Whole phase curvature-based particle positioning and size determination by digital holography.

We demonstrate the positioning and characterization of a transparent particle with a diameter of 60 µm in sparse particle fields. Particles appear elongated in optical setups with small numerical apertures that are used in digital holography; thus, an accurate method to position them is required. We propose a new optimization method using the whole phase curvature of a reconstructed wave along the optical axis to obtain not only the precise axial position but also the radius and refractive index of a particle. Experimental results show that the axial positions of particles can be detected with a standard deviation of 38.6 µm, corresponding to 66% of the average particle diameter. A radius of 29.3±0.4µm and a refractive index of 1.5910±0.0017 agree well with the manufacturer specifications of particles.

High spatial resolution pixel synthesis structure for full-complex amplitude modulation with twisted nematic LCD.

Various optics applications require a low-cost twisted nematic LCD that can modulate phase and amplitude independently. We propose a high spatial resolution light-synthesis structure that achieves full-complex amplitude modulation with a twisted nematic LCD. The synthesis structure uses two sparse lateral-shift pixel arrays for the x direction and four sparse lateral-shift pixel arrays for the y direction. The structure recreates an image with two superpixels formed from pairs of adjacent pixels in both directions, and as a result, the spatial resolution is only halved in both directions, which yields an appropriate image quality for the synthesis technique. In experiments, we demonstrate the precise control of amplitude and phase using a twisted nematic LCD.

High-speed terahertz spectroscopic imaging using noncollinear electro-optic sampling and a multistep mirror.

We propose a method for high-speed terahertz spectroscopic imaging that is based on electro-optic sampling with a noncollinear geometry of the THz beam and probe laser beam and has a multistep mirror in the path of the probe beam. We made an imaging system that operates in the over 2.0-THz range and enables the sample region corresponding to a (28 × 28)-pixel area on the sensor to be imaged with a spatial resolution of 1.07 mm and a frequency resolution of 0.079 THz. We also show how the proposed method might be extended for faster THz spectroscopic imaging.

Generation of nanosized optical beams by use of butted gratings with small numbers of periods.

We have devised an optical high-throughput nanosized beam-generating structure consisting of butted gratings with small numbers of periods. We analyzed the structure of these grating by the transverse resonance method. We then demonstrated that it is possible to achieve a beam spot of 45 nm x 60 nm (FWHM) with this structure for the optical heads used in ultrahigh-density recording, such as those used in laser-assisted magnetic recording storage.