A novel spectroscopic filter used in rotational Raman lidar for the temperature profiling

We perform the rotational Raman temperature measurements in the troposphere and lower stratosphere with high performance. Depending on the aerosol content and presence of clouds in the lower troposphere, the rotational Raman lidar (RRL) is the lidar technique of choice for temperature measurements. However, the Raman filter design is a technical difficulty in RRL systems. Considering the higher spectral resolution and compactness, we select several photonic crystals to construct a novel spectroscopic filter for extracting the required rotational Raman spectrum (RRS) signals of atmospheric molecules. We describe in detail the principle to design the photonic-crystal filter. To verify the feasibility of the novel spectroscopic filter, we carry out some numerical calculations, and our results show that the novel spectroscopic filter has the capability to fine draw the required RRS signal and suppress sufficiently elastic signals. For the RRL system which uses the novel spectroscopic filter, we obtain that a statistical temperature error is less than 1 K up to a height of 3.2 and 5.6 km for daytime and nighttime measurements, respectively. Our simulation conditions are as follows: 532 nm laser with 500 mJ energy, and 10 Hz pulse repeating rate, a 300 mm diameter Cassegrain reflecting telescope with 1000 mm focus length, 0.2 mm diameter multimode optical fiber which sets the field of view (FOV) of receiving system to 0.2 mrad, 45 m range resolution, 9 min observation time, overall optical-system efficiency of 0.6, and a special atmospheric model which integrates the US standard model of 1976 with an actual Mie scattering profile obtained from practical observations.     

大气边界层白天温度测量用转动拉曼激光雷达

设计了一个转动拉曼激光雷达系统,对大气边界层温度进行全天候高精度测量。系统选用波长355 nm的紫外激光作光源,采用高光谱分辨力光栅,将雷达接收到的散射信号以及太阳背景光从空间上分离,配合边缘反射镜,反射转动拉曼信号,去除大部分米氏-瑞利散射和太阳背景光噪声信号,并用两个窄带干涉滤光片,分离中心波长为353.9 nm和353.1 nm转动拉曼散射信号,同时对噪声信号进行2次高精度剔除,以保证白天测量的需要。对系统进行了分析及数值计算,结果表明在激光脉冲能量300 mJ,望远镜有效口径25 cm,测量时间10 min的条件下,可以在白天太阳背景光辐射度为3×108W/(m2.sr.nm)的边界层内测量高度2.5 km以下的大气温度分布,并在大气散射比低于2.5的条件下,温度测量精度可达到1 K。     

A detection of atmospheric relative humidity profile by UV Raman lidar

A new spectroscopic filter constructed with a high-spectral-resolution grating and two narrow-band mirrors is designed to separate the elastic scattering and the vibrational Raman scattering spectra in an ultraviolet (UV) Raman lidar system. The density of humidity and water vapor mixing ratio are calculated from the vibrational Raman scattering signals of N₂ and H₂O. Water vapor mixing ratio is retrieved from this development. With this measured water vapor mixing ratio, the relative humidity is calculated with atmospheric temperature profile obtained by another Raman temperature lidar. Preliminary experiments and comparison results between lidar and radiosonde showed that the UV Raman lidar system has the capability for profiling the water vapor mixing ratio up to a height of 2 km with less than 10% of the uncertainty under the conditions of laser energy of 300 mJ and signal-averaging time of 10 min.     

A pure rotational Raman lidar using double-grating monochromator for temperature profile detection

A pure rotational Raman lidar is constructed for measurements of vertical temperature profiles of atmosphere. A fiber-coupled, double-grating monochromator is used as the filter system so that a high spectral resolution of <0.23 nm and an out-of-band rejection rate of 10⁷ are achieved. Comparison with in-situ measurements indicates that the accuracy of atmospheric temperature measurements using this lidar system is better than 1.1 K up to an altitude of 10 km. Different effects on signal accuracy resulting from various noise sources are analyzed and uncertainties in temperature due to detection noises are estimated.     

Photoluminescence and Raman analysis of novel ZnO tetrapod and multipod nanostructures

Novel ZnO tetrapod and multipod nanostructures were successfully synthesized in bulk quantity through thermal evaporation method. The morphologies and structures of the ZnO nanostructures were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. The results revealed that the ZnO nanostructures consisted of tetrapods and multipods with tower-like legs. The ZnO nanostructures were of high purity and were well crystallized with wurtzite structure. The preferred growth direction of legs was found to be the [0 0 0 1] direction. Possible growth mechanisms were proposed for the formation of the ZnO nanostructures. Room temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectra showed that the as-synthesized ZnO nanostructures had a strong green emission centered at 495 nm and a weak ultraviolet emission at 383 nm. Raman spectroscopy was also adopted to explore the structural quality of the ZnO nanostructures.     

多条转动拉曼谱线雷达测量对流层大气温度

由于对流层大气中气溶胶的存在,传统的利用大气中瑞利散射和振动拉曼散射测量大气温度的方法具有一定的局限性,然而利用大气N₂和O₂分子的的转动拉曼信号获得大气温度信息的方法不受对流层大气中气溶胶的影响。因此利用N₂和O₂分子纯转动拉曼散射激光雷达开展了测量对流层下部温度分布的实验研究。现有的转动拉曼雷达系统基本上是通过获取单一的转动拉曼谱线来反演大气温度,这就导致了系统的信噪比低,不能很好的反演温度。作者在双光栅单色仪的基础上提出了一种新的雷达信号分光系统。这种新的分光系统的每条通道所获得的信号并不是单独的转动拉曼谱线,而是多条转动拉曼谱线之和,这样就能提高整个系统的信噪比。在较小的激光能量和小口径望远镜的情况下,利用这种方法,雷达系统可以在几公里内获得较好的信噪比。最后实验得到了对流层0.3～5 km高度内的大气温度分布, 它与球载无线电探空仪比较, 二者一致性较好。     

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering effect of gold nanoparticle arrays: The influence of annealing temperature,excitation power and array thickness

Gold nanoparticle arrays are fabricated for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and the effect of the annealing temperature, the thickness of nanoparticle array and the exciting power on the SERS signals are investigated. The particle distribution and particle size are dense and uniform on the glass substrate when the 10 nm gold film was annealed at 250 °C and strong SERS signals for Rhodamine 6G were achieved via a 532 nm excitation with a 10 mW power. The SERS signal at 1650 cm⁻¹ is enhanced more than 10 times as compared to that of the gold film without annealing. The strong SERS behavior of gold nanoparticle arrays may broaden the SERS applications in biomedical and analytical chemistry.     

绝对探测大气温度的纯转动拉曼激光雷达系统

纯转动拉曼激光雷达是探测大气温度廓线的重要手段之一,其正常工作需要配置其他并行校正设备,制约其在气象及环境监测领域中的实用化进程.基于大气氮气分子的纯转动拉曼谱型对温度的依赖性,提出并设计了绝对探测大气温度廓线的纯转动拉曼激光雷达系统.系统采用波长532 nm且脉冲能量300 m J的激光激励源和口径250 mm卡塞格林望远镜的接收器,设计了衍射光栅和光纤Bragg光栅结合的多通道并行纯转动拉曼光谱分光系统;仿真分析氮气和氧气分子的纯转动拉曼散射谱线间关系,优化选择了6条氮气分子的纯转动拉曼谱线以直接反演大气温度,设计了两级滤光器间转接光纤阵列的结构;基于最小二乘原理推导了绝对探测大气温度的反演算法,并结合标准大气模型,分析了纯转动拉曼激光雷达绝对探测大气温度的探测性能.结果表明,所设计纯转动拉曼激光雷达系统可直接反演大气温度廓线,在测量时间17 min内,温度偏差小于0.5 K的探测高度达2.0 km.     

Single-wavelength-pump bi-directional hybrid fiber amplifier for bi-directional local area network application

This paper proposes a novel bi-directional hybrid fiber amplifier using a single-wavelength pump laser diode (LD) at 1495 nm. The hybrid amplifier is theoretically applied in a 50 km bi-directional local area network (LAN) with 26 ch × 10 Gb/s for bi-directional transmission. Thirteen C-band channels serve as downlink signals while the other 13 L-band channels are employed as uplink signals. Without loss of generality, four channels (two from each band) are experimentally analyzed. Erbium doped fiber (EDF) provides amplification for the C-band channels and Raman amplification amplifies the L-band channels. The pump efficiency is improved by employing a double-pass scheme for both the Erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) and Raman fiber amplifier (RFA). The chromatic dispersion incurred by all the channels is precisely compensated for by inserting a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) array in appropriate locations along the dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) segments. Moreover, gain equalization of all the channels is achieved by adjusting the FBG reflectivity. Both the simulation results and experimental measurements confirm the proposed device feasibility and potential application in a bi-directional LAN.     

Strong ultraviolet emission from zinc oxide thin films prepared by electrophoretic deposition

In this paper, we report a simple and efficient method to prepare high-quality nanocrystalline ZnO films by electrophoretic deposition. Absorption spectrum and transmission electron microscope image indicated that the average size of ZnO nanoparticles is about 9.5 nm. A strong ultraviolet emission peak at 384 nm is observed and the deep-level emission band is barely observed at room temperature. X-ray diffraction pattern revealed that the ZnO film has a polycrystalline hexagonal wurtzite structure. The Raman spectrum showed a typical resonant multi-phonon process within the ZnO film. The frequency shift of 1 LO phonon was about 583 cm⁻¹.     

Photoluminescence and field emission properties of Sn-doped ZnO microrods

Sn-doped ZnO (SZO) microrods have been fabricated by a thermal evaporation method. Effect of Sn dopant on the microstructure, morphological and composition of as-prepared SZO microrods have been investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy. The influence of the doping concentration on the morphological of the microrods has been investigated. Photoluminescence (PL) of these SZO microrods exhibits a weak ultraviolet (UV) emission peak at around 382 nm and the strong green emission peak at around 525 nm at room temperature. Field emission measurements demonstrate that the SZO possess good performance with a turn-on field of ∼1.94 V/μm and a threshold field of ∼3.23 V/μm, which have promising application as a competitive cathode material in FE microelectronic devices.     

Auger and photoluminescence analysis of ZnO nanowires grown on AlN thin film

ZnO nanowires were grown on AlN thin film deposited on the glass substrates using a physical vapor deposition method in a conventional tube furnace without introducing any catalysts. The temperature of the substrates was maintained between 500 and 600 °C during the growth process. The typical average diameters of the obtained nanowires on substrate at 600 and 500 °C were about 57 and 22 nm respectively with several micrometers in length. X-ray diffraction and Auger spectroscopy results showed Al diffused from AlN thin film into the ZnO nanowires for the sample grown at 600 °C. Photoluminescence of the nanowires exhibits appearance of two emission bands, one related to ultraviolet emission with a strong peak at 380-382 nm, and the other related to deep level emission with a weak peak at 503-505 nm. The ultraviolet peak of the nanowires grown at 500 °C was blue shifted by 2 nm compared to those grown at 600 °C. This shift could be attributed to surface effect.     

Plasmon resonance modulated photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopy of diindenoperylene organic semiconductor thin film

In a comparison between a bare diindenoperylene (DIP) film and a DIP film spin-coated with a layer of gold nanoparticles, we have investigated the influence of plasmon resonances in the gold particles on spectroscopic properties of the molecular film. Under off-resonant excitation with a laser at 633 nm, the bare DIP film showed only weak photoluminescence (PL) and Raman signals, but after spin-coating gold nanoparticles on such a DIP film, we found an enhancement of both the PL and Raman signals by a factor of about 3, whereas no enhancement could be observed when the same sample was excited with laser light of 488 nm. This difference reveals that at 633 nm, plasmon resonances in the gold nanoparticles are excited, leading in turn to an enhancement of PL and Raman signals of the weakly absorbing DIP film via coupling between plasmons in the gold particles and exciton-polaritons in the molecular film. For the laser at 488 nm, due to a much larger absorption coefficient of DIP, excitons in the molecular film are directly excited, out-weighing the influence of an off-resonant coupling to the plasmon resonances in the gold particles occurring at much lower energy.     

Temperature measurements in reacting flows by time-resolved femtosecond coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (fs-CARS) spectroscopy

Time-resolved femtosecond coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (fs-CARS) spectroscopy of the nitrogen molecule is used for the measurement of temperature in atmospheric-pressure, near-adiabatic, hydrogen-air diffusion flames. The initial frequency-spread dephasing rate of the Raman coherence induced by the ultrafast (∼85 fs) Stokes and pump beams is used as a measure of gas-phase temperature. This initial frequency-spread dephasing rate of the Raman coherence is completely independent of collisions and depends only on the frequency spread of the Raman transitions at different temperatures. A simple theoretical model based on the assumption of impulsive excitation of Raman coherence is used to extract temperatures from time-resolved fs-CARS experimental signals. The extracted temperatures from fs-CARS signals are in excellent agreement with the theoretical temperatures calculated from an adiabatic equilibrium calculation. The estimated absolute accuracy and the precision of the measurement technique are found to be ±40 K and ±50 K, respectively, over the temperature range 1500-2500 K.     

The crystallization and physical properties of Al-doped ZnO nanoparticles

Un-doped Al (0-9 at.%) nanoparticles and doped ZnO powders were prepared by the sol-gel method. The nanoparticles were heated at 700-800 °C for 1 h in air and then analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectra and photoluminescence (PL). The results of un-doped (ZnO) and Al-doped ZnO (AZO) nanoparticles were also compared to investigate the structural characteristics and physical properties. XRD patterns of AZO powders were similar to those of ZnO powders, indicating that micro-Al ions were substituted for Zn atoms and there were no variations in the structure of the ZnO nanoparticles. From the XRD and SEM data, the grain size of the AZO nanoparticles increased from 34.41 to 40.14 nm when the annealing temperature was increased. The Raman intensity of the AZO nanoparticles (Al = 5 at.%) increased when the annealing temperature was increased. Increasing the degree of crystalline not only reduced the residual stress, but also improved the physical properties of the nanoparticles.     

Effect of annealing on structural, optical and electrical properties of nanostructured Ge thin films

Ge thin films with a thickness of about 110 nm have been deposited by electron beam evaporation of 99.999% pure Ge powder and annealed in air at 100-500 °C for 2 h. Their optical, electrical and structural properties were studied as a function of annealing temperature. The films are amorphous below an annealing temperature of 400 °C as confirmed by XRD, FESEM and AFM. The films annealed at 400 and 450 °C exhibit X-ray diffraction pattern of Ge with cubic-F structure. The Raman spectrum of the as-deposited film exhibits peak at 298 cm⁻¹, which is left-shifted as compared to that for bulk Ge (i.e. 302 cm⁻¹), indicating nanostructure and quantum confinement in the as-deposited film. The Raman peak shifts further towards lower wavenumbers with annealing temperature. Optical band gap energy of amorphous Ge films changes from 1.1 eV with a substantial increase to ∼1.35 eV on crystallization at 400 and 450 °C and with an abrupt rise to 4.14 eV due to oxidation. The oxidation of Ge has been confirmed by FTIR analysis. The quantum confinement effects cause tailoring of optical band gap energy of Ge thin films making them better absorber of photons for their applications in photo-detectors and solar cells. XRD, FESEM and AFM suggest that the deposited Ge films are composed of nanoparticles in the range of 8-20 nm. The initial surface RMS roughness measured with AFM is 9.56 nm which rises to 12.25 nm with the increase of annealing temperature in the amorphous phase, but reduces to 6.57 nm due to orderedness of the atoms at the surface when crystallization takes place. Electrical resistivity measured as a function of annealing temperature is found to reduce from 460 to 240 Ω-cm in the amorphous phase but drops suddenly to 250 Ω-cm with crystallization at 450 °C. The film shows a steep rise in resistivity to about 22.7 KΩ-cm at 500 °C due to oxidation. RMS roughness and resistivity show almost opposite trends with annealing in the amorphous phase.     

Synthesis and optical properties of flower-like ZnO nanorods by thermal evaporation method

Flower-like ZnO nanorods have been synthesized by heating a mixture of ZnO/graphite powders using the thermal evaporation and vapor transport on Si (1 0 0) substrates without any catalyst. The structures, morphologies and optical properties of the products were characterized in detail by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), photoluminescence (PL) and Raman spectroscopy. The synthesized products consisted of large quantities of flower-like ZnO nanostructures in the form of uniform nanorods. The flower-like ZnO nanorods had high purity and well crystallized wurtzite structure, whose high crystalline quality was proved by Raman spectroscopy. The as-synthesized flower-like ZnO nanorods showed a strong ultraviolet emission at 386 nm and a weak and broad yellow-green emission in visible spectrum in its room temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectrum. In addition, the growth mechanism of the flower-like ZnO nanorods was discussed based on the reaction conditions.     

On duty cycle selection of RZ optical pulse to optimize the performance of dispersion compensated 10 Gbps single channel optical communication system using dispersion compensating fibers

We present results for duty cycle selection of optical RZ pulse to optimize the performance in 10 Gbps single channel dispersion compensated optical communication system. The system has link length of 240 km with two spans. Each of the spans consists of 120 km standard single mode fiber (SSMF) of 16 ps/nm/km, whose chromatic dispersion is compensated using pre-, post- and symmetrical-dispersion compensation schemes by 24 km dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) of −80 ps/nm/km. The performance of the three compensation schemes is compared by taking 8, 10, 12 and 14 dBm Er-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) power levels in the link with a duty cycle range (0.1-0.9) of RZ optical pulse. The graphical results obtained show a relationship among the duty cycle, EDFA power and dispersion compensation scheme which predicts the best performing duty cycle case. To optimize performance of the system, we recommend in general, duty cycle less than 0.3 and EDFA power below 8 dB irrespective of compensation scheme. However, with post compensation duty cycle less than 0.7 and EDFA power below 12 dBm give optimum performance. The results conclude that for the high value of duty cycle, post dispersion compensation scheme should be used.     

Simulative analysis of co-existing 2.5 G/10 G asymmetric XG-PON system using RZ and NRZ data formats

In this paper, a fiber optic communication system has been employed using co-existing 10 G/2.5 G asymmetric gigabit passive optical network (XG-PON) architecture. In this system, bidirectional optical fiber has been used for upstream and downstream data transmission. The system performance has been investigated for non-return-to-zero (NRZ) and return-to-zero (RZ) data formats operating at varying bit rates by varying the length of the fiber for analyzing the feasibility of this co-existence. The results have been compared for NRZ and RZ formats for upstream and downstream data in terms of Q value and eye opening. It is observed that RZ modulation format is superior as compared to conventional NRZ format and the faithful transmission of signal has been carried up to 90 km at 1577 nm for downstream and 140 km at 1270 nm for upstream.     

Characteristics of electron beam evaporated nanocrystalline SnO2 thin films annealed in air

Tin oxide (SnO₂) thin films (about 200 nm thick) have been deposited by electron beam evaporation followed by annealing in air at 350-550 °C for two hours. Optical, electrical and structural properties were studied as a function of annealing temperature. The as-deposited film is amorphous, while all other annealed films are crystalline (having tetragonal structure). XRD suggest that the films are composed of nanoparticles of 5-10 nm. Raman analysis and optical measurements suggest quantum confinement effects that are enhanced with annealing temperature. For instance, Raman peaks of the as-deposited films are blue-shifted as compared to those for bulk SnO₂. Blue shift becomes more pronounced with annealing temperature. Optical band gap energy of amorphous SnO₂ film is 3.61 eV, which increases to about 4.22 eV after crystallization. Two orders of magnitude decrease in resistivity is observed after annealing at 350-400 °C due to structural ordering and crystallization. The resistivity, however, increases slightly with annealing temperature above 400 °C, possibly due to improvement in stoichiometry and associated decrease in charge carrier density.