Shape and slope measurement by source displacement in shearography

Shearography is a full field non-contact optical technique usually used to measure the gradient of the displacement of a surface subjected to thermal or mechanical loading. This paper describes the use of shearography for surface slope and shape measurement. Interferometric speckle patterns obtained before and after displacement of the optical source are correlated to yield correlation fringes which are, in general, a mixture of slope fringes and carrier fringes. This paper contains a full treatment of the sensitivity of slope fringes to the parameters; the illumination and the imaging geometry and the magnitude and the direction of the source displacement. The slope fringes are corrected for distortion, which is due to the necessary off-axis illumination, and are scaled using parameters calculated using a mathematical model. Experimentally generated phase-stepped slope fringes are unwrapped and integrated to recover the object shape.     

Second-harmonic generation in Langmuir Blodgett waveguide overlays on single-mode optical fiber

Second-harmonic radiation has been obtained from Langmuir-Blodgett films of E-N -octadecyl-4-[2-(4-dibutylaminophenyl)ethenyl]quinolinium octadecylsulfate, deposited as a waveguide overlay upon optical fiber that is single mode at the pump wavelength (lambda=1064 nm) . A quadratic relationship between the pump power and second-harmonic intensity was observed.     

The onset of coulomb explosions in polyatomic molecules

With the development of high intensity femtosecond lasers, the ionisation and dissociation dynamics of molecules has become an area of considerable interest. Using the technique of femtosecond laser mass spectrometry (FLMS), the molecules carbon disulphide, pyrimidine, toluene, cyclohexanone and benzaldehyde are studied with pulse widths of 50 fs in the near infrared (IR) wavelength region (790 nm). Results are presented and contrasted for laser beam intensities around 10(15) and 10(16) W cm(-2). For the lower intensities, the mass spectra yield dominant singly charged parent ions. Additionally, the appearance of doubly charged parent ions is evident for carbon disulphide, toluene and benzaldehyde with envelopes of doubly charged satellite species existing in these local regions. Carbon disulphide also reveals a small triply charged component. Such atomic-like features are thought to be a strong fingerprint of FLMS at these intensities. However, upon increasing the laser intensity to approximately 10(16) W cm(-2), parent ion dominance decreases and the appearance of multiply charged atomic species occurs, particularly carbon. This phenomenon has been attributed to Coulomb explosions in which the fast absorption of many photons may produce transient highly ionised parent species which can subsequently blow apart. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Instantaneous, three-component planar Doppler velocimetry using imaging fibre bundles

This paper describes a planar Doppler velocimetry (PDV) technique that is capable of measuring the three, instantaneous and time average components of velocity over two spatial dimensions using a single pair of signal and reference cameras. The three views required to obtain three-component velocity information are guided from the collection optics to a single imaging plane using flexible fibre imaging bundles. These are made up of a coherent array of single fibres and are combined at one end as the input plane to the measurement head. Measurements of the velocity field of a rotating disk are used in the development of the technique and initial results of the instantaneous velocity field of a jet are presented.     

Slope measurement by two-wavelength electronic shearography

A technique is presented for the slope measurement of objects using an electronic shearography system. To detect the gradients of an object shape, a laser diode is modulated to produce two wavelengths on successive image frames. These two frames are then subtracted to generate correlation fringes which depict slope variations of the object surface. The theory of this technique is described and measurements of conical, cylindrical, and spherical test objects are presented. Com parisons of experimental results with theoretical data are demonstrated to be in good agreement. The implementation of fringe analysis using phase stepping techniques is also discussed.     

pH sensor using Langmuir-Blodgett overlays on polished optical fibers

Evanescent coupling between a side-polished single-mode optical fiber and a single-mode, pH-sensitive Langmuir-Blodgett overlay is used to demonstrate an intrinsic fiber-optic pH sensor. The sensor shows a wavelength sensitivity of 18.8 +/- 0.8 nm/pH and a transmission sensitivity of 9.7 +/- 0.8 dB/pH when operating at 750 nm.     

Simultaneous temperature and bend sensing with long-period fiber gratings

Long-period gratings (LPG's) written in commercially available boron-codoped fibers operating at wavelengths of <1.1mum are shown to exhibit high temperature and bending sensitivities. Each resonant attenuation band of such LPG's was observed to split in two when the LPG's were bent. The split attenuation bands' separation increased significantly with increasing bend curvature, and the central wavelengths of the split bands provided a measure of temperature. We exploit this effect to allow for simultaneous measurement of temperature and bending in smart-structure applications. The demonstrated novel sensor system is simple and low cost.     

High spin spectroscopy of 139Pr

The high spin states in N=80 ¹³⁹Pr have been investigated by in-beam γ-spectroscopic techniques following the reaction ¹³⁰Te (¹⁴N, 5n) reaction at E=75 MeV, using a gamma detector array, consisting of seven 23% compton-suppressed high purity germanium detectors and a multiplicity ball of fourteen bismuth germanate elements. Based on γ-γ coincidence data, the level scheme of ¹³⁹Pr has been considerably extended up to 7.2 MeV excitation. Tentative spin-parity assignments are done for the newly proposed levels on the basis of the DCO ratios corresponding to strong gates and the available information from the earlier light ion experiments.