In this paper, we evaluate the viability of Cubesats as an attractive platform for lightweight instrumentation by describing a proof of concept CubeSat that houses an astrophotonic chip for transit spectroscopy-based exoplanet atmosphere gas sensing. The Twin Earth SEnsoR Astrophotonic CubesaT (TESERACT) was designed to house a correlation spectroscopy chip along with an electrical and optical system for operation. We investigate design challenges and considerations in incorporating astrophotonic instrumentation such as component integration, thermal management and optical alignment. This work aims to be a pathfinder for demonstrating that astrophotonic-based CubeSat missions can perform leading edge, targeted science in lower-cost CubeSat platforms.
The performance of optical telecommunication system is mainly limited by optical signal to noise ratio
(OSNR) at the receiver, fiber dispersion and nonlinearities. The limiting factors of optical communication
systems that employ pluggable XFPs are investigated experimentally by characterizing and correlating the
information regarding pulses evolution of 10Gbps signals in optical fiber under the influence of dispersion
and different nonlinear effects.
Pluggable transceivers; either small form factor (SFP) that operates up to 2.5Gbps or XFPs that operates at
9.95Gbps, transmitter's laser characteristics are investigated experimentally. The laser linewidth and chirp in
addition to stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) threshold for different transceivers are measured over many
kinds of optical fiber. The measured transceiver's parameters are correlated and used to explain different
system performance penalties encountered during data transmission over different kinds of optical fiber. This
knowledge is valuable to system engineers as it is not available and not provided by transceivers' vendors.
System performance penalties for different kind of fibers with positive and negative accumulative dispersion
are measured experimentally at OC-192 and OC-48 modulated signals for different XFPs and SFPs,
respectively.
Dispersive objects result in a loss of resolution in time-domain optical coherence tomography (TD-OCT). A typical technique to compensate for this effect is to introduce dispersive material in the reference arm. This method however is not very effective, as the dispersion effect of the object is depth dependent. We implement a dispersion compensation algorithm in the Wigner domain for TD-OCT. This shift-variant numerical compensation approach is more efficient than the previously reported shift-invariant methods which required a deconvolution operation for every depth.
This paper discusses the bridging requirements and the transfer of credits for the graduates of a three year technology program entering the Bachelor of Applied Technology (BAT) degree in photonics.
The procedure followed to determine the transfer of credits consisted of two iterations. In the first iteration a detailed comparison of the learning outcomes of the different courses in the Diploma of Photonics Engineering Technology and the BAT programs was undertaken. This comparison helped to determine the correspondence of the learning outcomes, but did not permit to compare the theoretical level of the Diploma and BAT courses.
A second iteration was performed to compare in more detail the focus of the courses and the theoretical depth of learning the subjects. A grid covering all the usual mathematical topics used for the courses was set and the courses for which the mathematical tools are important were compared.
The difference between the courses from the two programs was used to design two bridging courses one in Advanced Physics and one in Advanced Optical Engineering. These two courses cover the missing theoretical background for the Diploma graduates in order to continue in the Bachelor program.
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