Laser diodes (LDs) have been applied to a phase-measuring interferometer through the wavelength tunability of LDs by controlling their currents. Laser-diode interferometers based on a heterodyne technique are reviewed. A two-wavelength laser-diode interferometer is demonstrated with current control of dual LDs in opposite directions. A synthetic wavelength makes it possible to extend the range of interferometric measurements. The wavelength is controlled by the laser injection current and is stepwise or rampwise changed to introduce a time-varying phase difference between the two beams of an interferometer with unbalanced optical path lengths. The optical output is demodulated with a phase-extraction algorithm. Systematic phase errors caused by the LD-power variation and by the difference between the beat frequency and ramp frequency are analyzed. A feedback interferometer with electronics is used to eliminate the phase error by locking the interferometer on a preset phase. Typical experimental results are shown.

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The dependence of the negative nonlinear absorption effect on both modulation degree and frequency of the incident laser was investigated in an erbium chloride solution using a 1.5 μm laser diode. The reversed-phase waveform was observed at modulation degrees smaller than 71%. As modulation frequency increased, the transmitted waveforms became asymmetrical and the effect was suppressed. The effect was obtained at wavelengths of 1510.3 to 1510.8 nm. The negative nonlinear absorption effect for 1.5 μm can be explained by considering an enhanced absorption model for a four-level system of the Er³⁺ ion.

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In blazed diffractive optics produced by the diamond turning process, the finite size of the tool determines the decrease in diffraction efficiency of the desired order. Diffracted light of other orders degrades the image quality. To analyze the influence of the tool, we evaluate diffraction efficiency and phase of periodic gratings based on the electromagnetic theory and calculate modulation transfer function using a linear system approach.

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An integrated-wavelet-transform (IWT) approach is proposed for the study of scattering from slightly rough surfaces that manifest scaling properties over a finite domain of correlation lengths. Instead of collecting angle-resolved intensities, values of the irradiance integrated over increasing areas are used to enhance the contributions of small irradiances at large scattering angles and to reduce the coherent noise. In the case of self-similar surfaces, the scaling behavior of IWT allows investigation of the surface roughness at various length scales. For the realistic case of self-affine surfaces, IWT permits the evaluation of the scaling exponent of the autocorrelation and also offers a direct way to evaluate the necessary length scale of the surface profile.

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The introduction of information systems in the medical field has made it possible to accumulate a large amount of health care examination data. Analysis of such data could yield valuable new knowledge about health and disease. In this paper, we propose a method for the analysis of large amounts of medical and health care data, especially images or signals. The proposed method treats data in a multidimensional space without any pre-processing, and the data is classified into groups according to the criterion. The criterion used in this paper is to maximize likelihood calculated from the probability density, which is given by the Parzen estimation method. The result of classification is expressed by a binary tree structure as a hierarchy of clusters. We applied this method to computer-generated data and practical electrocardiogram data, and the results showed its validity.

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We previously presented the differential phase detection method using a monolithic confocal laser coupler with a confocal knife edge structure (the CKE device), which we call the CKE Pit-Edge method and which is applied to an optical disk system in which the disk has a pit depth of λ/4n. In this paper, the experimental results using this new method are reported. The experimental results agree well with the calculated results. Thus, tracking-error signals, which are very stable in the face of radial lens displacement, can be obtained for an optical disk with any pit depth using the CKE Push-Pull method and the CKE Pit-Edge method.

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A new method to detect interval changes from a pair of images is presented, especially when the precise image registration is not available. We extend a well-known image histogram to multi-dimensions with some modifications and make use of it to elucidate differences between the images. The framework herein introduced is based on a comparison of the images in their multi-dimensional histogram space rather than in a spatial domain. Due to its flexibility, this approach is preferred as an alternative image comparison technique. The performance of the method is confirmed on simulated and real medical images and compared with the results from related conventional counterparts.

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The modulation frequency characteristics of an erbium-doped fiber amplifier are analyzed theoretically and experimentally for various values of modulation frequency. The theoretical predictions by the approximate equations in the low and high frequency modulation and that by the Runge-Kutta method for all modulation frequencies are in good agreement with the experimental results. In the low frequency modulation, the population inversion is depleted because of the saturation effect due to the instantaneous power of the incident light, and a distorted output is obtained without phase delay. In the high frequency modulation, the linear amplification is obtained with the gain depletion determined by the time averaged power of the incident signal. In the intermediate frequency modulation, the highly distorted output is obtained with phase delay.

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A novel method for determining mode power distribution in a two-mode fiber illuminated by an offset beam by measuring the near field pattern on the test fiber endface is developed. This method utilizes the different field symmetries of the fundamental and the second order modes. Coupling efficiencies from a quasi-Gaussian beam to the fundamental and the second order modes in a two mode fiber were measured by the new technique for various offset launching conditions, and were in good agreement with the theoretical ones.

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Resonant four-wave mixing (RFWM) based on the photo-induced refractive index change in erbium-doped optical fibers is demonstrated experimentally. The erbium-doped fibers act as a saturable absorber at 1.536 μm pump wavelength. Dependence of efficiency of RFWM on the pump power, the dopant concentration, the fiber length, and the signal modulation frequency are analyzed using three types of erbium-doped fibers differing in dopant concentration. It is found that a signal modulation frequency higher than 10 kHz is required for the correct measurement. The RFWM efficiency is improved with an increase in the input pump power in a range up to 1.5 mW and the highest reflectivity of 5.1% is attained. The highest RFWM efficiency is achieved at α_GSL~5 dB, which is in good agreement with the theory.

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To realize a high efficiency electrically addressable phase-only modulator, we have coupled a liquid crystal display (LCD) to an optically addressed parallel-aligned nematic liquid crystal spatial light modulator (PAL-SLM) with a set of lenses. Phase modulation exceeding 3π at 532 nm wavelength was obtained. We obtained linear transfer characteristics for phase modulation at various desired phase levels after calibration and adjustment of the transfer characteristics of the PAL-SLM and the LCD. Diffraction efficiency of 40% for binary phase grating and of 90% for 8-level blazed phase grating, which were very close to the simulation values, were observed. The power loss of the readout light was caused when passed through a half mirror, therefore, we examined a setup using an oblique readout light at the modulator. Very high diffraction efficiency was obtained from the setup by optimizing the polarization direction and optical path for this light, and the orientation of liquid crystals. Since the modulator can perform at better than 90% diffraction efficiency and at nearly 100% reflectivity, various high efficiency systems utilizing such modulators are expected.

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The placement accuracy and resolution of direct-write patterning tools, in particular the atomic force microscope (AFM), is considered for application to fabricating multi-passband integrated optical filters. Because of its simpler fabrication a grating structure is proposed that consists of identical stripes that are non-periodically spaced. The recently developed pseudorandom encoding method from the field of computer generated holography is modified to effectively assign analog reflectances at each point along the grating by selective withdrawal and offsetting of the stripes from a periodic spacing. An example filter designed by this method has two 1.5 nm bandwidth passbands and -23 dB of rejection for lightly coupled stripes. As with single band filters, the passbands broaden as the coupling increases. A calculation of the coupling coefficient of stripes on a fundamental mode, slab waveguide indicate that stripes on the order of 100 nm in depth and width support low insertion loss, multipassband filtering applications at visible wavelengths. Lines of these dimensions patterned with an AFM on (110) silicon indicates the feasibility of fabricating these filters. These conclusions are specific to current AFM's that are limited to writing fields of 100 μm. Increased rejection and decreased passband widths will result from incorporating precise field-stitching into future AFM's.

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The phase noise and the amplitude noise of optical pulses from the amplitude modulated harmonically mode-locked (AM-HML) Er-doped fiber (EDF) ring laser was investigated by measuring the power spectra of the optical pulses. The root mean square (RMS) timing jitter and the RMS amplitude noise are 1.26 ps and 2.5% (500 Hz-50 kHz), respectively, when the pulse repetition frequency is 1.58 GHz. They are smaller than those in conventional harmonically mode-locked EDF ring lasers.

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The dynamics of semiconductor lasers with photorefractive phase conjugate optical feedback are experimentally studied. Photorefractive fringes considered here are rather static compared with time fluctuations of laser output power. Therefore, it is expected that a semiconductor laser with photorefractive feedback shows similar dynamics to those with conventional optical feedback. We examine relaxation oscillation and external cavity modes of laser output power in the presence of photorefractive phase conjugate feedback. It is proved that the dynamics of photorefractive phase conjugate feedback are fundamentally the same as those of conventional optical feedback.

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The dynamic characteristics of a semiconductor laser with optical feedback are strongly dependent on the injection current and the reflectivity and position of the external feedback reflector. We investigated the relaxation oscillation enhancement and coherence collapse state of the laser oscillation based on the laser rate equations. It is well known that laser output power jumps with increase of the injection current due to external mode transition. But here for the first we time demonstrate the existence of a chaotic scenario within successive laser power jumps. The results calculated by numerical simulations based on the rate equations are compared with those of the experiments and good coincidence between them is found.

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The application of the technique of synthesis of optical coherence function for detection in scattering media is investigated. By modulating the optical frequency, the technique synthesizes the coherence function into a delta-function-like peak at an arbitrary location, and thus can select interferometrically the information at that location. The location is adjustable by the modulation parameter or additional phase modulation. A multi-section super-structure grating distributed Bragg reflector laser diode (SSG-DBR-LD) of THz-order tunable range is employed to enhance the spatial resolution for suppressing the multiple scattering from locations other than that detected. In a preliminary experimental demonstration, a reflectometry of 550 μm spatial resolution was achieved and was used to detect scattering media.

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Dry etching is an important tool to fabricate various semiconductor photonic devices. The roughness of etched sidewalls should be avoided as it reduces the scattering loss. We present a spatial frequency analysis of the sidewall roughness of dry etched facets processed by reactive ion etching. A characteristic parameter corresponding to a correlation length is estimated to be ~0.5 μm. In addition, its effect on reflectivities of etched reflectors is discussed.

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