Bidirectional Coupler Study for Chip-Based Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography.

A chip-based spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) system consists of a broadband source, interferometer, and spectrometer. The optical power divider flatness in the interferometer's wavelength is crucial to higher signal-to-noise ratios. A Mach-Zehnder directional coupler (MZDC) structure could be utilized to smoothly maximize the splitting ratio of 50:50 on a silicon platform, with a sub-micrometer of decoupler optical path difference insensitive to the process variation up to 20 nanometers. However, the optical signal reflected from the reference and sample will go back to the same interferometer MZDC. The so-called bidirectional coupler MZDC will not illustrate a flat optical power response in the operating wavelength range but could still demonstrate at least 20 dB signal-to-noise ratio improvement in OCT after the echelle grating spectrum compensation is applied. For maintaining the axial resolution and sensitivity, the echelle grating is also insensitive to process shifts such as MZDC and could be further utilized to compensate a 3 dB bidirectional MZDC structure for a broad and flat 100 nm wavelength response in the interferometer-based on-chip SD-OCT.

Tissue spatial correlation as cancer marker.

We propose an intrinsic cancer marker in fixed tissue biopsy slides, which is based on the local spatial autocorrelation length obtained from quantitative phase images. The spatial autocorrelation length in a small region of the tissue phase image is sensitive to the nanoscale cellular morphological alterations and can hence inform on carcinogenesis. Therefore, this metric can potentially be used as an intrinsic cancer marker in histopathology. Typically, these correlation length maps are calculated by computing two-dimensional Fourier transforms over image subregions-requiring long computational times. We propose a more time-efficient method of computing the correlation map and demonstrate its value for diagnosis of benign and malignant breast tissues. Our methodology is based on highly sensitive quantitative phase imaging data obtained by spatial light interference microscopy.

Disorder strength measured by quantitative phase imaging as intrinsic cancer marker in fixed tissue biopsies.

Tissue refractive index provides important information about morphology at the nanoscale. Since the malignant transformation involves both intra- and inter-cellular changes in the refractive index map, the tissue disorder measurement can be used to extract important diagnosis information. Quantitative phase imaging (QPI) provides a practical means of extracting this information as it maps the optical path-length difference (OPD) across a tissue sample with sub-wavelength sensitivity. In this work, we employ QPI to compare the tissue disorder strength between benign and malignant breast tissue histology samples. Our results show that disease progression is marked by a significant increase in the disorder strength. Since our imaging system can be added as an upgrading module to an existing microscope, we anticipate that it can be integrated easily in the pathology work flow.

Two-channel algorithm for single-shot, high-resolution measurement of optical wavefronts using two image sensors.

We propose a two-channel holographic diversity interferometer (2ch-HDI) system for single-shot and highly accurate measurements of complex amplitude fields with a simple optical setup. In this method, two phase-shifted interference patterns are generated, without requiring a phase-shifting device, by entering a circularly polarized reference beam into a polarizing beam splitter, and the resulting patterns are captured simultaneously using two image sensors. However, differences in the intensity distributions of the two image sensors may lead to serious measurement errors. Thus, we also develop a two-channel algorithm optimized for the 2ch-HDI to compensate for these differences. Simulation results show that this algorithm can compensate for such differences in the intensity distributions in the two image sensors. Experimental results confirm that the combination of the 2ch-HDI and the calculation algorithm significantly enhances measurement accuracy.

Recording procedures for high-quality signal readout in self-referential holographic data storage.

Two methods are proposed to improve the readout quality of signals in self-referential holographic data storage (SR-HDS), in which no reference beam is required to record and read digital data holographically: the off-the-focus (OtF) method and the oversampling additional pattern (OsAP) method. The focal point is located outside of the recording medium in the OtF method, and the signal pattern is recorded with an additional pattern that possesses a higher spatial frequency than the signal pattern in the OsAP method. Experimental results show that both methods are effective for drastically improving the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In addition, through numerical simulation, it can be observed that the readout quality is improved by the achievement of homogeneous hologram distribution.

Shift-multiplexed self-referential holographic data storage.

The feasibility and the properties of shift-multiplexed self-referential holographic data storage (SR-HDS) were investigated. Although SR-HDS has attractive features as typified by referenceless holographic recording, its multiplexing properties, which are consummately important for holographic data storage, have not been clarified until now. The results of numerical and experimental evaluations of medium shift dependence in SR-HDS clarified that the shift selectivity is almost the same as in collinear holography. Furthermore, 25 datapages were successfully shift-multiplexed with the shift pitch of 8.3 µm by the numerical simulation.

Spatial cross modulation method using a random diffuser and phase-only spatial light modulator for constructing arbitrary complex fields.

We propose a spatial cross modulation method using a random diffuser and a phase-only spatial light modulator (SLM), by which arbitrary complex-amplitude fields can be generated with higher spatial resolution and diffraction efficiency than off-axis and double-phase computer-generated holograms. Our method encodes the original complex object as a phase-only diffusion image by scattering the complex object using a random diffuser. In addition, all incoming light to the SLM is consumed for a single diffraction order, making a diffraction efficiency of more than 90% possible. This method can be applied for holographic data storage, three-dimensional displays, and other such applications.

Self-referential holography and its applications to data storage and phase-to-intensity conversion.

Holographic recording methods require the use of a reference beam that is coherent with the signal beam carrying the information to be recorded. In this paper, we propose self-referential holography (SRH) for holographic recording without the use of a reference beam. SRH can realize purely one-beam holographic recording by considering the signal beam itself as the reference beam. The readout process in SRH is based on energy transfer by inter-pixel interference in holographic diffraction, which depends on the spatial phase difference between the recorded phase and the readout phase. The phase-modulated recorded signal is converted into an intensity-modulated beam that can be easily detected using a conventional image sensor. SRH can be used effectively for holographic data storage and phase-to-intensity conversion.

Holographic diversity interferometry for optical storage.

This study proposes holographic diversity interferometry (HDI), a system that combines information from spatially dispersed plural image sensors to reconstruct complex amplitude distributions of light signals. HDI can be used to generate four holographic interference fringes having different phases, thus enabling optical phase detection in a single measurement. Unlike conventional phase-shifting digital holography, this system does not require piezoelectric elements and phase shift arrays. In order to confirm the effectiveness of HDI, we generated optical signals having multilevel phases and amplitudes by using two SLMs and performed an experiment for detection and demodulation with HDI.