Niemannarildsen6761

We report the demonstration of a fiber-based supercontinuum source delivering up to 825 mW of average output power between 2.5 and 5.0 µm generated in all-normal dispersion regime. The pumping source consists of an amplified ultrafast Er3+ZrF4 fiber laser providing high peak power femtosecond pulses at 3.6 µm with an average output power exceeding the watt-level. These pulses are spectrally broadened through self-phase modulation using commercial chalcogenide-based step-index fibers. Al2O3 anti-reflection coatings were sputtered on chalcogenide fiber tips to increase the launching efficiency from 54% to 82%, making this record output power possible, and thus confirming that such coatings can support watt-level pumping with intense femtosecond pulses. To the best of our knowledge, this result represents the highest average output power ever achieved from a As2Se3-based mid-IR supercontinuum source with the potential of a high degree of coherence.Edge-illumination X-ray phase-contrast tomography (EIXPCT) is an emerging technique that enables practical phase-contrast imaging with laboratory-based X-ray sources. A joint reconstruction method was proposed for reconstructing EIXPCT images, enabling novel flexible data-acquisition designs. selleck kinase inhibitor However, only limited efforts have been devoted to optimizing data-acquisition designs for use with the joint reconstruction method. In this study, several promising designs are introduced, such as the constant aperture position (CAP) strategy and the alternating aperture position (AAP) strategy covering different angular ranges. In computer-simulation studies, these designs are analyzed and compared. Experimental data are employed to test the designs in real-world applications. All candidate designs are also compared for their implementation complexity. The tradeoff between data-acquisition time and image quality is discussed.We study the angular distribution of light diffusely reflected from a turbid medium with large (compared to the light wavelength) inhomogeneities. Using Monte Carlo radiative transfer simulations, we calculate the azimuthally averaged bidirectional reflectance for an optically thick plane-parallel medium and analyze its dependence on the parameters of the scattering phase function. To model single scattering in the medium, we take advantage of the Reynolds-McCormick phase function. For grazing angles of incidence, we find that the angular distribution of reflected light becomes very sensitive to the angular profile of the scattering phase function. The more elongated the phase function, the more pronounced the peak that arises around the specular reflection angle. Comparison of our numerical results with an analytic solution of the radiative transfer equation is performed, and it is shown that the bidirectional reflectance can be decomposed into two contributions, namely, the diffusion contribution and the contribution from light experiencing multiple scattering through small angles. The latter relates directly to the angular profile of the scattering phase function and is responsible for the peak in the angular distribution of reflected light. An explicit analytic formula for the azimuthally averaged bidirectional reflectance is obtained.The Sinclair and Kennaugh matrices are widely used in the remote sensing discipline for signals detected in the backward direction. The connections between the Jones matrix and the Sinclair matrix, and between the Mueller matrix and the Kennaugh matrix, are explored. Different operations on the Jones matrix and their corresponding effects on the Mueller matrix, coherency matrix, and coherence vector are derived. As an example, the Sinclair matrix leads to a Mueller-Sinclair matrix, and a transformed coherence vector. The Kennaugh matrix is not, however, a Mueller matrix, but can be determined from the Mueller or Mueller-Sinclair matrices. We consider backscattering through a medium on a perfect mirror. We propose that backscattering from a uniform medium can be modeled as an effective uniform medium situated on a perfectly reflective substrate, and the elementary polarization properties derived. In this way, the concept of a uniform polarizing medium can be extended to the reflectance geometry. An experimental Mueller matrix from the literature is considered as an example.Vector diffraction theory is used to investigate the focusing properties of cosh-Gaussian beams with the power-exponent-phase vortex. The effects of the decentered parameter, the power order, and the topological charge on the normalized intensity distribution are examined. Results show that intensity distribution in the focal region can be altered significantly by the topological charge, the power order, and the decentered parameter. The pattern of the optical intensity slowly enlarges with the increase of topological charge. The strongest intensity part of the annulus rotates by the changing topological charge. As the power order increases, the intensity distribution is more concentrated. As the decentered parameter increases, there occur multiple relatively strong intensity peaks, and the entire focus pattern extends outward. Some optical gradient force distributions are investigated to illuminate the applications of these alterable foci patterns.In this work, the propagation of vortex beams is treated using a catastrophe theory approach. Analytic expressions are deduced to describe caustic surfaces produced by vortex lenses and vortex axicons. The obtained analytics allow us to explain the formation of the shadow region along the optical axis for vortex beams using geometric optics (previously, the zero axial intensity was explained just by diffraction effects). Thus, the presence of a vortex eikonal leads to a fundamental change in the type of axial caustic. Another important distinction of the caustics produced by vortex beams from those produced by nonvortex radial beams has been shown to consist in wavelength-dependence. The results of numerical simulation show that the propagation operator defined using a geometrical optics approximation agrees well with the numerical simulation results obtained using a nonparaxial diffraction operator based on the conical wave expansion.