectively, achieving detection of 12 pg/ml protein. Ultimately, the goal is for the detector to be fully integrated into the lateral flow strip backing to form a single consumable item that is interrogated by a handheld electronic reader.     

A novel encoder/decoder design scheme utilizing differential detection in OCDMA systems

In this paper, we report the use of differential detection in optical code-division multiple access (OCDMA) systems which use encoders and decoders based on unbalanced codes and utilize bipolar modulation/differential detection to demonstrate a significant improvement in system performance. Differential detection has been reported earlier also requiring a large number of one-chips in the code for (balanced codes) or with unbalanced codes with very long temporal dimensions requiring a large number of delay elements (either the delay lines in the ladder-type structures or the gratings in the multiple fiber gratings) making the encoder/decoder structures. We use single pulse per row codes to design our system and carry out the simulations for showing the results. The improved BER performance is achieved that can be traded for increasing the number of codes. Using optical simulation tool, the OCDMA system has been simulated for four users. The results of this system utilizing differential detection and another system that uses the same coding scheme but employing direct detection, for the same number of interfering users, are shown for comparison. The BER and the power penalty plots are shown for the two systems. Also, it is shown that performance degradation occurs due to the linear and non-linear effects of the fiber medium. The BER worsens more rapidly with link length for direct detection case, whereas for differential detection with an initial improvement of 8 dB, the increase in BER is insignificantly small for a link length of 500 km.     

40 Gb/s all-optical logic NOR and OR gates using a semiconductor optical amplifier: Experimental demonstration and theoretical analysis

We experimentally and theoretically demonstrate 40 Gb/s all-optical logic NOR and OR gates based on a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) and a blue shifted optical bandpass filter (OBF). Two kinds of data formats are discussed, namely return-to-zero (RZ) format and nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) format. The logic NOR and OR functions of RZ format are realized at the OBF detuning of −0.22 nm and −0.44 nm, respectively. The logic NOR function of NRZ format is realized at the OBF detuning of −0.24 nm. The simulation is in good agreement with the experimental results when the linewidth enhancement factor is 5.5. The simulation also shows that the SOA with large linewidth enhancement factor is preferred to achieve NOR and OR functions with good performance. The input data signal is of good pulsewidth-tolerance for NOR function, whereas not for OR function. The high Q factor could be obtained at narrow pulses injection.     

Detection of pedestrians in far-infrared automotive night vision using region-growing and clothing distortion compensation

We present a night-time pedestrian detection system based on automotive infrared video processing. Far-infrared or thermal night vision is a technology well suited for automatic detection of pedestrians at night as they generally appear warmer than the background. However, the appearance of a pedestrian in IR video can vary dramatically depending on the physical properties of the clothing they wear, the time spent adjusting to the outside environment, and the ambient temperature. We highlight the difficulties of detection in low temperatures (below 8 °C) when pedestrians typically wear highly insulating clothing, which can lead to distortion of the IR signature of the pedestrian. A pre-processing step is presented, which compensates for this clothing-based distortion using vertically-biased morphological closing. Potential pedestrians (Regions of Interest) are then segmented using feature-based region-growing with high intensity seeds. Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) features are extracted from candidates and utilised for Support Vector Machine classification. Positively classified targets are tracked between frames using a Kalman filter, adding robustness and increasing performance. The proposed system adapts not just to variations between images or video frames, but to variations in appearance between different pedestrians in the same image or frame. Results indicate improved performance compared to previous HOG–SVM automotive IR pedestrian detection systems, which utilised stereo IR cameras.     

A divided spectrum balanced detection technique for intensity noise reduction in SAC OCDMA systems

In this paper we propose a simple divided spectrum balanced detection (DSBD) for spectral amplitude coding (SAC) optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) systems. SAC OCDMA systems are limited by phase induced intensity noise (PIIN), which is a signal dependent source of noise. Our proposed technique reduces the PIIN by dividing the spectrum of the signal into two or more, and detecting each spectrum by a different photodiode. The DSBD scheme reduces the detected optical power at photodetection, thus resulting in a higher mitigation of the PIIN. Theoretical results show that DSBD demonstrate noticeable improvement over traditional balanced detection technique, for example an up to 33% increase in the number of active users can be achieved, and at least 1 × 10⁻³ b/s Hz increase in the spectral efficiency is obtained. However, the SDBD is more complex and append more constrains on system components.     

Gain and gain-flatness improved photonic crystal fiber Raman amplifier based on a dual-pass amplification configuration with single pump laser

A gain and gain-flatness improved L-band dual-pass Raman fiber amplifier (RFA) utilizing a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) as gain medium is demonstrated. By introducing complementary gain spectra of typical forward and backward pumping single-pass RFA using the same PCF, we finally achieve average net gain level of 22.5 dB with a ±0.8 dB flattening gain in 20-nm bandwidth from 1595 nm to 1615 nm, which is rare in RFAs with only one single pump and no flattening filter. Compared with the single-pass pump configurations, gain level, flatness and bandwidth are greatly improved by using the dual-pass amplification configuration. The limitation of this configuration caused by multi-path interference (MPI) noise and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is also discussed.     

Epitaxial structures of self-organized, standing-up pentacene thin films studied by LEEM and STM

Growth of pentacene (Pn) thin films has been studied in situ by means of low-energy electron microscopy (LEEM) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). A very low nucleation density of Pn grains has been observed on Bi(0 0 0 1)/Si(1 1 1) template, resulting in formation of large, monolayer-high Pn grains with diameter exceeding several hundreds of micrometers. We determined that formation of self-organized, standing-up Pn epitaxial layers was stabilized by a weak interaction between the substrate and Pn molecules and by the presence of the commensurate structure between the oblique Pn lattice and trigonal substrate surface lattice. The ‘point-on-line’ commensurability has been found along a-axis of Pn and one of the primitive vectors of substrate surface lattice. Strong ‘point-on-line’ commensurability in Pn/Bi(0 0 0 1)/Si(1 1 1) system resulted in a bulk-like epitaxial thin film growth, starting from the first layer. The presence of twins, often having a mirror line parallel to the direction of the ‘point-on-line’ matching, has been also detected using an asymmetric dark-field imaging mode in LEEM experiments, which, we believe, is the first LEEM demonstration of molecular tilt imaging.     

Discrimination of individual atoms on Ge/Si(1 1 1)-(7 × 7) intermixed surface

We have discriminated individual Ge atoms from the intermixed Ge/Si(1 1 1)-(7 × 7) surface using a non-contact atomic force microscope at a room temperature environment. In fact, Si-Ge (IV-IV) binary system is considered as one of the most difficult systems for atomic discrimination among atoms in the IV group because of the similarities in the electronic and chemical properties. However, in this study, we found one of the most attractive tools to discriminate a specific atom from the others even in the difficult Si-Ge system. Ge atoms are shown as dim spots in comparison to Si atoms with bright spots on the intermixed surface by a weak chemical bonding energy and/or a relaxation effect despite large atomic radius and high spatial position in both variable frequency shift and topographic images. The discrimination of individual atoms with respect to the chemical interaction variation will further provide a chance to manipulate different atomic species and assemble various nanostructures in near future.