The diffusion coefficient depends on absorption

The diffusion approximation is widely invoked to model the propagation of light in turbid media. When absorption is not weak in comparison with scattering, there is currently a controversy as to if, and how, the diffusion coefficient depends on absorption. Here it is shown that better agreement with random walk simulation is obtained if the photon-diffusion coefficient is taken as D=c/(3micro(s)(')+micro(a)) . One can reconcile this result with recent work advocating D=c/3micro(s)(') by noting that the diffusion equation must be correspondingly changed to a telegrapher's equation.     

Absorption-free superluminal light propagation in a quantum-dot molecule

The propagation of a weak probe field in a three-level quantum-dot molecule is investigated by employing the tunnel coupling. It is shown that in the absence of tunnel coupling, the propagation of light pulse is superluminal, similar to a simple two-level system. A high-resolution dip appears in optical spectra due to the presence of tunnel coupling. We show that this narrow dip leads to the subluminal light propagation with doublet absorption, so the group velocity of a light pulse can be controlled by interdot tunnel coupling. It is also demonstrated that by applying an indirect incoherent pumping field to the probe transition, the absorption doublet switches to the gain doublet and then the absorption-free superluminal light propagation is appeared.     

Absorption-free superluminal light propagation in a quantum-dot molecule

The propagation of a weak probe field in a three-level quantum-dot molecule is investigated by employing the tunnel coupling. It is shown that in the absence of tunnel coupling, the propagation of light pulse is superluminal, similar to a simple two-level system. A high-resolution dip appears in optical spectra due to the presence of tunnel coupling. We show that this narrow dip leads to the subluminal light propagation with doublet absorption, so the group velocity of a light pulse can be controlled by interdot tunnel coupling. It is also demonstrated that by applying an indirect incoherent pumping field to the probe transition, the absorption doublet switches to the gain doublet and then the absorption-free superluminal light propagation is appeared.     

水平极化光在单轴吸收晶体中的传播

根据光在各向同性吸收介质中传播的分析方法,引入了波法线矢量传播常量,讨论了水平极化光在单轴吸收晶体中的传播规律,得到了波法线折射率、光线折射率、吸收系数等描述吸收晶体性质和光传播性质的物理量的表达式,推导出透明晶体的相应公式.数值计算表明,由该法得到的晶体表面的反射和透射系数与用复折射率表示法得到的结论一致.     

Anomalies of radiation absorption and superluminal propagation of light: I. An isotropic layer

The features of superluminal propagation of light through an isotropic layer are investigated and the group velocity is calculated. Multilayer systems providing superluminal propagation of light over large distances with compensation of losses upon light transmission through the system are considered. The situations in which the propagation speed of a light pulse decreases or in which it is equal to zero are also investigated. The features of radiation absorption in a thin isotropic layer are considered. The effects of anomalously high and anomalously low absorption are found. It is shown that these effects are caused by an increase (decrease) in the density of light energy in the layer and by changes in the group velocity. The possibility of experimental observation of the effects discovered is discussed.     

Image reconstruction in diffuse optical tomography using the coupled radiative transport-diffusion model

The coupled radiative transport-diffusion model can be used as light transport model in situations in which the diffusion equation is not a valid approximation everywhere in the domain. In the coupled model, light propagation is modelled with the radiative transport equation in sub-domains in which the approximations of the diffusion equation are not valid, such as within low-scattering regions, and the diffusion approximation is used elsewhere in the domain. In this paper, an image reconstruction method for diffuse optical tomography based on using the coupled radiative transport-diffusion model is developed. In the approach, absorption and scattering distributions are estimated by minimising a regularised least-squares error between the measured data and solution of the coupled model. The approach is tested with simulations. Reconstructions from different cases including domains with low-scattering regions are shown. The results show that the coupled radiative transport-diffusion model can be utilised in image reconstruction problem of diffuse optical tomography and that it produces as good quality reconstructions as the full radiative transport equation also in the presence of low-scattering regions.     

Fermi-edge polaritons in Bragg multiple-quantum-well structures

The polariton propagation in one-dimensional photonic crystals and quasicrystals based on highly doped quantum-well structures has been theoretically studied. The superradiant and photonic crystal regimes have been considered and expressions for band gap edges for light waves in the Bragg structures have been obtained. The reflection and absorption spectra of such systems have been calculated and the so-called two-wave approximation to their study has been applied. The optical properties of the doped multiple-quantum-well structures are compared with those of undoped ones.     

Light-beam evolution in slant illumination of turbid medium

The space and angle distributions of the radiation intensity in an absorbing anisotropically scattering medium are examined for slant illumination of the boundary by a limited beam. An analytic solution of the transport equation in a small-angle approximation is compared with Monte Carlo modeling of light propagation in sea water. The existence of a depth region in which the variances of the space and angle intensity distributions rise anomalously rapidly due to the presence of absorption and the asymmetry of the problem is pointed out.Nizhny Novgorod State University. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 36, No. 8, pp. 820–824, August, 1993.     

Finite element approximation of the Fokker-Planck equation for diffuse optical tomography

In diffuse optical tomography, light transport theory is used to describe photon propagation inside turbid medium. A commonly used simplification for the radiative transport equation is the diffusion approximation due to computational feasibility. However, it is known that the diffusion approximation is not valid close to the sources and boundary and in low-scattering regions. Fokker-Planck equation describes light propagation when scattering is forward-peaked. In this article a numerical solution of the Fokker-Planck equation using finite element method is developed. Approach is validated against Monte Carlo simulation and compared with the diffusion approximation. The results show that the Fokker-Planck equation gives equal or better results than the diffusion approximation on the boundary of a homogeneous medium and in turbid medium containing a low-scattering region when scattering is forward-peaked.     

Effect of Superficial Tissue on Spatial Sensitivity Profile of Optical Brain Activity Measurement Evaluated by Direct Hybrid Monte Carlo-Diffusion Method

The light propagation in the brain is highly affected by the superficial tissues such as skin, skull and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The development of an adequate model to calculate light propagation in the head is very important for optical brain activity measurement. We developed a novel approach, the direct hybrid Monte Carlo-diffusion method (DHMDM), which can calculate light propagation in the three-dimensional head models including low scattering regions in which the light propagation does not obey either the diffusion approximation or the radiosity theory. The effect of thickness of the superficial tissue upon the spatial sensitivity profiles for optical brain activity measurement is evaluated by the DHMDM. The sensitivity to the brain activity decreases with increasing thickness of the superficial layer whilst the spatial decay of sensitivity on the brain surface depends little upon the thickness of the superficial layer.     

Anomalies of Radiation Absorption and Superluminal Propagation of light: II. A Layer of a Periodic Medium with a Helical Structure

The features of superluminal propagation of light through a layer of a helical periodic medium (HPM) are investigated and the group velocity is calculated. Multilayer systems with a layer of an HPM that provide superluminal propagation of light over large distances with compensation of losses upon light transmission through the system are considered. The features of radiation absorption in a layer of an HPM are considered. Effects of anomalously high and anomalously low absorption are found. It is shown that these effects are caused by an increase (decrease) in the density of light energy in the layer and by changes in the group velocity. The possibility of experimental observation of the effects discovered is discussed.     

Temporal response of nonlinear transmission in optically thick saturable absorbers and determination of saturable absorption parameters

The temporal response of nonlinear transmission in saturable absorbers is theoretically investigated on the basis of a four-energy-level model including an excited-state absorption, and is experimentally employed for determining saturable absorption parameters in saturable-dye-doped films. The approximation of optically thin absorbers is shown to be inadequate to this end. In theoretical calculations, optically thick saturable absorbers are treated by a set of simultaneous partial differential equations: a rate equation governing the dynamics of population densities of energy levels and a propagation equation governing the propagation of optical fields in the optically thick absorbers. By comparing experimental results with numerical ones, the saturable absorption parameters can be determined on the basis of the intensity dependence of response time. In numerical calculations, the effect of random orientation is also considered for optically anisotropic molecules rigidly fixed in saturable absorbing media. The characterization of the saturable absorption parameters is conducted by using uranine-doped poly(vinyl alcohol) films.     

Alternative Oblique-Incidence Reflectometry for Measuring Tissue Optical Properties

To deduce the optical properties, the absorption coefficient SmU_aand reduced scattering coefficient μ’_s, of turbid medium, Lin et al. (Appl. Opt. 34 (1995) 2362) proposed an oblique incidence reflectometry in which the diffusion approximation was assumed. In this paper we propose an alternative method which does not assume the diffusion approximation but uses a Monte Carlo light propagation model. Two features are extracted from the diffuse reflectance distribution detected on the medium surface, and optical properties are then estimated by looking up the predetermined table generated by Monte Carlo simulations. The validity of the proposed method has been confirmed by computer simulations.     

Negative refraction in photonic crystals

We demonstrate that light propagation in strongly modulated 2D/3D photonic crystals (PhCs) becomes refraction-like in the vicinity of the photonic bandgap, which is contrary to the fact that light propagation in weakly modulated PhCs is very different from refraction and thus the definition of refraction index becomes meaningless. Such a crystal behaves like a material having an effective refractive index controllable by the band structure. This situation is analogous to the effective-mass approximation in electron-band theory. The propagation states having a negative effective index exhibit unusual properties, such as mirror-like imaging effect, image-transfer effect. These properties are confirmed by finite-difference time-domain simulations.     

On some manifestations of similarity in multiple scattering of coherent light

The similarity of the decay tendencies of statistical moments of optical fields and their combinations (the mean intensity, the temporal correlation function of the field fluctuations and the degree of polarization) due to coherent light propagation in the disordered media has been considered by using a simple phenomenological model with exponential relaxation. A theoretical consideration has been carried out for the case of light propagation through a disordered slab using the diffusion approximation. The validity of the concept of similarity has been demonstrated in experiments with water suspensions of polystyrene spheres for the light transmission mode even in the case of non-diffusion regimes of light propagation through a scattering substance.     

Cosmological Solutions of Bi-metric Theories of Gravitation

The evidence in solar system tests of gravitation theories shows that in cosmological models the propagation velocities of gravitation and light may differ only by action of the local gravitational potential. The condition of approximately equal propagation velocities is shown to be consistent with cosmological models of some bi-metric tetrad theories. The way to analyze the situation is explained. We find a connection between the linear approximation of the theories with those properties of cosmological models, which are responsible for the local propagation of gravitation.     

均匀展宽增益介质中超光速饱和现象的研究

根据饱和增益理论分析可知,不同抽运光功率对应着介质不同的吸收和增益状态. 在吸收介质中,相干布居振荡效应导致光脉冲经历饱和吸收,光脉冲传输延迟;在增益介质中, 相干布居振荡效应导致光脉冲经历增益饱和,光脉冲传输超前. 本文由铒离子的亚稳态速率方程出发,建立了掺铒光纤中超光速传输的理论模型, 同时得到时间超前的数值解析表达式;讨论了低频率段超光速的饱和现象, 即超光速在低频段并不随着抽运光功率的增强而加强,而在高频率段随抽运光功率的增加而加强.     

光脉冲在含玻色元激发的非线性介质中的传播与面积定理

研究了取决于场与玻色（ｂｏｓｏｎ元激发瞬间相互作用的光信号传播问题。导出了相应的‘面积定理’，是将只关系到光脉冲在二能级系统中传播的面积定理的一种推广。所得结果和用光与玻色物质耦合模型对增强吸收型光双稳的解决是一致的。