Extended depth of field microscopy for rapid volumetric two-photon imaging.

Two-photon fluorescence microscopy is an influential tool in biology, providing valuable information on the activity of cells deep inside the tissue. However, it is limited by its low speed for imaging volume samples. Here we present the design of a two-photon scanning microscope with an extended and adjustable depth of field, which improves the temporal resolution for sampling thick samples.

Integrated Bragg gratings in spiral waveguides.

Over the last two decades, many filters requiring custom spectral responses were obtained from photo-inscribed fiber Bragg gratings because of the flexibility inherent to this technology. However, Bragg gratings in silicon waveguides have the potential to provide faster and more efficient tuning capabilities when compared to optical fiber devices. One drawback is that Bragg gratings filters with elaborate spectral amplitude and phase responses often require a long interaction length, which is not compatible with current integration trends in CMOS compatible photonic circuits.

Chemical detection with hyperspectral lidar using dual frequency combs.

High-resolution spectral lidar measurements using dual frequency combs as a source is presented. The technique enables the range-resolved measurement of fine spectral features, such as gas absorption lines, provided that a suitable scatterer is present in the scene. Measurements of HCN absorption lines at 20 meters are presented, with a water droplet cloud and a diffusely reflective surface as scatterers.

Validity of the paraxial approximation for electron acceleration with radially polarized laser beams.

In the study of laser-driven electron acceleration, it has become customary to work within the framework of paraxial wave optics. Using an exact solution to the Helmholtz equation as well as its paraxial counterpart, we perform numerical simulations of electron acceleration with a high-power TM(01) beam. For beam waist sizes at which the paraxial approximation was previously recognized valid, we highlight significant differences in the angular divergence and energy distribution of the electron bunches produced by the exact and the paraxial solutions.

Self-organized periodic structures on Ge-S based chalcogenide glass induced by femtosecond laser irradiation.

Self-organized periodic structures have been observed on the surface of the ablation craters of Ge-S based chalcogenide glass produced after irradiation by a focused beam of a femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser (1 kHz, 34 fs, 806 nm). Scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy images of irradiated spots show a periodic structure of ripples with a spatial period of 720 nm (close to the wavelength of fs laser pulses) and an alignment parallel to the electric field of light. With an increasing number of pulses, from 5 to 50 pulses, a characteristic evolution of ripples was observed from a random structure to a series of generally aligned peaks-and-valleys self-organized periodic structures.

Fully referenced single-comb interferometry using optical sampling by laser-cavity tuning.

The correction of setup and laser instabilities in a single-comb interferometric measurement using optical sampling by laser-cavity tuning is investigated. A two-reference solution that allows full correction of the interferogram is presented. The technique is compared to a slightly simpler one-reference correction.

Refractive index-modified structures in glass written by 266nm fs laser pulses.

We demonstrate the inscription of embedded waveguides, anti-waveguides and Bragg gratings by use of intense femtosecond (fs) UV laser pulses at 266nm in pure fused silica, and for the first time, in bulk fused quartz and ZBLAN glasses. The magnitude of induced index changes, depends, besides pulse energy and translation speed, largely on writing depth and varies from ~10(-4) for smooth modifications to ~10(-3) for damaged structures. The obtained results are promising as they present the feasibility of fabrication of short (< 0.

Continuous real-time correction and averaging for frequency comb interferometry.

Interferograms from a dual-comb spectrometer are continuously corrected and averaged in real-time. The algorithm is implemented on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) development board. The chosen approach and the algorithm are described.

Planar waveguide concentrator used with a seasonal tracker.

Solar concentrators offer good promise for reducing the cost of solar power. Planar waveguides equipped with a microlens slab have already been proposed as an excellent approach to produce medium to high concentration levels. Instead, we suggest the use of a cylindrical microlens array to get useful concentration without tracking during the day.

Needles of longitudinally polarized light: guidelines for minimum spot size and tunable axial extent.

Optical beams exhibiting a long depth of focus and a minimum spot size can be obtained with the tight focusing of a narrow annulus of radially polarized light, leading to a needle of longitudinally polarized light. Such beams are of increasing interest for their applications, for example in optical data storage, particle acceleration, and biomedical imaging. Hence one needs to characterize the needles of longitudinally polarized light obtained with different focusing optics and incident beams.

Electron acceleration driven by ultrashort and nonparaxial radially polarized laser pulses.

Exact closed-form solutions to Maxwell's equations are used to investigate the acceleration of electrons in vacuum driven by ultrashort and nonparaxial radially polarized laser pulses. We show that the threshold power above which significant acceleration takes place is greatly reduced by using a tighter focus. Moreover, electrons accelerated by tightly focused single-cycle laser pulses may reach around 80% of the theoretical energy gain limit, about twice the value previously reported with few-cycle paraxial pulses.

Water vapor concentration measurement in air using filament-induced fluorescence spectroscopy.

Water vapor fluorescence in air induced by femtosecond laser filaments was systematically investigated. The fluorescence signal intensity was found to be linearly proportional to the water vapor concentration, which opens up the possibility of absolute humidity measurements, even remotely.

Referenced passive spectroscopy using dual frequency combs.

A referenced passive spectroscopy scheme using infrared frequency combs is presented. We perform a noise analysis and compare the results with a classical Fourier transform spectrometer. Experimental results are shown and great agreement with theory is obtained.

Mechanism of nanograting formation on the surface of fused silica.

Nanograting inscription with a tightly focused femtosecond beam on the surface of fused silica was studied. The width and spacing of grooves are shown to decrease with the increase of the number of overlapped shots in both stationary and scanning cases. We propose a model to explain this behavior, based on both the so-called nanoplasmonic model and the incubation effect.

Whispering gallery mode sensing with a dual frequency comb probe.

Silica microspheres are probed with a dual comb interferometry setup. The impulse responses of these microresonators are measured with a temporal resolution smaller than 400 fs over more than 200 ps. The amplitudes and phases of the impulse responses are interpreted as providing sensing information.

Study of the photosensitivity of GeS binary glasses to 800 nm femtosecond pulses.

We present the first study of the photosensitivity of GeS binary glasses in response to irradiation to femtosecond pulses at 800 nm. A maximum positive refractive index change of 3.5x10(-3) is demonstrated with the possibility to control the waveguide diameter from ~8 to ~50 µm by adjusting the input pulse energy.

Dynamic behavior of postfilamentation Raman pulses.

We report on the postfilamentation behavior of a Stokes pulse created from intense and collimated ultrashort pulses propagating in air. A systematic analysis of the pulse propagation revealed that the redshifted Raman pulse produced during filamentation had a larger divergence than the postfilamentation intense pump pulse. Also, the analysis of the far-field Stokes transverse ring revealed that the intensity in this ionization-free light channel is still sufficiently high to induce stimulated Raman scattering after ionization had ended.

Bessel-Gauss beams as rigorous solutions of the Helmholtz equation.

The study of the nonparaxial propagation of optical beams has received considerable attention. In particular, the so-called complex-source/sink model can be used to describe strongly focused beams near the beam waist, but this method has not yet been applied to the Bessel-Gauss (BG) beam. In this paper, the complex-source/sink solution for the nonparaxial BG beam is expressed as a superposition of nonparaxial elegant Laguerre-Gaussian beams.

Focusing a TM(01) beam with a slightly tilted parabolic mirror.

A parabolic mirror illuminated with an incident collimated beam whose axis of propagation does not exactly coincide with the axis of revolution of the mirror shows distortion and strong coma. To understand the behavior of such a focused beam, a detailed description of the electric field in the focal region of a parabolic mirror illuminated with a beam having a nonzero angle of incidence is required. We use the Richards-Wolf vector field equation to investigate the electric energy density distribution of a beam focused with a parabolic mirror.

Continuously adjustable gate width setup for attosecond polarization gating: theory and experiment.

We demonstrate an alternative approach for attosecond polarization gating. A setup composed of four quartz wedges and a quarter-wave plate allows an easy adjustment of the temporal gate-width and of the total dispersion. A numerical simulation of the pulse propagation beyond the carrier-envelope approximation enables a calibration of the setup and provides a flexible choice of the desired temporal polarization.

Label-free biosensing based on multilayer fluorescent nanocomposites and a cationic polymeric transducer.

This study describes the preparation and characterization of a DNA sensing architecture combining the molecular recognition capabilities of a cationic conjugated polymer transducer with highly fluorescent core-shell nanoparticles (NPs). The very structure of the probe-labeled NPs and the polymer-induced formation of NP aggregates maximize the proximity between the polymer donor and acceptor NPs that is required for optimal resonant energy transfer. Each hybridization event is signaled by a potentially large number of excited reporters following the efficient plasmon-enhanced energy transfer between target-activated polymer transducer and fluorophores located in the self-assembled core-shell aggregates, resulting in direct molecular detection of target nucleic acids at femtomolar concentrations.

Optical referencing technique with CW lasers as intermediate oscillators for continuous full delay range frequency comb interferometry.

This paper presents a significant advancement in the referencing technique applied to frequency comb spectrometry (cFTS) that we proposed and demonstrated recently. Based on intermediate laser oscillators, it becomes possible to access the full delay range set by the repetition rate of the frequency combs, overcoming the principal limitation observed in the method based on passive optical filters. With this new referencing technique, the maximum spectral resolution given by each comb tooth is achievable and continuous scanning will improve complex reflectometry measurements.

4π Focusing of TM(01) beams under nonparaxial conditions.

The Richards-Wolf theory and the complex point-source method are both used to express the phasor of the electric field of tightly focused beams, but the connection between these two approaches is not straightforward. In this paper, the Richards-Wolf vector field equations are used to find the electromagnetic field of a TM(01) beam in the neighborhood of the focus of a 4π focusing system, such as a parabolic mirror with infinite transverse dimensions. Closed-form solutions are found for the distribution of the fields at any point in the vicinity of the focus; these solutions are identical to the electromagnetic field obtained with the complex source-point method in which sources are accompanied by sinks.

Predictive analog-to-digital converter for Fourier-transform spectrometers.

This paper proposes the use of predictive analog-to-digital converters (ADC) to handle dynamic range issues in Fourier-transform spectrometers. Several predictive approaches are proposed, and one is implemented experimentally to show that the technique works. A system was implemented with 16 bit (13 bits effective) ADCs and digital-to-analog converters (DACs) operated at 8 bits to provide a comparison basis.

Spectrally resolved laser ranging with frequency combs.

The multiheterodyne beatnote between two frequency combs having pulses sliding one with respect to another is used to perform spectrally resolved ranging of diffuse reflectors at short distances. The sliding comb sources are generated using one mode-locked laser and a two-beam interferometer, but two properly controlled lasers could be used as well. A pseudo-random binary modulation of the pulses is used to increase the non-ambiguous range.