Measurement and Data Correction of Channel Sampling Timing Walk-Off of Photonic Analog-to-Digital Converter in Signal Recovery.

A two-channel, time-wavelength interleaved photonic analog-to-digital converter (PADC) system with a sampling rate of 10.4 GSa/s was established, and a concise method for measuring and data correcting the channel sampling timing walk-off of PADCs for signal recovery was proposed. The measurements show that for the two RF signals of f1 = 100 MHz and f2 = 200 MHz, the channel sampling timing walk-off was 12 sampling periods, which results in an ENOB = -0.1051 bits for the 100 MHz directly synthesized signal, while the ENOB improved up to 4.0136 bits using shift synthesis. In addition, the peak limit method (PLM) and normalization processing were introduced to reduce the impacts of signal peak jitter and power inconsistency between two channels, which further improve the ENOB of the 100 MHz signal up to 4.5668 bits. All signals were analyzed and discussed in both time and frequency domains. The 21.1 GHz signal was also collected and converted using the established two-channel PADC system with the data correction method, combining the PLM, normalization, and shift synthesis, showing that the ENOB increased from the initial -0.9181 to 4.1913 bits, which demonstrates that our method can be effectively used for signal recovery in channel-interleaved PADCs.

Effects of Optical Sampling Pulse Power, RF Power, and Electronic Back-End Bandwidth on the Performance of Photonic Analog-to-Digital Converter.

The effects of optical sampling pulse power, RF power, and electronic back-end bandwidth on the performance of time- and wavelength-interleaved photonic analog-to-digital converter (PADC) with eight-channel 41.6 GHz pulses have been experimentally investigated in detail. The effective number of bits (ENOB) and peak-to-peak voltage (Vpp) of converted 10.6 GHz electrical signals were used to characterize the effects. For the 1550.116 nm channel with 5.2 G samples per second, an average pulse power of 0 to -10 dBm input to the photoelectric detector (PD) has been tested. The Vpp increased with increasing pulse power. And the ENOB for pulse power -9~-3 dBm was almost the same and all were greater than four. Meanwhile, the ENOB decreased either when the pulse power was more than -2 dBm due to the saturation of PD or when the pulse power was less than -10 dBm due to the non-ignorable noise relative to the converted weak signal. In addition, RF powers of -10~15 dBm were loaded into the Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM). The Vpp increased with the increase in RF power, and the ENOB also showed an increasing trend. However, higher RF power can saturate the PD and induce greater nonlinearity in MZM, leading to a decrease in ENOB, while lower RF power will convert weak electrical signals with more noise, also resulting in lower ENOB. In addition, the back-end bandwidths of 0.2~8 GHz were studied in the experiments. The Vpp decreased as the back-end bandwidth decreased from 8 to 3 GHz, and remained nearly constant for the bandwidth between the Nyquist bandwidth and the subsampled RF signal frequency. The ENOB was almost the same and all greater than four for a bandwidth from 3 to 8 GHz, and gradually increased up to 6.5 as the back-end bandwidth decreased from the Nyquist bandwidth to 0.25 GHz. A bandwidth slightly larger than the Nyquist bandwidth was recommended for low costs and without compromising performance. In our experiment, the -3 to -5 dBm average pulse power, about 10 dBm RF power, and 3 GHz back-end bandwidth were recommended to accomplish both a high ENOB more than four and large Vpp. Our research provides a solution for selecting optical sampling pulse power, RF power, and electronic back-end bandwidth to achieve low-cost and high-performance PADC.

Efficient ultrafast laser writing with appropriate polarization.

Appropriate polarization utilization makes the electric field vector direction and the statistically oriented localized states suitable for enhancing light-matter interactions so as to improve the efficiency of ultrafast laser writing, which will remarkably reduce the pulse energy and increase the processing speed for high density optical data storage, as well as manufacturing three-dimensional integrated optics and geometric phase optical elements.

Highly precise timing alignment of multi-wavelength interleaved cavity-less pulse sources with FROG.

Strictly uniform time interval between adjacent channels is a crucial requirement for the multi-wavelength interleaved (MWI) pulse sources, which difficult alignment can be easily solved by what we believe to be our novel method based on frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG). By utilizing highly precise measurements from FROG, which provide fully two-dimensional information of the pulses in time and frequency domain, we can intuitively identify the time mismatches between different channels in the MWI pulse sources. This enables us to directly align the timing of each channel with sub-picosecond resolution at the first time. MWI pulse sources with total repetition rate of 20.8 GHz (four wavelengths) and 41.6 GHz (eight wavelengths) are precisely aligned by the proposed method, this achievement will pave the way for advancements in photonic analog-digital converters (PADC), high-speed optical communications and so on.

Refinement method for compressive hyperspectral data cubes based on self-fusion.

Compressive hyperspectral images often suffer from various noises and artifacts, which severely degrade the imaging quality and limit subsequent applications. In this paper, we present a refinement method for compressive hyperspectral data cubes based on self-fusion of the raw data cubes, which can effectively reduce various noises and improve the spatial and spectral details of the data cubes. To verify the universality, flexibility, and extensibility of the self-fusion refinement (SFR) method, a series of specific simulations and practical experiments were conducted, and SFR processing was performed through different fusion algorithms. The visual and quantitative assessments of the results demonstrate that, in terms of noise reduction and spatial-spectral detail restoration, the SFR method generally is much better than other typical denoising methods for hyperspectral data cubes. The results also indicate that the denoising effects of SFR greatly depend on the fusion algorithm used, and SFR implemented by joint bilateral filtering (JBF) performs better than SRF by guided filtering (GF) or a Markov random field (MRF). The proposed SFR method can significantly improve the quality of a compressive hyperspectral data cube in terms of noise reduction, artifact removal, and spatial and spectral detail improvement, which will further benefit subsequent hyperspectral applications.

Design of Broadband Flat Optical Frequency Comb Based on Cascaded Sign-Alternated Dispersion Tellurite Microstructure Fiber.

We designed a tellurite microstructure fiber (TMF) and proposed a broadband optical frequency comb generation scheme that was based on electro-optical modulation and cascaded sign-alternated dispersion TMF (CSAD-TMF). In addition, the influence of different nonlinear effects, the ultrashort pulse evolution in the CSAD-TMF with the anomalous dispersion (AD) zones and the normal dispersion (ND) zones were analyzed based on the generalized nonlinear Schrodinger equations (GNLSE) modelling. According to the simulations, when the input seed comb had a repetition rate of 20 GHz and had an input pulse peak power of 30 W, the generation scheme could generate optical frequency combs with a 6 dB spectral bandwidth spanning over 170 nm centered at 1550 nm. Furthermore, the generated combs showed good coherence in performance over the whole 6 dB spectral bandwidth. The highly coherent optical frequency combs can be used as high-repetition-rate, multi-wavelength light sources for various integrated microwave photonics and ultrafast optical signal processing applications.

Practical generation of arbitrary high-order cylindrical vector beams by cascading vortex half-wave plates.

A practical direct-view scheme for generating arbitrary high-order cylindrical vector (HCV) beams by cascading vortex half-wave plates (VHPs) is presented. The combination of odd number 2n-1 VHPs for n≥1 can realize (m2n-1-m2n-2+…+m1)-order CV beams, in which m is the order number of VHP and the corresponding subscript 2n-1 represents the arrangement number of VHPs, and the cascading of even number 2n ones can obtain (m2n-m2n-1+…+m2-m1)-order CV beams. All 1-12 order CV beams, including the high-order anti-vortex CV (ACV) beams, are generated only by selectively cascading the VHPs with m=1, 3 and 8. The polarization properties of the generated HCV beams are investigated by measuring the corresponding Stokes parameters. It is experimentally demonstrated that arbitrary HCV beams are effectively achieved by the proposed method. The order numbers of CV beams can be greatly expanded by cascading limited types of VHPs.

Observation of Ultrashort Laser Pulse Evolution in a Silicon Photonic Crystal Waveguide.

Using the sum frequency generation cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating (SFG-XFROG) measurement setup, we observed the soliton evolution of low energy pulse in an Si photonic crystal waveguide, and it exhibited the pulse broadening, blue shift, and evident pulse acceleration. The soliton evolution was also investigated by nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) modelling simulation, and the simulated results agreed well with the experimental measurements. The effects of waveguide length on the pulse evolution were analyzed; the results showed that the pulse width changed periodically with increasing waveguide length. The results further the understanding of the ultra-fast nonlinear dynamics of solitons in silicon waveguides, and are helpful to soliton-based functional elements on CMOS-compatible platforms.

High-Q titanium dioxide micro-ring resonators for integrated nonlinear photonics.

We report on the nonlinear characterizations of the titanium dioxide micro-ring resonators (TiO2 MRRs). By utilizing optimized fabrication processes, high quality factors (Q∼1.4 × 105) doubling that of the previous work are achieved here for TiO2 MRRs with high-confinement TiO2 waveguides. The four-wave mixing (FWM) experiment results with low and high signal power demonstrate that, the fabricated TiO2 MRRs can perform broadband (∼40 nm) wavelength conversion and cascaded FWMs. These achievements pave the way for key nonlinear photonic applications with TiO2 waveguides and provide an efficient platform for various integrated photonic devices.

Single-shot coherent power-spectrum imaging of objects hidden by opaque scattering media.

We report coherent imaging of objects behind opaque scattering media with only one piece of the power spectrum pattern. We solve the unique solution and improve algorithm speed for the inverse problem. Based on the proposed scattering-disturbance model, with only one piece of the Fourier transform power spectrum pattern under coherent illumination, we successfully reconstruct clear images of the objects fully hidden by an opaque diffuser. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the reconstruction method and the scattering-disturbance model. Our method makes it possible to carry out snapshot coherent imaging of the objects obscured by scattering media, which extends the methodology of x-ray crystallography to visible-light scattering imaging for underwater and living biomedical imaging.

Fast Detection of a Weak Signal by a Stochastic Resonance Induced by a Coherence Resonance in an Excitable GaAs/Al_{0.45}Ga_{0.55}As Superlattice.

The effect of a coherence resonance is observed experimentally in a GaAs/Al_{0.45}Ga_{0.55}As superlattice under dc bias at room temperature, which is driven by noise. For an applied voltage, for which no current self-oscillations are observed, regular current self-oscillations with a frequency of about 82 MHz are induced by exceeding a certain noise amplitude. In addition, a novel kind of a stochastic resonance is identified, which is triggered by the coherence resonance. This stochastic resonance appears when the device is driven by an external ac signal with a frequency, which is relatively close to that of the regular current self-oscillations at the coherence resonance. The intrinsic oscillation mode in the coherence resonance is found to be phase locked by an extremely weak ac signal. It is demonstrated that an excitable superlattice device can be used for the fast detection of weak signals submerged in noise. These results are very well reproduced by results using numerical simulations based on a sequential resonant tunneling model of nonlinear electron transport in semiconductor superlattices.

Refined source apportionment of coal combustion sources by using single particle mass spectrometry.

In this study, samples of three typical coal combustion source types, including Domestic bulk coal combustion (DBCC), Heat supply station (HSS), and Power plant (PP) were sampled and large sets of their mass spectra were obtained and analyzed by SPAMS during winter in a megacity in China. A primary goal of this study involves determining representative size-resolved single particle mass spectral signatures of three source types that can be used in source apportionment activities. Chemical types describe the majority of the particles of each source type were extracted by ART-2a algorithm with distinct size characteristics, and the corresponding tracer signals were identified. Mass spectral signatures from three source types were different from each other, and the tracer signals were effective in distinguishing different source types. A high size-resolution source apportionment method were proposed in this study through matching sources' mass spectral signatures to particle spectra in a twelve days ambient sampling to source apportion the particles. Contributions of three source types got different size characteristics, as HSS source got higher contribution in smaller sizes, But PP source got higher contributions as size increased. Source contributions were also quantified during two typical haze episodes, and results indicated that HSS source (for central-heating) and DBCC source (for domestic heating and cooking) may contribute evidently to pollution formation.

Quadratic discriminant analysis model for assessing the risk of cadmium pollution for paddy fields in a county in China.

In China, the cadmium (Cd) levels in paddy fields have increased, which has led to the excessive uptake of Cd into rice grains. In this study, we determined the physicochemical properties of soil samples, including the pH, soil organic matter (SOM) content, cation exchange capacity (CEC), and total Cd content (Cdsoil) in order to establish a quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA) model for assessing the risk of Cd in rice and to calculate its prior probability. Decision tree and logistic regression models were also established for comparison. The results showed that the accuracy rate was 74% with QDA, which was significantly higher than that obtained using the decision tree (67%) and logistic regression (68%) models. The correlation coefficients between the soil pH and the other three factors (CEC, SOM, and Cdsoil) were higher in the inaccurate set than the accurate set, whereas the correlation coefficients were smaller in the inaccurate set than the accurate set.

Design of direct-vision cyclo-olefin-polymer double Amici prism for spectral imaging.

A direct-vision Amici prism is a desired dispersion element in the value of spectrometers and spectral imaging systems. In this paper, we focus on designing a direct-vision cyclo-olefin-polymer double Amici prism for spectral imaging systems. We illustrate a designed structure: E48R/N-SF4/E48R, from which we obtain 13 deg dispersion across the visible spectrum, which is equivalent to 700 line pairs/mm grating. We construct a simulative spectral imaging system with the designed direct-vision cyclo-olefin-polymer double Amici prism in optical design software and compare its imaging performance to a glass double Amici prism in the same system. The results of spot-size RMS demonstrate that the plastic prism can serve as well as their glass competitors and have better spectral resolution.

Restoration of longitudinal laser tomography target image from inhomogeneous medium degradation under common conditions.

In order to overcome the shortages of the target image restoration method for longitudinal laser tomography using self-calibration, a more general restoration method through backscattering medium images associated with prior parameters is developed for common conditions. The system parameters are extracted from pre-calibration, and the LIDAR ratio is estimated according to the medium types. Assisted by these prior parameters, the degradation caused by inhomogeneous turbid media can be established with the backscattering medium images, which can further be used for removal of the interferences of turbid media. The results of simulations and experiments demonstrate that the proposed image restoration method can effectively eliminate the inhomogeneous interferences of turbid media and achieve exactly the reflectivity distribution of targets behind inhomogeneous turbid media. Furthermore, the restoration method can work beyond the limitation of the previous method that only works well under the conditions of localized turbid attenuations and some types of targets with fairly uniform reflectivity distributions.

Reconstruction of target image from inhomogeneous degradations through backscattering medium images using self-calibration.

Target images recorded with range-gated laser imaging systems and conventional passive imaging systems through rapidly changing turbid mediums inevitably suffer from inhomogeneous degradations. Consequently, this makes the images partly or entirely different from their true targets and eventually has adverse effects on target identification. To date, the inhomogeneous degradations are still not finely eliminable despite utilizing adaptive optical methods and pure mathematical signal improvement techniques. Herein, we demonstrate an image restoration method involving intrinsic physical evolution of light beams based on the backscattering images of a turbid medium. The corresponding mathematical signal processing algorithms are applied for restoring the true target images in the presence of rapidly changing inhomogeneous degradations. This technique would benefit target imaging through moving cloud/mist in air and flowing muddy masses under water.

Real-time dynamics and cross-correlation gating spectroscopy of free-carrier Drude slow-light solitons.

Optical solitons-stable waves balancing delicately between nonlinearities and dispersive effects-have advanced the field of ultrafast optics and dynamics, with contributions spanning from supercontinuum generation to soliton fission, optical event horizons, Hawking radiation and optical rogue waves, among others. Here, we investigate picojoule soliton dynamics in silicon slow-light, photonic-bandgap waveguides under the influence of Drude-modeled, free-carrier-induced nonlinear effects. Using real-time and single-shot amplified dispersive Fourier transform spectroscopy simultaneously with high-fidelity cross-correlation frequency resolved optical gating at femtojoule sensitivity and femtosecond resolution, we examine the soliton stability limits, the soliton dynamics including free-carrier quartic slow-light scaling and acceleration, and the Drude electron-hole plasma-induced perturbations in the Cherenkov radiation and modulation instability. Our real-time single-shot and time-averaged cross-correlation measurements are matched with our detailed theoretical modeling, examining the reduced group velocity free-carrier kinetics on solitons at the picojoule scale.

Image restoration method for longitudinal laser tomography based on degradation matrix estimation.

Target images captured by longitudinal laser tomography are usually degraded by nonuniform laser beams transmitting through inhomogeneous scattering mediums. An image restoration method with a total variation model is proposed for eliminating the main influence of inhomogeneous scattering mediums from degraded target images. Based on the physical signal relevance between the target layer and the scattering medium layer, the degradation matrix of the target image is approximately estimated by the specified backscattering images of the scattering mediums. Simulations and experiments are performed to verify the validity and feasibility of the proposed method, and all the results demonstrate that the proposed model works well and helps us to achieve the real target images, which represent the reflectivity distributions of the targets standing behind the inhomogeneous scattering mediums and which will benefit target recognition and identification.

Finely engineered slow light photonic crystal waveguides for efficient wideband wavelength-independent higher-order temporal solitons.

By orthogonally dual-shifting the air-hole rows in the triangular photonic crystal waveguide, a novel finely engineered slow light silicon photonic crystal waveguide is designed for higher-order temporal solitons and ultrashort temporal pulse compression with a large fabrication tolerance. The engineering of dispersion provides the waveguide with a wide wavelength range with only low anomalous dispersion covering, which makes the compression ratio wavelength-independent and stable even under ultralow input pulse energy. The simulation results are based on nonlinear Schrödinger equation modeling, which demonstrates that the input picosecond pulses in the broad wavelength range with ultralow pJ pulse energy can be stably compressed by a factor of 6 to higher-order temporal solitons in a 250 µm short waveguide.

Unambiguous demonstration of soliton evolution in slow-light silicon photonic crystal waveguides with SFG-XFROG.

We demonstrate the temporal and spectral evolution of picosecond soliton in the slow light silicon photonic crystal waveguides (PhCWs) by sum frequency generation cross-correlation frequency resolved optical grating (SFG-XFROG) and nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) modeling. The reference pulses for the SFG-XFROG measurements are unambiguously pre-characterized by the second harmonic generation frequency resolved optical gating (SHG-FROG) assisted with the combination of NLSE simulations and optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) measurements. Regardless of the inevitable nonlinear two photon absorption, high order soliton compressions have been observed remarkably owing to the slow light enhanced nonlinear effects in the silicon PhCWs. Both the measurements and the further numerical analyses of the pulse dynamics indicate that, the free carrier dispersion (FCD) enhanced by the slow light effects is mainly responsible for the compression, the acceleration, and the spectral blue shift of the soliton.