RESUMEN
Despite the gain in resolution brought by microsphere (MS)-assisted microscopy, it has always faced several limitations, such as a limited field of view, surface defects, low contrast, and lack of manipulability. This Letter presents a new type of MS created at the tip of an optical fiber, which we call a fiber microsphere (fMS). The fMS is made from a single-mode or coreless fiber, molten and stretched, ensuring high homogeneity and a sphere diameter smaller than the fiber itself. In addition, the connection between the fMS and the fiber makes scanning the sample a simple task, offering a solution to the difficulties of handling. The fabrication procedure of the fMS and the optical system used in the study are detailed. Our measurements show a clear superiority of the fMS over the soda-lime MS in resolving power and imaging performance.
RESUMEN
A polymer-based fiber micro-lens molding fabrication technique with, to our knowledge, unprecedented performances is presented along with its advantages and applications. This technique is a fast and affordable tool to achieve a wide variety of possible spherical and aspherical micro-lens sizes and curvatures. The alignment of the micro-lens mold with the fiber core receiving the lens is done optically, which allows high precision. Using the proposed technique, different micro-lenses are fabricated. Then the output beams of two different micro-lenses on single-mode fibers are characterized. Fiber micro-lenses with curvature as small as 5 µm are achieved. This shows how low curvature micro-lenses can achieve collimation and how high curvature ones on single-mode fibers lead to high focusing (FWHM=λ) that is much smaller than what most conventional commercial techniques can reach. Given that this technique imposes no stress and causes no damage to the fiber receiving the micro-lens, it presents a significant potential for compatibility with non-silica-based and micro-structured fibers such as photonic crystal and quasi-crystal fibers.
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We present here an absolute distance measurement system based on frequency sweeping interferometry calibrated with a frequency comb. The instantaneous frequency of the sweeping laser is calibrated at some discrete frequencies corresponding to the comb lines using a narrow bandpass filter. A large number of frequency calibration peaks have been derived in sub-measurements based on fringe counting, leading to a precision improvement by a factor of 10 in a full sweep. A precision of 75 nm for distances around 0.84 m (corresponding to 89×10-9 in relative term) has been achieved. Also, 1.7 nm of vibration measurement in terms of RMS noise has been obtained benefiting from the dense lines of a frequency comb and the sub-measurement principle.
RESUMEN
The photonic nanojet (PNJ) generated by a shaped optical fiber tip is an attractive technology for laser micro-machining. The working distance has the same order of size as the fiber core diameter; therefore, multimode (MM) fibers are generally preferred. However, the PNJ is due to the fundamental mode and, therefore, the energy coupled on the high-order modes does not contribute to the process. We demonstrate the benefit of a large-mode-area (LMA) optical fiber in the generation of the PNJ. A homemade 40 µm mode field diameter LMA fiber is compared with a 100/140 MM-shaped fiber tip. Similar micro-peaks are obtained, and an energy gain is demonstrated. The coupled energy required was eight times less intense with the LMA fiber, which may open new possibilities for laser micro- and nano-processing.
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In the present work, we have investigated the combination of a superresolution microsphere-assisted 2D imaging technique with low-coherence phase-shifting interference microscopy. The imaging performance of this technique is studied by numerical simulation in terms of the magnification and the lateral resolution as a function of the geometrical and optical parameters. The results of simulations are compared with the experimental measurements of reference gratings using a Linnik interference configuration. Additional measurements are also shown on nanostructures. An improvement by a factor of 4.7 in the lateral resolution is demonstrated in air, thus giving a more isotropic nanometric resolution for full-field surface profilometry in the far field.
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We demonstrate the key role of the laser injection into a multimode fiber to obtain a photonic jet (PJ). PJ, a high concentrated propagating beam with a full width at half-maximum smaller than the diffraction limit, is here generated with a shaped optical fiber tip using a pulsed laser source (1064 nm, 100 ns, 35 kHz). Three optical injection systems of light are compared. For similar etched marks on silicon with diameters around 1 µm, we show that the required ablation energy is minimum when the injected light beam is close to the fundamental mode diameter of the fiber. Thus, we confirm experimentally that to obtain a PJ out of an optical fiber, light injection plays a role as important as that of the tip shape and, therefore, the role of the fundamental mode in the process.
RESUMEN
We demonstrate that photonic jets (PJs) can be obtained in the vicinity of a shaped optical fiber and that they can be used to achieve subwavelength etchings. Only 10% of the power of a 30 W, 100 ns, near-infrared (1064 nm) Nd:YAG laser, commonly used for industrial laser processing, has been required. Etchings on a silicon wafer with a lateral feature size close to half-laser wavelength have been achieved using a shaped-tip optical fiber. This breakthrough has been carried out in ambient air by using a multimode 100/140 µm silica fiber with a shaped tip that generates a concentrated beam at their vicinity, a phenomenon referred to as a PJ, obtained for the first time without using microspheres. PJ achieved with a fiber tip, easier to manipulate, opens far-reaching benefits for all PJ applications. The roles of parameters such as laser fluence, tip shape, and mode excitation are discussed. A good correlation has been observed between the computed PJ intensity distribution and the etched marks' sizes.
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One of the specific interests of optical sensors is their compatibility with harsh environments. The polarization modulated force sensor we propose offers this advantage, in addition to low cost and ease of manufacturing thanks to its acrylate 3D printed monolithic design. All the polarization control is indeed achieved using the geometry of a single component making unnecessary future alignments. The complex geometry of the transducer is obtained thanks to the 3D printing process. This process and the resulting material optical properties are described. The sensor concept and the fabrication method are experimentally investigated. A monolithic force sensor in the required range of 20 N is exhibited for application in the field of MR-compatible robotics. The potentiality of 3D printing for optical application in the design of the force sensor is illustrated.
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We propose an iterative algorithm based on our scalar nonparaxial propagator for the design of Fourier diffractive optical elements (DOEs) having features on the order of the illumination wavelength. The simulation results show that our algorithm, using iterative Fourier transform and iterative projection, obtains higher-performance DOEs than a purely scalar paraxial design with the same order of calculation time. Upon verification with the experimental results, we find that our scalar-based design method is valid for DOEs with surprisingly small feature sizes (about half the wavelength) and diffraction angles up to about 37°.
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A step index multimode optical fiber with a perturbation on a micrometer scale, inducing a periodic deformation of the fiber section along its propagation axis, is theoretically investigated. The studied microperturbation is mechanically achieved using two microstructured jaws squeezing the straight fiber. As opposed to optical fiber microbend sensors, the optical axis of the proposed transducer is not bended; only the optical fiber section is deformed. Further, the strain applied on the fiber produces a periodical elliptical modification of the core and a modulation of the index of refraction. As a consequence of the micrometer scale perturbation period, the resulting mode coupling occurs directly between guided and radiated modes. To simulate the transmission induced by these kinds of perturbations, simplified models considering only total mode couplings are often used. In order to investigate the range of validity of this approximation, results are compared to the electromagnetic mode couplings rigorously computed for the first time, to our knowledge, with a large multimode fiber (more than 6000 linear polarized modes) using the Marcuse model. In addition, in order to have a more complete modeling of the proposed transducer, the anisotropic elasto-optic effects in the stressed multimode fiber are considered. In this way, the transmission of the microperturbed optical fiber transmission and, therefore, the behavior of the transducer are physically explained and its applications as a future stretching sensor are discussed.
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In this paper, we report a new method of thermal characterization of optical fibers using wavelength-sweeping interferometry and discuss its advantages compared to other techniques. The setup consists of two temperature-stabilized interferometers, a reference Michelson and a Mach-Zehnder, containing the fiber under test. The wavelength sweep is produced by an infrared tunable laser diode. We obtained the global phase shift coefficients of a large effective area fiber and gold-coated fiber optics with a 10(-7) accuracy.
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We report the influence of the nonlinearities in the wavelength-sweeping speed on the resulting interferometric signals in an absolute distance interferometer. The sweeping signal is launched in the reference and target interferometers from an external cavity laser source. The experimental results demonstrate a good resolution in spite of the presence of nonlinearities in the wavelength sweep. These nonlinearities can be modeled by a sum of sinusoids. A simulation is then implemented to analyze the influence of their parameters. It shows that a sinusoidal nonlinearity is robust enough to give a good final measurement uncertainty through a Fourier transform technique. It can be concluded that an optimal value of frequency and amplitude exists in the case of a sinusoidal nonlinearity.
RESUMEN
Interferometry associated with an external cavity laser of long coherence length and broad wavelength tuning range shows promising features for use in measurement of absolute distance. As far as we know, the processing of the interferometric signals has until now been performed by Fourier analysis or fringe counting. Here we report on the use of an autoregressive model to determine fringe pattern frequencies. This concept was applied to an interferometric device fed by a continuously tunable external-cavity laser diode operating at a central wavelength near 1.5 microm. A standard uncertainty of 4 x 10(-5) without averaging at a distance of 4.7 m was obtained.