Femtosecond optical packet generation by a direct space-to-time pulse shaper

We demonstrate femtosecond operation of a direct space-to-time pulse shaper in which there is direct mapping (no Fourier transform) between the spatial position of the masking function and the temporal position in the output waveform. We use this apparatus to generate trains of 20 pulses as an ultrafast optical data packet over an ~40-ps temporal window.     

Simple time-domain optical method for estimating the depth and concentration of a fluorescent inclusion in a turbid medium

A simple time-domain optical method for estimating the depth and concentration of fluorescent inclusions in turbid media is described. We demonstrate direct depth estimation of a localized fluorescent object from the temporal position of the temporal point-spread function maximum. The depth estimation permits recovery of the fluorophore concentration, both of which are essential quantities for optical molecular imaging studies. Since the maximum is independent of the fluorophore concentration, excitation laser power, detector gain, and other system-dependent factors, this method ensures a robust and efficient approach.     

静电聚焦同心球系统验证电子光学成像系统的时间像差理论

关于动态电子光学成像系统的时间像差理论,计算时间像差系数有两种方法——τ变分法和直接积分法.它们的差别在于：τ变分法计算二级几何时间像差系数必须求解微分方程,而直接积分法仅需进行积分运算.采用静电同心球系统的理想模型对这两种方法的正确 性进行了检验.结果表明：这两种方法求解电子光学成像系统的时间像差系数的结果完全一致,所求得的时间色差系数与理想模型的解析解完全相同,从而证明两种方法是等价并且正确的.通过验证表明,直接积分法的计算更为简便,适于实际系统的计算与设计. 关键词： 阴极透镜 电子光学成像系统 动态电子光学 时间像差理论     

部分空间和部分光谱相干高斯-谢尔模型脉冲光束在自由空间中的光谱和时间特性

 对部分空间和部分光谱相干２维高斯-谢尔模型脉冲光束在自由空间传输的光谱和时间特性做了详细的数值研究。结果表明,部分空间和部分光谱相干高斯-谢尔模型脉冲光束在自由空间传输中发生了光谱移动,光谱移动与场点位置、空间相关长度和时间相干长度有关。在轴上,光谱出现蓝移,相对光谱移动随传输距离的增加而增大,随空间相关长度和时间相干长度的增加而减小,并逐渐趋于一定值。在轴外,光谱出现蓝移和红移,并与空间相关长度和时间相干长度有关。脉冲时间波形不变,对所得主要结果做了物理解释。     

Sightlines and soundlines—The design of an audience seating area

Many new criteria for good auditorium acoustics have been proposed in recent years. These criteria take into account the details of human perception of sound, as well as the physics of sound propagation—for example, the temporal and directional distribution of reflected sounds received binaurally is thought to be very important. However, many seats in well-known auditoria have inadequate sightlines and thus people sitting in them lack direct sound components. Since it is the direct sound that gives information regarding the temporal sequence and location of sound sources, and, to some extent, also determines the ability to perceive subsequent reflected sound components, it is essential that all seats in an auditorium should have good sightlines and thus direct soundlines.     

Estimating the depth and lifetime of a fluorescent inclusion in a turbid medium using a simple time-domain optical method

A simple time-domain optical method for estimating the depth (d) and lifetime (tau) of fluorescent inclusions in a turbid medium is described. We demonstrate the method for depth and lifetime estimation of a fluorescent inclusion directly by fitting a monoexponential decay (tau(eff)) of the temporal position of the temporal point-spread function and the measurement of its maximum temporal position (t(max)). Since both of these measurements are intensity independent, this method provides a robust and efficient approach. This method is validated with experimental data.     

The stress-velocity relationship of twinning partial dislocations and the phonon-based physical interpretation

The dependence of dislocation mobility on stress is the fundamental ingredient for the deformation in crystalline materials. Strength and ductility, the two most important properties characterizing mechanical behavior of crystalline metals, are in general governed by dislocation motion. Recording the position of a moving dislocation in a short time window is still challenging, and direct observations which enable us to deduce the speed-stress relationship of dislocations are still missing. Using large-scale molecular dynamics simulations, we obtain the motion of an obstacle-free twinning partial dislocation in face centred cubic crystals with spatial resolution at the angstrom scale and picosecond temporal information. The dislocation exhibits two limiting speeds: the first is subsonic and occurs when the resolved shear stress is on the order of hundreds of megapascal. While the stress is raised to gigapascal level, an abrupt jump of dislocation velocity occurs, from subsonic to supersonic regime. The two speed limits are governed respectively by the local transverse and longitudinal phonons associated with the stressed dislocation, as the two types of phonons facilitate dislocation gliding at different stress levels.     

Quantum-mechanical analysis of pulse reconstruction for a narrow bandwidth attosecond x-ray pulse

The photoelectron energy spectra (PESs) excited by narrow bandwidth attosecond x-ray pulses in the presence of a few-cycle laser are quantum-mechanically calculated. Transfer equations are used to reconstruct the detailed temporal structure of an attosecond x-ray pulse directly from a measured PES. Theoretical analysis shows that the temporal uncertainties of the pulse reconstruction depend on the x-ray bandwidth. The procedure of pulse reconstruction is direct and simple without making any previous pulse assumption, data fitting analysis and time-resolved measurement of PESs. The temporal measurement range is half of a laser optical cycle.     

Self-referenced temporal phase reconstruction from intensity measurements using causality arguments in linear optical filters

We introduce and numerically demonstrate a simple and general concept for direct reconstruction of the temporal phase profile of an optical signal from temporal intensity measurements at the input and output of an arbitrary linear optical filter. The concept is based on exploiting the linearity and causality properties of any physical filter. Very few restrictions need to be imposed on the optical filter response to ensure an unambiguous phase reconstruction. The filter can be specifically designed to minimize the noise influence on the measurement process.     

Direct time-response measurement of high-speed optical modulators based on stretched-pulse interferometry

A simple technique for the direct measurement of the complex temporal response of a high-speed electro-optic (EO) modulator is proposed. This technique recovers the amplitude and phase temporal profiles of an instantaneous modulation over the duration of a chirped pulse (obtained by linear dispersion) using Fourier-transform interferometry, and it exploits the time-to-frequency mapping induced by the pulse dispersion process. The method can be implemented by using either time- or frequency-domain interferometric detection, allowing the characterization of modulation bandwidths in the tens-of-gigahertz range. The concept is demonstrated by accurately measuring the complex temporal response of a 2.5 Gbps intensity EO modulator.     

基于假设检验的小弱运动目标航迹起始

根据目标与噪音(或虚警)在时域和空域上所表现出的不同特性,提出了一种基于空域邻域聚类和时域轨迹连续性相结合的假设检验方法,以建立小弱运动目标航迹起始,并对其性能进行了详细分析.基本出发点是:空域上,小目标是占有少量像素且幅度均匀的小块,聚集度较高,而噪音点是独立、不相关的,聚集度较低;时域上,运动目标将以较大概率出现在由轨迹连续性决定的预测点邻域内,而虚警是杂乱无章,连续多次出现在该邻域内的几率较小.理论分析和实验结果表明,本文方法能较为有效地建立目标初始航迹.     

Wavelet analysis of digital shearing speckle patterns with a temporal carrier

Shearography is an optical technique allows direct measurement of deflection derivatives. This paper presents a novel temporal phase analysis technique based on wavelet transform when shearography is applied to measure a continuously deforming object. A series of shearing speckle patterns is captured by a high-speed camera during the deformation. To avoid the phase ambiguity problem, a temporal carrier is generated by a piezoelectrical transducer (PZT) stage in one beam of the modified Michelson interferometer. The intensity variation of each pixel on recorded images is then analyzed along time axis by a robust mathematical tool - complex Morlet wavelet transform. After the temporal carrier is removed, the absolute phase change representing the first-order derivative of the continuous deformation is obtained without the need of temporal or spatial phase unwrapping process. The results obtained by wavelet transform are compared with those from temporal Fourier transform.     

A Novel Technique to Measure the Spatial–Temporal Intensity of an Ultrashort Pulse

Based on a modified cross-correlation technique, we experimentally demonstrate a technique for measuring the spatial–temporal intensity of laser pulses. Pulse widths at different spatial positions of the ultrashort pulse are measured by changing the scan position of the probe beam. Due to the existence of residual chirp in the transverse position, pulse widths at the center of the beam are less than that at the edge. By measuring the temporal evolution in the fastest growth area of spatial intensity during small-scale self-focusing, we find that its pulse width decreases as power increases because of the spatial–temporal coupling effect. The results show that this method not only can be used to accurately measure the pulse width at any one spatial position of the beam, but can also be useful for real-time monitoring of the spatial–temporal evolution.     

Fast functional brain signal changes detected by diffusion weighted fMRI

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become the method of choice in the study of system neuroscience, as evidenced by an explosion of such literature in the past decade. Contrast mechanisms based on the blood oxygenation level, volume, and flow changes have been used to non-invasively detect brain activation secondary to the neuronal activity. However, because of the hemodynamic modulations inherent in these signals, their spatial and temporal characteristics are influenced by the complex geometry and varying delivery speed of the brain vasculature. Consequently, spatial dispersions and temporal delays are commonly seen in the brain activity using fMRI. It is thus of critical importance to investigate alternative contrast mechanisms that may offer shorter temporal delays and more direct spatial localization. In light of a recent phantom study which demonstrated the possibility to detect the destructive phase addition from the spatially incoherent, yet temporally synchronized, displacements caused by the Lorentz force experienced during electrical conduction within a strong magnetic field, we seek to apply similar imaging technique to investigate the functional signal changes that may provide alternative temporal and spatial characteristics. It is found that by using heavy diffusion weighting, which is one form of displacement encoding strategies, to remove the vascular signal and sensitize the minute and incoherent displacement, one can detect fast dynamic signal changes synchronized to the task. This finding may help take an initial step toward direct non-invasive MRI detection of the neuronal activity with improved temporal accuracy.     

Temporal filtering using time lenses for optical transmission systems

An optical signal processing scheme using time lenses in a 4-f configuration for optical communication systems is proposed. The first time-lens combined with a dispersive element such as an optical fiber produces the Fourier transform of the input signal and the second time lens combined with an optical fiber placed after the temporal filter produces the inverse Fourier transformation. Typically, in an optical signal processing scheme based on space/time-lens, the signal at the output is space/time-reversed because of the direct Fourier transformation after the spatial/temporal filter, which is undesirable for a practical optical communication system. Here, we propose a technique to implement both direct and inverse Fourier transformation using time lenses which has no spatial analogue. As a result, the bit sequence at the output is not time-reversed. Two applications of the proposed scheme, a demultiplexer for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems and a higher-order dispersion compensator, have been discussed and numerically implemented.     

On the theory of temporal aberrations for cathode lenses

A new approach to the theory of temporal aberration for cathode lenses is given in the present paper. A definition of temporal aberration is given in which a certain initial energy of electron emission along the axial direction ε_z1 (0ε_z1ε_0max) is considered. A new method to calculate the temporal aberration coefficients of cathode lenses named “direct integral method” is also presented. The “direct integral method” gives new expressions of the temporal aberration coefficients which are expressed in integral forms. The difference between “direct integral method” and “τ-variation method” is that the “τ-variation method” needs to solve the differential equations for the three of temporal geometrical aberration coefficients of second order, while the “direct integral method” only needs to carry out the integral calculation for all of these temporal aberration coefficients of second order.All of the formulae of the temporal aberration coefficients deduced from “direct integral method” and “τ-variation method” have been verified by an electrostatic concentric spherical system model, and contrasted with the analytical solutions. Results show that these two methods have got identical solutions and the solutions of temporal aberration coefficients of the first and second order are the same as with the analytical solutions. Although some forms of the results seem different, but they can be transformed into the same form. Thus, it can be concluded these two methods given by us are equivalent and correct, but the “direct integral method” is related to solve integral equations, which is more convenient for computation and could be suggested for use in practical design.     

直接积分法研究电子光学成像系统的时间像差理论

提出了计算动态电子光学成像系统时间像差系数的新方法——直接积分法.以阴极面逸出的轴向电子初能为ε_z1（0≤ε_z1≤ε_0max）的近轴电子 轨迹为比较 基准,给出了时间像差的定义,详细叙述了直接积分法并给出求解动态电子光学成像系统时 间像差系数的积分表达式.τ变分法求得的二级几何时间像差系数必须求解微分方程, 而直接积分法求得的二级几何时间像差系数全部以积分形式表示,仅需进行积分运算,更适 用于成像系统的实际计算与设计. 关键词： 电子光学成像系统 阴极透镜 动态电子光学 时间像差理论     

A new technique to characterize foliage attenuation using passive radar in the L-band

The goal of the experiment proposed in this paper is to give rapidly and with a limited equipment the attenuation level in the L-band for various elevation angles, between 20 and 70 degrees. The original principle is to use the L-band signal transmitted from an airport radar. The signal backscattered by a plane flying over the forest next to the airport is received on many antennas: some are over the canopy; others are on the ground under the foliage. The direct path signal transmitted by the airport radar is received by the antennas located above the forest. This signal is used to synchronize the temporal signals by detecting the waveform of the transmitting pulses. The signal backscattered by the plane is received by two H and V polar antennas located over the forest and by two other antennas placed under the foliage. The signals received by these antennas are digitized and processed to extract the plots of the opportunistic targets that approach the airport. The magnitudes of each plane echo are measured on each channel, and a comparison of the level of signal is made between the antenna above and under the forest. The ratio of magnitude between the two measurements on each polarization component gives the absorption factor of the foliage at the place of experiment. The position of the plane is given by an ADS-B receiver. For each elevation position of the antennas, the pattern of the chosen target will describe all the angles of arrival. This experiment has been deployed on two forested sites near an airport in South-East Asia.     

Collimation testing using wedge plate lateral shearing interferometry and Fourier fringe analysis

For checking the collimation of an optical beam Fourier fringe analysis has been incorporated into the wedge plate interferometric setup. Typical interferograms corresponding to ‘in-focus’, ‘at-focus’ and ‘out-of-focus’ positions of an optical beam have been recorded. As per the testing procedure, FFT of the recorded interferometer is computed digitally, and necessary processing for direct determination of phase is undertaken. Finally, the phase data is unwrapped and plotted as a function of pixel position along the direction perpendicular to the shear. The slope of the phase provides the information regarding collimation position of the collimator. As the collimation position is detected by the direct measurement of the phase over the whole area of the interferogram, high accuracy, reliability and precision are achieved.     

On the influence of interaural differences on temporal perception of noise bursts of different durations

The perception of a composite sound's temporal cues, like synchronous onsets, is considered essential to correct perceptual grouping of its constituent components. The processing of a single sound's spatial cues, already present at its onset, may interact with temporal perception of the onset. The current study investigated the influence of interaural differences on temporal perception of a sound's onset. As a measure of temporal perception, the ability to position the onset of a temporally displaced target sound to the regular meter of diotic reference marker sound onsets was measured for various target sound lateralizations, sensation levels, and target and marker sound durations. For target sounds presented in quiet, no influence of interaural differences on temporal positioning of the onset was found. However, increasing a sound's duration systematically shifted the perceived onset position into its "interior." For target sounds presented at low sensation levels in a noise masker, the precision of temporally positioning the onset generally degraded, though faster for dichotic conditions and for longer durations. The level below which temporal perception precision starts to degrade was found to depend on signal-to-noise ratio rather than on sensation level or duration, and is influenced by the presence of interaural differences.