This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 9754, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction (if any), and Conference Committee listing.

Lasers are commonly used in high-precision measurement and profiling systems. Some laser measurement systems are based on interferometry principles, and others are based on active triangulation, depending on requirements of the application. This paper describes an active triangulation laser measurement system for a specific application wherein the relative position of two fixed, rigid mechanical components is to be measured dynamically with high precision in six degrees of freedom (DOF). Potential applications include optical systems with feedback to control for mechanical vibration, such as target acquisition devices with multiple focal planes. The method uses an array of several laser emitters mounted on one component. The lasers are directed at a reflective surface on the second component. The reflective surface consists of a piecewise-planar pattern such as a pyramid, or more generally a curved reflective surface such as a hyperbolic paraboloid. The reflected spots are sensed at 2-dimensional photodiode arrays on the emitter component. Changes in the relative position of the emitter component and reflective surface will shift the location of the reflected spots within photodiode arrays. Relative motion in any degree of freedom produces independent shifts in the reflected spot locations, allowing full six-DOF relative position determination between the two component positions. Response time of the sensor is limited by the read-out rate of the photodiode arrays. Algorithms are given for position determination with limits on uncertainty and sensitivity, based on laser and spot-sensor characteristics, and assuming regular surfaces. Additional uncertainty analysis is achievable for surface irregularities based on calibration data.

In this work, we present a simple, assembled from readily available components, low cost, imaging vibrometer based on a Twyman-Green interferometer with digital interferogram acquisition, allowing to map displacement contour levels of a harmonically excited piezoelectric membrane, on the principle of exposure integration. We experimentally demonstrate the capabilities of our setup on imaging the 4th mechanical mode of vibration of a 200 micrometer radius piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducer membrane vibrating at 842 kHz, with an out-of-plane amplitude of 475 nm. Our results allow a direct visualization of the influence of etching trenches onto the vibrating membrane, in excellent agreement with FEM simulations.

Gait in daily activity affects human health because it may cause physical problems such as asymmetric pelvis, flat foot and bowlegs. Monitoring natural weight shift and foot rolling on plantar has been employed in order for researchers to analyze gait characteristics. Conventional gait monitoring systems have been developed using camera, acceleration sensor, gyro sensor and electrical load sensors. They have some problems such as limited measurement place, temperature dependence and electric leakage. On the other hand, a hetero-core optical fiber sensor has many advantages such as high sensitivity for macro-bending, light weight sensor element, independency on temperature fluctuations, and no electric contact. This paper describes extraction of natural weight shift and foot rolling for gait evaluation by using a sensitive shoe, in the insole of which hetero-core optical load sensors are embedded for detecting plantar pressure. Plantar pressure of three subjects who wear the sensitive shoe and walk on the treadmill was monitored. As a result, weight shift and foot rolling for three subjects were extracted using the proposed sensitive shoe in terms of centroid movement and positions. Additionally, these extracted data are compared to that of electric load sensor to ensure consistency. For these results, it was successfully demonstrated that hetero-core optical fiber load sensor performed in unconstraint gait monitoring as well as electric load sensor.

We describe principle of spatially-resolved spectroscopy using swept source optical interferometry and demonstrate it using a multi-layered polypropylene and glass plates piled sample. The advantages of this technique compared to conventional spectroscopy technique are realizing spatially-resolved spectroscopy as transmittance spectra of each layer and obtaining tomographic image of the sample simultaneously. Moreover, potential for spectroscopy is the method we propose can calculate absorption coefficient of each mediums. In this demonstration, we could 1D tomographic image of multi-layered sample and characterize PP layer and glass layer by comparing transmittance spectra in near infrared region.

First introduced in the 1990's, miniature optical spectrometers were compact, portable devices brought on the market by the desire to move from time-consuming lab-based analyses to on-field and in situ measurements. This goal of getting spectroscopy into the hands of non-specialists is driving current technical and application developments, the ultimate goal being, in a far future, the integration of a spectrometer into a smartphone or any other smart device (tablet, watch, …). In this article, we present the results of our study on the evolution of the compact spectrometers market towards widespread industrial use and consumer applications. Presently, the main market of compact spectrometers remains academic labs. However, they have been adopted on some industrial applications such as optical source characterization (mainly laser and LEDs). In a near future, manufacturers of compact spectrometers target the following industrial applications: agriculture crop monitoring, food process control or pharmaceuticals quality control. Next steps will be to get closer to the consumer market with point-of-care applications such as glucose detection for diabetics, for example. To reach these objectives, technological breakthroughs will be necessary. Recent progresses have already allowed the release of micro-spectrometers. They take advantage of new micro-technologies such as MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems), MOEMS (Micro-Opto-Electro-Mechanical Systems), micro-mirrors arrays to reduce cost and size while allowing good performance and high volume manufacturability. Integrated photonics is being investigated for future developments. It will also require new business models and new market approaches. Indeed, spreading spectroscopy to more industrial and consumer applications will require spectrometers manufacturers to get closer to the end-users and develop application-oriented products.

Optics components entered in the automotive vehicle one century ago with headlamps and since then move towards even more sophisticated designs in lighting functions. Photonics sensors are just entering now in this market through driver assistance, in complement of incumbent ultrasonic and radar technologies. Gain of market shares is expected for this components with autonomous driving, that was few years ago a nice dream and whose early results exceed surprisingly expectations of roadmaps and historic OEM have quickly joined the course launched by Google Company 5 years ago. Technological components, among them CMOS camera followed by Laser Scanners, cost-effective flash LIDAR are already experimenting their first miles in real condition and new consumers in South Asia plebiscite this new way to drive cars .The issue is still for photonics companies to move from well suited technological solution to mass-production components with corresponding cost reduction. MEMS components that follow the same curve 15 years ago (with market entries in airbags, tire pressure monitoring systems…) experimented the hard pressure on price for wide market adoption. Besides price, which is a CFO issue, photonic technologies will keep in place if they can both reassure OEM CEO and let CTO and designers dream. Reassurance will be through higher level of standardization and reliability of these components whereas dream will be linked to innovative sensing application, e.g spectroscopy.

Optical wireless (OW) technologies are an emerging field utilizing optical sources to replace existing radio wavelength technologies. The vast majority of work in OW focuses on communication; however, one smaller emerging field is indoor OW positioning. This emerging field essentially aims to replace GPS indoors. One of the primary competing methods in indoor OW positioning is angle-of-arrival (AOA). AOA positioning uses the received vectors from several optical beacons to triangulate its position. The reliability of this triangulation is fundamentally based on two aspects: the geometry of the optical receiver’s location compared to the optical beacon locations, and the ability for the optical receiver to resolve the incident vectors correctly. The optical receiver is quantified based on the standard deviation of the azimuthal and polar angles that define the measured vector. The quality of the optical beacon geometry is quantified using dilution of precision (DOP). This proceeding discusses the AOA standard deviation of an ultra-wide field-of-view (FOV) lens along with the DOP characteristics for several optical beacon geometries. The optical beacon geometries used were simple triangle, square, and hexagon optical beacon geometries. To assist the implementation of large optical beacon geometries it is proposed to use both frequency and wavelength division multiplexing. It is found that with an ultra-wide FOV lens, coupled with the appropriately sized optical beacon geometry, allow for high accuracy positioning over a large area. The results of this work will enable reliable OW positioning deployments.

This paper introduces a novel imaging spectrometer subsystem concept, the Smart Slit Assembly (SSA), that improves instrument performances and enables new features for future Earth Observation. Derived from CarbonSat (ESA study) requirements, a concept of an SSA based on MEMS micro-shutters/mirrors and associated instrument design aspects are presented. The SSA replaces the classical grating spectrometer slit aperture in the focal plane of the telescope with three core elements, namely an input multimode waveguide array followed by a spatial light modulator (SLM) and an output multimode waveguide array which ends at the slit aperture viewed by the spectrometer. The SLM’s in-and-outputs being coupled to waveguide arrays leads to an enhanced SLM with light de-coherence, polarization scrambling and scene/object homogenization capabilities. The additional advantage of this subsystem’s arrangement is that waveguide level homogeneous spatial light modulation can be achieved with spatially in-homogeneous coupling from in to output multimode waveguides, allowing new, simpler and less costly designs for the SLM part of the SSA. The SSA is particularly useful for instance to reduce stray light by scene/object selection or modulation (e.g. de-clouding, intensity equalization), relax on the required dynamic range of the detectors, increase spectral stability by waveguide level intensity homogenization/scrambling, continuous in-flight monitoring of the co-registration between two or several spectrometer channels and inflight monitoring of stray light.

We present a semi-analytical solution for the design of a high-speed rotary optical delay line that use a combination of two rotating curvilinear reflectors. We demonstrate that it is possible to design an infinite variety of the optical delay lines featuring linear dependence of the optical delay on the rotation angle. This is achieved via shape optimization of the rotating reflector surfaces. Moreover, a convenient spatial separation of the incoming and outgoing beams is possible. For the sake of example, we present blades that fit into a circle of 10cm diameter. Finally, a prototype of a rotary delay line is fabricated using CNC machining, and its optical properties are characterized.

Compact optical systems can be fabricated by integrating coatings on fiber tips. Examples include fiber lasers, fiber interferometers, fiber Raman probes, fiber based spectrometers, and anti-reflected endoscopes. These interference filters are applied to exposed tips – either connectorized or cleaved. Coatings can also be immersed within glass by depositing on one tip and connecting to another uncoated tip. This paper addresses a fiber spectrometer for multispectral imaging - useful in several fields including biomedical scanning, flow cytometry, and remote sensing. Our spectrometer integrates serial arrays of reflecting fiber tips, delay lines between these elements, and a single element detector.

We present results from an evaluation of phase and frequency estimation algorithms for read-out instrumentation of interferometric sensors. Tests on interrogating a micro Fabry-Perot sensor made of semi-spherical stimuli-responsive hydrogel immobilized on a single mode fiber end face, shows that an iterative quadrature demodulation technique (IQDT) implemented on a 32-bit microcontroller unit can achieve an absolute length accuracy of ±50 nm and length change accuracy of ±3 nm using an 80 nm SLED source and a grating spectrometer for interrogation. The mean absolute error for the frequency estimator is a factor 3 larger than the theoretical lower bound for a maximum likelihood estimator. The corresponding factor for the phase estimator is 1.3. The computation time for the IQDT algorithm is reduced by a factor 1000 compared to the full QDT for the same accuracy requirement.

Optical fiber oxygen sensors have attractive attentions such as no oxygen consume, thin size, light weight, flexibility, and immunity to electromagnetic interference. Ruthenium (Ru) complexes are known as luminescent materials whose luminescent light is quenched depending on oxygen concentrations when concentrations of Ru complexes are fixed. They emit phosphorescence with the wavelength of around 620 nm as exited light with the wavelength of 450 nm is irradiated into Ru complexes. As a result, phosphorescence is quenched depending on oxygen concentrations. Conventional optical fiber oxygen sensors have employed large core-diameter such as 1000 μm in order to obtain quenching abundantly, hence they have large transmission loss. Therefore, they have little practicability in the case of remote monitoring system, for example undersea explorations. In this paper, we have successfully developed a novel optical fiber oxygen sensor with transmission GI multi-mode fiber whose core diameter is 62.5 μm and cladding diameter is 125 μm. The sensing portion was fabricated on an end of the fiber with porous composite membranes which is made by glass beads and polyallylamine in Layer-by-Layer technique. The composite membranes immobilized Ru complexes. In experiments, in order to investigate characteristics of the number of layers for porous composite membranes, we tested several kinds of sensors having such as 5-, 50- and 125-layers and confirmed phosphorescent intensity and change of phosphorescence against existence of oxygen. As a result, 5-layer and 50-layer sensors showed best sensitivity and reproducibility.

Advancement of distributed piezo-electret sensors and actuators facilitates various smart systems development, which include paper speakers, opto-piezo/electret bio-chips, etc. The array-based loudspeaker system possess several advantages over conventional coil speakers, such as light-weightness, flexibility, low power consumption, directivity, etc. With the understanding that the performance of the large-area piezo-electret loudspeakers or even the microfluidic biochip transport behavior could be tailored by changing their dynamic behaviors, a full-field real-time high-resolution non-contact metrology system was developed. In this paper, influence of the resonance modes and the transient vibrations of an arraybased loudspeaker system on the acoustic effect were measured by using a real-time projection moiré metrology system and microphones. To make the paper speaker even more versatile, we combine the photosensitive material TiOPc into the original electret loudspeaker. The vibration of this newly developed opto-electret loudspeaker could be manipulated by illuminating different light-intensity patterns. Trying to facilitate the tailoring process of the opto-electret loudspeaker, projection moiré was adopted to measure its vibration. By recording the projected fringes which are modulated by the contours of the testing sample, the phase unwrapping algorithm can give us a continuous phase distribution which is proportional to the object height variations. With the aid of the projection moiré metrology system, the vibrations associated with each distinctive light pattern could be characterized. Therefore, we expect that the overall acoustic performance could be improved by finding the suitable illuminating patterns. In this manuscript, the system performance of the projection moiré and the optoelectret paper speakers were cross-examined and verified by the experimental results obtained.

This work introduces a modified low-coherence interferometry approach for nanometer surface-prolometry. The key component of the interferometer is an element with known dispersion which defines the measurement range as well as the resolution. This dispersive element delivers a controlled phase variation which can be detected in the spectral domain and used to reconstruct height differences on a sample. In the chosen setup, both axial resolution and measurement range are tunable by the choice of the dispersive element. The basic working principle was demonstrated by a laboratory setup equipped with a supercontinuum light source ( Δλ= 400-1700 nm). Initial experiments were carried out to characterize steps of 101 nm on a silicon height standard. The results showed that the system delivers an accuracy of about 11.8 nm. These measurements also served as a calibration for the second set of measurements. The second experiment consisted of the measurement of the bevel of a silicon wafer. The modified low-coherence interferometer could be utilized to reproduce the slope on the edge within the previously estimated accuracy. The main advantage of the proposed measurement approach is the possibility to collect data without the need for mechanically moving parts.

This paper describes an innovative, compact and eyesafe coherent lidar system developed for use in wind and wake vortex sensing applications. This advanced lidar system is field ruggedized with reduced size, weight, and power consumption (SWaP) configured based on an all-fiber and modular architecture. The all-fiber architecture is developed using a fiber seed laser that is coupled to uniquely configured fiber amplifier modules and associated photonic elements including an integrated 3D scanner. The scanner provides user programmable continuous 360 degree azimuth and 180 degree elevation scan angles. The system architecture eliminates free-space beam alignment issues and allows plug and play operation using graphical user interface software modules. Besides its all fiber architecture, the lidar system also provides pulsewidth agility to aid in improving range resolution. Operating at 1.54 microns and with a PRF of up to 20 KHz, the wind lidar is air cooled with overall dimensions of 30” x 46” x 60” and is designed as a Class 1 system. This lidar is capable of measuring wind velocities greater than 120 +/- 0.2 m/s over ranges greater than 10 km and with a range resolution of less than 15 m. This compact and modular system is anticipated to provide mobility, reliability, and ease of field deployment for wind and wake vortex measurements. The current lidar architecture is amenable for trace gas sensing and as such it is being evolved for airborne and space based platforms. In this paper, the key features of wind lidar instrumentation and its functionality are discussed followed by results of recent wind forecast measurements on a wind farm.

In this paper we consider two approaches widely used in testing of wide aperture optics: Fizeau interferometer and Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor. Fizeau interferometer that is common instrument in optical testing can be transformed to a device using Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor, the alternative technique to check wide aperture optical components. We call this device Hartmannometer, and compare its features to those of Fizeau interferometer.

The paper presents the propagation characteristics of several complex laser field distributions. It also outlines the challenges associated with characterizing laser fields based on their M² parameter. To alleviate the challenges, we introduce a new beam characterization technique for defining the propagation characteristics of arbitrary laser beams. The new technique is based on calculating laser beam propagation characteristics as a function of the field’s lateral coordinates, and provides a quantitative way of accounting for the fractional beam power diffracted outside of the beam central node. The technique, called FM² (FM-squared), accounts for the spatial evolution of the M² beam quality parameter. It provides insights into the beam quality of laser beams, including the quality of laser beams affected by diffraction or by wavefront distortions, as well as the complex field distributions resulting from a coherent superposition of the individual beams contained within optical phased arrays.

The optical dispersion can be obtained from the adjacent relative phase between neighbor peaks in the optical frequency comb. Thus, the dispersion measurement becomes possible by measuring the relative phase spectrum. Our group has experimentally confirmed the operation principle by parallel capturing of the dispersion spectrum using an arrayed waveguide grating. We have proposed a dual-heterodyne mixing that obtained relative phases (ΔΦ) by fitting data of beat intensity versus optical path length difference. The path difference was applied by a delay line. In this study, we removed the delay line to realize a fast measurement by measuring simultaneous three relative phases with path length differences corresponding to π⁄2 or π, with which we have measured the dispersion in millisecond speed (250 sec. in previous ). In general, it is effective to measured chromatic dispersion using high-speed signal transmission in the fundamental scientific research, such as the analysis of material properties and telecommunications. It is, however, that limit of cutoff frequency using measurement is the restriction on increasing of the speed. Our proposed method to observe it on a frequency domain is effective for the high-speed signal processing.

We report a novel stabilization method for two frequency combs with a small relative f_ceo jitter using a selected single optical mode out of a frequency comb. This proposed method is intended to stabilize optical frequencies which generated by two different optical combs with immunity to environmental disturbance, frequency drift and fluctuation with time so as to enhance the measuring performance of dual comb based spectroscopy and distance measurement. A single comb mode is selected out using a composite optical filtering and diode laser injection locking. The selected optical frequency yields a narrow relative linewidth less than 1 Hz and the frequency stability of 1.58×10^-17 at 10 s averaging time. By using this, we generated heterodyned beat signal between generated optical frequency and another comb to stabilize relative f_ceo using phase lock-in control which adjust driving frequency of acousto-optic modulator. As a result of feedback control, the relative jitter is well stabilized down to 1.06×10^-15 at 10 s averaging time. This highly stable frequency instability of two combs can perform to enhance the measuring resolution, accuracy and repeatability for dual comb based spectroscopy and distance metrology.

Novel two-dimensional single-shot imaging optical system based on Frequency-domain interferometry using a virtually imaged phased array is proposed. The VIPA simultaneously outputs incoherent optical frequency combs (OFCs) whose teeth interval are scanned as a function of its output angle. Teeth intervals of the OFCs only in a reference are spatially swept by using of a VIPA whose advantage compared to an optical resonator. Thus, the single-shot imaging system can be realized with the FSR scanned frequency-domain OFC interference monitored by CCD. This system enable high speed 2-dimensional tomographic image without mechanical moving part. And the axial measurement range is not limited by using multi-order interference that is generated by OFCs interferometry. We will present the operation principle with its confirmed results in terms of both simulation and experiment.

A multimode fiber (MMF) based cascaded intrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometers (IFPIs) system is presented and the distributed strain sensing has been experimentally demonstrated by using such system. The proposed 13 cascaded IFPIs have been formed by 14 cascaded reflectors that have been fabricated on a grade index MMF. Each reflector has been made by drawing a line on the center of the cross-section of the MMF through a femtosecond laser. The distance between any two adjacent reflectors is around 100 cm. The optical carrier based microwave interferometry (OCMI) technique has been used to interrogate the MMF based cascaded FPIs system by reading the optical interference information in the microwave domain. The location along with the shift of the interference fringe pattern for each FPI can be resolved though signal processing based on the microwave domain information. The multimode interference showed very little influence to the microwave domain signals. By using such system the strain of 10^-4 for each FPI sensor and the spatial resolution of less than 5 cm for the system can be easily achieved.

We propose a novel structure with two input and output silicon waveguide ports separated by the Insulator-Metal- Insulator channel deposited on silicon nitride base. In principle, both the top surface insulator/metal interface and bottom surface can support SPP a decoupled modes. Once the SPP modes excited input silicon waveguide, the SPP signals from the two optical branches (the top and bottom interfaces) propagate to the output silicon waveguide. At the output waveguide both branches interfere with each other and modulate the far-field scattering. The top surface is considered as the sensing arm of this plasmonic Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI). The bottom surface is considered as the reference arm of the sensor. High sensitivity and small foot print is achieved using this integrated simple plasmonic design. The combination of sensitive interferometric techniques and the optimization process of the design and the material yields to enhanced sensitivities up to 3000 nm/RIU.

This paper describes a hemispheric tactile sensor based on a hetero-core optical fiber for texture and hardness detection in a small contact area. The hetero-core fiber optic sensors developed in our laboratory have been proved to have several attractive advantages such as high sensitivity to soft bending, immunity to temperature fluctuation and cost-effective scheme. The hemisphere-shaped hetero-core fiber optic tactile sensor converts the applied force into the bending curvature on a hetero-core optical fiber. To evaluate the detection performance of minute-structured rough surface, the proposed sensor was tested for scanning on a cloth with the periodic pattern of 0.74 mm. Additionally, it was confirmed that the sensor was able to detect local hardness distributions of hard plastic lumps which were embedded into silicone rubbers. It was furthermore discussed that the sensor can be applied for precise discrimination of such household objects as several kinds of papers with different texture and hardness.

The objective of this work was to demonstrate a lightweight and inexpensive fiber-optic vibration sensor, built using 3D printing technology, for high-power electric machines and similar applications. The working principle is based on modulating the light intensity using a blade attached to a bendable membrane. The sensor prototype was manufactured using PolyJet Matrix technology with DM 8515 Grey 35 Polymer. The sensor shows linear response, expected bandwidth (< 150 Hz), and from our measurements we estimated the damping ratio for used polymer to be ζ ≈ 0.019. The developed prototype is simple to assemble, adjust, calibrate and repair.

A high performance system for full Stokes vector measurements was developed. The proposed system comprised a polarization scanning generator (PSG) and a high accuracy polarization state analyzer (PSA) was proposed. The PSG generated full state of polarization of light by using voltage driven electro-optics modulator without using any mechanical moving parts. The PSA was employed to record the intensity of output polarized lights in a high speed manner. The accuracy of proposed system was 10-4 for all Stokes vector (S_0, S₁, S₂, S₃) measurements in the full state of polarization of lights. An application of proposed system for low concentration glucose in aqueous solution sensing with/without scattering effects was demonstrated. The sensitivity of the optical rotation angle of CB property to changes in the concentration of glucose sample was examined over the range from 0 to 0.5g/dl. The results confirm that the proposed system is able to detect glucose at fine concentration of 0.02g/dl. The linear variation of the optical rotation angle and different glucose concentration at different scattering effects was obtained. In general, the new measurement system proposed in this study provided a fast and reliable method to measure all Stokes vectors and its potential applications in biological sensing.

Femtosecond pulse duration infrared laser (fs-IR) written fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), have demonstrated great potential for extreme environment sensing. Harsh environments are inherent to the advanced power plant technologies under development to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The performance of new power systems are currently limited by the lack of sensors and controls capable of withstanding the high temperature, pressure and corrosive conditions present. This paper discusses fabrication and deployment of several fs-IR written FBG arrays, for monitoring the temperature distribution within a fluidized bed combustor. Results include: calibration data to ~ 1100 °C, discussion of deployment strategies, contrast with thermocouple data, and comments on reliability.

Demands for a hydrogen fuel has been increased due to usages as an ecological and alternative energy resource. On the other hand, hydrogen easily causes an explosion above concentrations of 4 % in air, hence hydrogen sensors are need to have rapidity and accuracy for detecting hydrogen. Conventional hydrogen sensors have mainly used palladium (Pd) which is known as a hydrogen detecting material with high sensitivities and selectivity to hydrogen. Generally, Pd absorbs hydrogen in large amounts and forms Pd hydride, moreover, Pd experiences α-β phase transition during volume change of Pd with hydrogen absorption. As a result, the volume change of Pd induces a deterioration which affects time responses and sensitivities of hydrogen sensors. To keep Pd from deteriorating, alloying Pd with metals, such as Au and Ag, has been utilized as preventing Pd from experiencing α-β phase transition. In this paper, we propose a hetero-core optical fiber hydrogen sensor based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) with multi-layers of Au/Ta₂O₅/Pd/Au in order to suppress the deterioration of Pd. A few sensors were prepared with the same construction of sensitive film 25-nm Au/ 60-nm Ta₂O₅/ thicknesses with stacks of annealed 3 double layers of 1.4-nm Pd and 0.6-nm Au or 5-nm pure Pd, and evaluated in terms of the time response and sensitivities. The response times at the 1st and the 15th hydrogen absorption test were experimentally observed to be from 3 s to 6 s for annealed Pd-Au, in contrast, to be from about 16 s to 22 s for pure Pd at 4 % hydrogen concentration, respectively.

Many medical, environmental, and industrial sensing applications could take advantage of uncooled temperature-stable optical sources that are incoherent and un-polarized as such sources do not produce interference fringes, speckle patterns, or intensity variations due to polarization. For this purpose we propose an optical system for stabilization of light-emitting diodes over temperature exhibiting output power variation below 50 ppm/°C which does not employ any kind of TEC elements or even thermometers. This makes it especially suitable for handheld and battery operated instruments.

Try to take advantages of the high-resolution CCD/CMOS developed over the years for real-time three-dimensional deformation/geometry metrology system development, Fourier transform (FT) based algorithms have been integrated to convert interference fringes to wrapped phase maps and then to unwrapped phase maps. All of which led to easy implementation of the algorithms developed over the years to achieve extremely efficient FT computation. Sparse Fast Fourier Transform (SFFT) that only calculating the non-zero coefficient in frequency domain, includes calculations of imaginary part and log, was implemented to further accelerate the computation rate for the above-mentioned FT based operations. Coupling the SFFT accelerated phase map computation approach with Michelson interferometer and Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry (ESPI) for near real-time three-dimensional deformation measurement led to the newly developed system. The directions of object deformation are revealed by performing FT to the interference fringes obtained with pre-introduced spatial carrier frequency, which provides a way to retrieve the phase maps by using a single rather than several intensity maps. With only one image frame needed, the interference fringes caused by the deformation could be recorded for off-line phase maps computation if the computation efforts are longer than the recording frame rate. To apply the SFFT algorithm on phase retrieval, a conceptual framework was presented. The benefit of using SFFT as compared to FT was also demonstrated.

Pseudo optical frequency comb using a high-speed frequency laser scanner and an optical resonator is generated as a virtual broadband lightsource for the time-domain 2D single-shot tomography and profilometry. High-speed laser scanner (40 kHz) is realized using a broadband semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) whose individual wavelengths are consequently picked up by a conventional grating setup and a high speed polygon mirror. The performance of the pseudo frequency comb is confirmed by a measurement of a reference step-height sample with an optical zooming operation.

Goniometer has found extensive usage in diverse applications, primary being medical field in which it is employed for obtaining the range of motion of joints during physical therapy. It is imperative to have a dynamic system to measure the range of motion which will aid for a progressive therapeutic treatment. Hence in the present study, a novel goniometer for real time dynamic angle measurement between two surfaces with the aid of a Fiber Bragg Grating sensor is proposed. The angular rotation between the two surfaces will be identified by the two arms of the Fiber Bragg Grating Goniometer (FBGG), which is translated to the rotation of the shaft which holds these arms together. A cantilever beam is fixed onto the base plate whose free end is connected to the rotating shaft. The rotating shaft will actuate a mechanism which will pull the free end of the cantilever resulting in strain variation over the cantilever beam. The strain variation on the cantilever beam is measured by the Fiber Bragg Grating sensor bonded over it. Further, the proposed FBGG facilitates tunable sensitivity by the discs of varying diameters on the rotating shaft. Tunable sensitivity of the FBGG is realised by the movement of these discs by varying circumferential arc lengths for the same angular movement, which will actuate the pull on the cantilever beam. As per the requirement of the application in terms of resolution and range of angular measurement, individual mode of sensitivity may be selected.

This paper describes a novel temperature sensor based on a hetero-core structured fiber optic surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor with multi-layer thin film of gold (Au) and titanium dioxide (TiO₂). Temperature condition is an essential parameter in chemical plants for avoiding fire accident and controlling qualities of chemical substances. Several fiber optic temperature sensors have been developed for some advantages such as immunity to electromagnetic interference, corrosion resistance and no electrical leakage. The proposed hetero-core fiber optic SPR sensor detects temperature condition by measuring slight refractive index changes of TiO₂ which has a large thermo-optic coefficient. We experimentally confirmed that the SPR resonant wavelength in the hetero-core SPR sensor with coating an Au film which slightly depended on temperature changes in the range from 20 °C to 80 °C. In addition, it was experimentally shown that the proposed SPR temperature sensor with multi-layer film of Au and TiO₂ had the SPR resonant wavelength shift of 1.6 nm due to temperature change from -10 °C to 50 °C. As a result, a series of experiments successfully demonstrated that the proposed sensor was able to detect temperature directly depending on the thermo-optic effect of TiO₂.

Fine polishing techniques, such as chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), are important to glass substrate manufacturing. When these techniques involve mechanical interaction in the form of friction between the abrasive and the substrate surface during polishing, latent flaws may form on the product. Fine polishing induced latent flaws in glass substrates may become obvious during a subsequent cleaning process if the glass surface is eroded away by chemical interaction with a cleaning liquid. Thus, latent flaws reduce product yield. A novel technique (the stress-induced light scattering method; SILSM) which was combined with light scattering method and stress effects was proposed for inspecting surface to detect polishing induced latent flaws. This method is able to distinguish between latent flaws and tiny particles on the surface. In this method, an actuator deforms a sample inducing stress effects around the tip of a latent flaw caused by the deformation, which in turn changes the refractive index of the material around the tip of the latent flaw because of the photoelastic effect. A CCD camera detects this changed refractive index as variations in light-scattering intensity. In this study, the changes in reflection coefficients and polarization states after application of stress to a glass substrate were calculated and evaluated qualitatively using Jones matrix-like ellipsometry. As the results, it was shown that change in the polarization states around the tip of latent flaw were evaluated between before and after applied stress, qualitatively.