Spatiotemporal structure of femtosecond Bessel beams from spatial light modulators.

We numerically investigate the spatiotemporal structure of Bessel beams generated with spatial light modulators (SLMs). Grating-like phase masks enable the spatial filtering of undesired diffraction orders produced by SLMs. Pulse front tilt and temporal broadening effects are investigated. In addition, we explore the influence of phase wrapping and show that the spatiotemporal structure of SLM-generated femtosecond Bessel beams is similar to Bessel X-pulses at short propagation distance and to subluminal pulsed Bessel beams at long propagation distance.

Arbitrary nonparaxial accelerating periodic beams and spherical shaping of light.

We report the observation of arbitrary accelerating beams (ABs) designed using a nonparaxial description of optical caustics. We use a spatial light modulator-based setup and techniques of Fourier optics to generate circular and Weber beams subtending over 95 deg of arc. Applying a complementary binary mask also allows the generation of periodic ABs taking the forms of snake-like trajectories, and the application of a rotation to the caustic allows the first experimental synthesis of optical ABs upon the surface of a sphere in three dimensions.

Sending femtosecond pulses in circles: highly nonparaxial accelerating beams.

We use caustic beam shaping on 100 fs pulses to experimentally generate nonparaxial accelerating beams along a 60° circular arc, moving laterally by 14 µm over a 28 µm propagation length. This is the highest degree of transverse acceleration reported to our knowledge. Using diffraction integral theory and numerical beam propagation simulations, we show that circular acceleration trajectories represent a unique class of nonparaxial diffraction-free beam profile which also preserves the femtosecond temporal structure in the vicinity of the caustic.

Arbitrary accelerating micron-scale caustic beams in two and three dimensions.

We generate arbitrary convex accelerating beams by direct application of an appropriate spatial phase profile on an incident Gaussian beam. The spatial phase calculation exploits the geometrical properties of optical caustics and the Legendre transform. Using this technique, accelerating sheet caustic beams with parabolic profiles (i.e. Airy beams), as well as quartic and logarithmic profiles are experimentally synthesized from an incident Gaussian beam, and we show compatibility with material processing applications using an imaging system to reduce the main intensity lobe at the caustic to sub-10 micron transverse dimension. By applying additional and rotational spatial phase, we generate caustic-bounded sheet and volume beams, which both show evidence of the recently predicted effect of abrupt autofocussing. In addition, an engineered accelerating profile with femtosecond pulses is applied to generate a curved zone of refractive index modification in glass. These latter results provide proof of principle demonstration of how this technique may yield new degrees of freedom in both nonlinear optics and femtosecond micromachining.

Spectroscopic OCT by grating-based temporal correlation coupled to optical spectral analysis.

Spectroscopic optical coherence tomography (spectroscopic OCT) is an echographic-like optical method for biomedical functional imaging. Current spectroscopic optical coherence tomography (OCT) methods rely on a posteriori numerical calculation. We present an alternative for optically accessing the spectroscopic information in OCT, that is, without postprocessing, by using a grating-based correlation and a wavelength demultiplexing system. Spectrally resolved A-scan is directly recorded on the image sensor. Due to the grating-based system, no correlation scan is necessary. The signal is registered in the wavelength-depth plane on a 2D camera that provides a large number of resolved points. In the frame of this paper, we present the principle of the system as well as demonstration results. Advantages and drawback of this system compared to others are discussed.

Position referencing in optical microscopy thanks to sample holders with out-of-focus encoded patterns.

This article introduces smart sample holders for optical microscopy. Their purpose is to allow the absolute determination of the position of the observed zone with respect to the sample holder itself and with a high accuracy. It becomes then straightforward to find a given zone of interest by positioning coarsely the microscope slide to the same position coordinates. Furthermore images recorded during different observation sessions; i.e. for slightly different positions; can be processed numerically in order to superimpose them with a high accuracy. Thus the slight deviations of the microscope slide position and orientation due to the different observations are compensated numerically and a perfect superimposition of the recorded images is performed. Then accurate site-by-site image comparisons become possible even for images recorded during different observation sessions and over a long period of time. The subpixel capability of the proposed method is demonstrated and those smart microscope slides constitute a new tool for live cell experiment. In practise, an encoded geometrical pattern used as position reference is inserted in a plane parallel to the surface receiving the tissue section or sample. Then the transition of the focus position from the tissue section to the position reference requires only a vertical adjustment and does not affect the lateral coordinates of observation. The numeric processing of the image of the position reference pattern allows the retrieval of the lateral coordinates that are also used for the tissue section image. Thus each image is recorded with a set of position coordinates that defines accurately the position of the observed area with respect to the sample holder itself.

Self-referenced method for optical path difference calibration in low-coherence interferometry.

A simple method for the calibration of optical path difference modulation in low-coherence interferometry is presented. Spectrally filtering a part of the detected interference signal results in a high-coherence signal that encodes the scan imperfections and permits their correction. The method is self-referenced in the sense that no secondary high-coherence light source is necessary. Using a spectrometer setup for spectral filtering allows for flexibility in both the choice of calibration wavelength and the maximum scan range. To demonstrate the method's usefulness, it is combined with a recently published digital spectral shaping technique to measure the thickness of a pellicle beam splitter with a white-light source.

High-resolution optical correlation imaging in a scattering medium.

An optical correlation setup is used to image transparent objects through scattering media, and 10-mum longitudinal and 2.5-mum transverse resolution are achieved. Spectral-bandwidth sampling of the light source is made possible by a tunable dye laser and leads to signal enhancement as a result of sampling interferogram filtering. An optical system allows observation of sample slices without the need for a translation stage.