The discovery of nanometer fringes in laser self-mixing interference

We demonstrate the influences of optical feedback from an external mirror with high reflectivity in a He-Ne laser on self-mixing interference fringes and laser polarization states. When the external mirror is tilted to a certain level, the stable and uniform nanometer resolution fringes are generated. The fringe density is 40 times than that of the conventional self-mixing interference or two beam interference, and has still potential to be improved. Each self-mixing interference fringe corresponds to λ/80 displacement of the external mirror, i.e. 7.91 nm displacement of the external mirror. Moreover, when the movement direction of the external mirror is changed, the polarization flipping between two eigenstates will happen. The potential applications of the results are also discussed.     

Research on multiple-beam interference of pointolite and measurement of minute wedge angle

The intensity distribution of pointolite interference fringes and its characters are discussed by the theory of interference on the condition of glass plate thickness being non-uniform. A novel method of measuring wedge angle of plate is deduced and improved by selecting appropriate reflectivity (R). So, the glass plate with appropriate reflectivity should be adopted to improve the measurement precision for R has a much effect on fringes. The experiments and analysis show it is suitable that R is less than 0.5. By using the equations deduced, the wedge angle was measured and its value is 3.7 ÿ 10^?4.     

Simulation and fabrication study of porous silicon photonic crystal

The present work reports design and fabrication of porous silicon based one-dimensional (1D) photonic crystal. Distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) is a 1D photonic crystal composed of multilayer stack of high and low refractive index layers. Design of porous silicon DBR is a complex one and requires appropriate control in optical parameters of its constituent layers. In order to design DBR, two porous silicon single layer samples were fabricated using current density of 10 and 50 mA/cm². Optical characterization of single layer samples showed series of interference fringes. Reflective interferometric Fourier transform spectroscopy (RIFTS) method was employed to determine optical constants of porous silicon single layers. DBR simulation was carried out based on transfer matrix method. DBR was then fabricated using optical parameters obtained from RIFTS method. Reflection bandwidth of prepared DBR was found to be 216 nm, which is comparable to the simulated value of 203 nm.     

卡塞格林系统装调过程中高精度测角方法

为了能够准确测量同轴三反相机中次镜的倾斜量变化,提出一种新的角度测量方法,即用大口径干涉仪与经纬仪相结合进行测量。以主镜为测量基准,两镜相对倾角较小时,使用大口径干涉仪同时测量两镜的干涉条纹,相对倾斜角度过大时次镜无干涉条纹,加入一台经纬仪分别自准直于干涉仪和次镜,间接测量两镜相对夹角。通过模拟计算与实验验证表明,对于次镜组件倾角测量误差可以控制在0.5″以内。结果表明,该检测方法具有通用性强,测量精度高等特点,克服了传统检测方法测量精度不足的问题。     

Magnetic structures in Ni80Fe20/Ru multilayers

Using polarized neutron reflectivity (PNR) measurements together with associated simulation, magnetic structures of two Ni₈₀Fe₂₀ (1 1 1)/Ru (0 0 0 1) multilayer samples with Ru thickness of 9 and 21 Å were investigated under various external magnetic fields at room temperature. The results reveal the existence of layer thickness, interface roughness, magnetic moment, interlayer coupling angle and non-collinear coupling. The former three are independent of Ru thickness; while the latter two are strongly dependent of Ru thickness.     

平面反射镜表面散射光干涉

激光束照射到表面被粘污的反射镜上会产生干涉环,入射光束和反射光束在被粘污表面产生散射光干涉.随着入射角的变化,光束在反射镜玻璃片内光程改变,引起干涉环从中心冒出或缩进,干涉环级数的变化与入射角的平方成正比.     

Analysis on the laser beam pointing instability induced fringe shift and contrast dilution from different interferometers used for writing fiber Bragg grating

This paper presents an analysis on the effect of laser beam pointing instability on the fringe shift and hence the contrast dilution of superposed fringes from two beam interferometers. The interferometers analyzed are those commonly used in writing fiber Bragg grating (FBG) such as phase mask, bi-prism and phase mask based Talbot/Holographic type. The beam pointing instability is incorporated as slight change in the angle between two interfering beams. The relative immunity of different interferometers to laser beam pointing is discussed vs location of FBG writing plane from the beam splitter. The effect of the beam pointing was minimum in proximity FBG writing by phase mask. The effect, in terms of fringes contrast dilution, was worst in case of large length interferometers e.g. phase mask based-Talbot interferometer. For intermediate length prism interferometers, the effect was moderate. For a given length interferometer, the fringe shift was directly proportional to beam pointing angle and inversely proportional to fringe separation. Theoretical analysis is verified experimentally by studying the fringe instability of interference pattern formed by a bi-prism of angle 2^o with the copper vapour laser (CVL, λ = 510 nm) beams of different beam pointing instabilities.     

非接触法自动测量薄膜厚度

根据白光等厚干涉原理,基于单片机改造的迈氏干涉仪用于自动测量透明薄膜厚度,采用非接触性测量法。当迈克尔逊干涉仪静镜形成的虚像与动镜相交所成的夹角很小时,在光屏上看到彩色干涉条纹,插入薄膜后,光程差改变,彩纹消失。步进电机带动微调手轮转动,当彩纹再次出现,即可得出透明薄膜厚度。     

On the angular dependence of gaps in 1-D Si/SiO2 periodic structures

A multilayer of silicon and silicon dioxide was used to study the angular dependence of reflectance maxima originating from interference and bulk optical properties. Silicon dioxide has a lattice resonance in the infrared causing an interval of high reflectance for wavelengths around 9 μm. The multilayer was designed such that the interference maxima do not overlap/interact with the material related reflectance maximum. In this way the different angular behavior for the two types of reflectance maxima can be studied simultaneously. Experimental and calculated reflectance spectra for s- and p-polarized light for angles of incidence between 0° and 90° collected for every 5° are presented. The reflectance features caused by interference generally move to shorter wavelengths with increasing angle of incidence, and the materials related peak is widened for (s-polarized light) and excitation of the longitudinal modes was observed for p-polarized light.     

Modified super-wide-angle Sagnac imaging interferometer based on LCoS for atmospheric wind measurement

The modified super-wide-angle Sagnac imaging interferometer (MSASII) based on liquid crystals on silicon (LCoS) is proposed as a novel device for the detection of the upper atmospheric wind field. This device employs the phase-only modulation (POM) of LCoS coupled with the MSASII, and can measure phase changes in multi-band emissions without moving mirror. It can be used to replace the conventional Michelson’s interferometer with step-moving mirror device. The optical path difference (OPD) equation of MSASII-LCoS is derived, and the four compensation conditions (field, chromatics, thermal and achromaticity of thermal compensations) are discussed within the scope of wind measurement. The real parameters of LCoS and optical glasses are selected for numerical simulation and analysis. Three aurora lines (732.0, 630.0 and 557.7 nm) are considered, and their phase variations are 3.61, 2.02 and 0.15 fringes at the same incident angle of 3°, respectively. The rate of change of OPD with temperature is the magnitude of 10⁻⁶ cm/K, and the corresponding phase variations are within 0.09 fringes. The accuracy of phase modulation can be 0.614×10⁻² rad when LCoS of 10-bits is used. The novel model MSASII-LCoS shows its advantage for atmospheric wind measurement in the aspects of the overall structure, anti-vibration, operational flexibility and detection accuracy.     

Surface plasmon polaritons maskless lithography of metal–dielectric multilayers with tunable resolution

We report the design of surface plasmon polaritons maskless lithography based on metal–dielectric multilayers. The interference pattern is generated by the interference of the counter-propagating bulk plasmon polariton (BPP) modes, which are excited by the attenuated total reflection method. The resolution of the interference fringes can be tuned with the incident angles, because different BPP modes are excited in the metal–dielectric multilayers. The feature size as small as 34 nm (about λ/13) can be realized under the 436 nm TM-polarized illumination, which is suitable for deep-subwavelength lithography. The exposure depth decreases with increasing the resonant angle. Electromagnetic simulations by a finite difference time-domain method on the two-dimensional and three-dimensional examples have been performed to validate the designs.     

Magnetic Compton profiles of Fe thin film and anisotropy of Co/Pd multilayer

The magnetic Compton profiles (MCPs) of Fe thin film with 1 μm thickness have been successfully measured, using polyethylene terephtalate (PET) substrates with 4 μm thickness to reduce scattering photons from substrate.We have succeeded for the first time to observe the anisotropy of MCPs in the Co/Pd multilayer. The magnetic out-of-plane anisotropy of the current Co (0.8 nm)/Pd (1.6 nm) multilayer sample can be explained by the model of a large number of the |m|=1 states of 3d-bands.     

High-resolution X-ray diffraction studies of combinatorial epitaxial Ge (0 0 1) thin-films on Ge (0 0 1) substrates

We report high-resolution X-ray diffraction studies of combinatorial epitaxial Ge (0 0 1) thin-films with varying doping concentrations of Co and Mn grown on Ge (0 0 1) substrates. The crystalline structure of the epitaxial thin-film has been determined using crystal-truncation rod (CTR) measurements and fitting analysis. By analyzing the fine interference fringes in the CTR intensity profile, strain sensitivity of ∼0.003% has been achieved. Using this method, the evolution of interfacial structures has been quantified as a function of doping concentration.     

Fringes of equal chromatic low orders

A new kind of chromatic interference fringe is produced by crossing the dispersion of a plane diffraction grating by an auxiliary dispersion (a spectograph). These are called fringes of equal chromatic low orders, since they have orders of values 0, ±1, ±2,..., etc. The fringes are straight chromatic lines having a separation which is directly proportional to the wavelength. These fringes can be used to measure exactly the grating space, and they afford a continuous wavelength calibration of the auxiliary spectograph. The wavelength can be determined accurately to ±0.04% with a grating having 2000 lines of spacing 0.05 mm.     

Effects of thermal light source properties in two-photon subwavelength coincidence interference experiments

We perform two-photon coincidence subwavelength interference experiments from double slit using independent photons obtained from a pseudo-thermal light source produced by (i) slowly rotating ground glass (RGG) with turbid solution of a different density and (ii) RGG. The turbid solution is water solution containing 3 μm diameter polystyrene microspheres. It is found that the visibility of the obtained interference pattern decreases in first experiment with increasing the density of the turbid solution from N = 10¹⁰ spheres m⁻³ to N = 10¹⁴ spheres m⁻³. However, the results are reported here for the density of N = 10¹⁴ spheres m⁻³. The visibility obtained with RGG with turbid solution having N = 10¹⁴ spheres m⁻³is 23% which increases to 27% with RGG but the resolution decreases. The effect of coherence width of source in two-photon interference pattern is also studied with pseudo-thermal light obtained by RGG. It was observed that on increasing the coherence width the visibility of interference fringes increased and quality of the fringe reduced and when the coherence width was more then slit separation, in coincidence measurements, no interference pattern appeared. The results are used to explore the classical subwavelength interference nature with thermal light.     

High temperature annealing effect on structural and magnetic properties of Ti/Ni multilayers

High temperature annealing effect on structural and magnetic properties of Ti/Ni multilayer (ML) up to 600 °C have been studied and reported in this paper. Ti/Ni multilayer samples having constant layer thicknesses of 50 Å each are deposited on float glass and Si(1 1 1) substrates using electron-beam evaporation technique under ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions at room temperatures. The micro-structural parameters and their evolution with temperature for as-deposited as well as annealed multilayer samples up to 600 °C in a step of 100 °C for 1 h are determined by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and grazing incidence X-ray reflectivity techniques. The X-ray diffraction pattern recorded at 300 °C annealed multilayer sample shows interesting structural transformation (from crystalline to amorphous) because of the solid-state reaction (SSR) and subsequent re-crystallization at higher temperatures of annealing, particularly at ≥400 °C due to the formation of TiNi₃ and Ti₂Ni alloy phases. Sample quality and surface morphology are examined by using atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique for both as-deposited as well as annealed multilayer samples. In addition to this, a temperature dependent dc resistivity measurement is also used to study the structural transformation and subsequent alloy phase formation due to annealing treatment. The corresponding magnetization behavior of multilayer samples after each stage of annealing has been investigated by using Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect (MOKE) technique and results are interpreted in terms of observed micro-structural changes.     

Quadrature fringes wide-field optical coherence tomography and its applications to biological tissues

We propose and demonstrate quadrature fringes wide-field optical coherence tomography (QF WF OCT) to expand an optical Hilbert transformation to two-dimensions. This OCT simultaneously measures two quadrature interference images using a single InGaAs CCD camera to obtain en face OCT images. The axial and lateral resolutions are measured at 29 μm in air and 70 μm limited by a pixel size of camera using a superluminescent diode with a wavelength of 1.3 μm as the light source; the system sensitivity is determined to be −90 dB. The area of the en face OCT images is 4.0 mm × 4.0 mm (160 × 160  pixels). The OCT images are measured axially with steps of 10 μm. The en face OCT images of a in vivo human fingertip and a in situ rat brain are three-dimensionally measured up to the depth of about 3 mm with some degradations of a lateral resolution.     

Precise interferometric length measurement using real-time fringe fitting

We created a simple device for the measurement of nanoscale displacements consisting in a Twyman-Green interferometer with one mirror having a slight offset in the horizontal plane with respect to the direction perpendicular to the incoming beam and one mobile mirror, a CCD array camera that captures frames of fringes (interferograms) generated by the interferometer and a software that acquires the interferograms captured by the camera and fits the fringes in order to determine the initial spatial phase of the series of fringes and, consequently, to monitor the movement of the mobile arm of the interferometer. Because the interferograms were acquired and analyzed sequentially, the algorithm could be parallelized easily on a multiprocessor/multicore platform. The device can work in real-time in which case the maximum speed of the mobile arm of the interferometer for which we can obtain unambiguous results is 30 λ/8/s, which is, assuming a He-Ne laser as the light source, almost 2.5 μm/s. In real-time conditions, the precision and accuracy of the measurement are low. In stationary conditions, however, the precision was determined to be below 1 nm.     

Tunable resonance frequency of FeNi films by oblique sputtering

FeNi thin films were fabricated by radio frequency magnetron sputtering on Si(1 1 1). Dynamic properties at remanence of the films were systematically investigated in a wide frequency range from 100 MHz to 5 GHz. The results show that both thickness of FeNi films and oblique angle have important effects on the magnetic properties of the films, the magnetic resonant frequency of the films can also be adjusted by the two factors. The in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy field can be adjusted from 82 Oe to 220 Oe by increasing the oblique angle. As a consequence, the magnetic resonant frequency of the films increased from 2.7 GHz to 4.2 GHz.     

Measurement of nonlinear refractive index of ethyl red by interference of capillary

Using the intensity distribution of interference fringes formed by a capillary filled with transparent liquid, the variations in refractive index (RI) of nonlinear optical materials, corresponding to change of the intensity at the centre of fringes for a period, were deduced. With this conclusion, we measured variations in RI of ethyl red (ER) solution excited by a 535-nm-15 mW-laser, and found that the change of RI is 0.00504 and the corresponding effective index of refraction is −1.06 × 10⁻⁹, for which the order of magnitude is same as that measured by Z-scan. The influences on the accuracy of the method, such as temperature, beam and fringe contrast, were analyzed. This is a novel and simple method for measuring the RI of nonlinear optical materials.