Photonic integrated optical phased arrays and their applications[Invited]

In recent years,optical phased arrays(OPAs)have attracted great interest for their potential applications in light detection and ranging(Li DAR),free-space optical communications(FSOs),holography,and so on.Photonic integrated circuits(PICs)provide solutions for further reducing the size,weight,power,and cost of OPAs.In this paper,we review the recent development of photonic integrated OPAs.We summarize the typical architecture of the integrated OPAs and their performance.We analyze the key components of OPAs and evaluate the figure of merit for OPAs.Various applications in Li DAR,FSO,imaging,biomedical sensing,and specialized beam generation are introduced.

Optical vortex array:generation and applications[Invited]

Optical vortex arrays,with their unique wavefront structures,find extensive applications in fields such as optical communications,trapping,imaging,metrology,and quantum.The methods used to generate these vortex beam arrays are crucial for their applications.In this review,we begin with introducing the fundamental concepts of optical vortex beams.Subsequently,we present three methods for generating them,including diffractive optical elements,metasurfaces,and integrated optical devices.We then explore the applications of optical vortex beam arrays in five different domains.Finally,we conclude with a summary and outlook for the research on optical vortex beam arrays.

Constructing arbitrary self-similar Bessel-like beams via transverse-longitudinal mapping

Based on the transverse-longitudinal mapping of Bessel beams,we propose a simple method to construct a self-similar Bessel-like beam whose transverse profile maintains a stretched form during propagation.Specifically,the propagatingvariant width of this beam can be flexibly predesigned.We experimentally demonstrate three types of self-similar Bessellike beams whose width variations are linear,piecewise,and period functions of propagation distance,respectively.The experimental results match well with the theoretical predictions.We also demonstrate that our approach enables the generation of self-similar higher-order vortex Bessel-like beams.

14.1 W continuous-wave dual-end diode-pumped Er:Lu_(2)O_(3)laser at 2.85μm

We present our efforts towards power scaling of Er:Lu_(2)O_(3)lasers at 2.85μm.By applying a dual-end diode-pumped resonator scheme,we achieve an output power of 14.1 W at an absorbed pump power of 59.7 W with a slope efficiency of 26%.In a single-end pumped resonator scheme,an output power of 10.1 W is reached under 41.9 W of absorbed pump power.To the best of our knowledge,this is the first single crystalline mid-infrared rare-earth-based solid-state laser with an output power exceeding 10 W at room temperature.

4.096 Tbit/s multidimensional multiplexing signals transmission over 1000 km few mode fiber

We experimentally transmit eight wavelength-division-multiplexing(WDM)channels,16 quadratic-amplitude-modulation(QAM)signals at 32-GBaud,over 1000 km few mode fiber(FMF).In this experiment,we use WDM,mode division multiplexing,and polarization multiplexing for signal transmission.Through the multiple-input-multiple-output(MIMO)equalization algorithms,we achieve the total line transmission rate of 4.096 Tbit/s.The results prove that the bit error rates(BERs)for the16QAM signals after 1000 km FMF transmission are below the soft-decision forward-error-correction(SD-FEC)threshold of2.4×10^(-2),and the net rate reaches 3.413 Tbit/s.Our proposed system provides a reference for the future development of high-capacity communication.

Sub-Nyquist radar receiver based on photonics-assisted compressed sensing and cascaded dictionaries

A sub-Nyquist radar receiver based on photonics-assisted compressed sensing is proposed.Cascaded dictionaries are applied to extract the delay and the Doppler frequency of the echo signals,which do not need to accumulate multiple echo periods and can achieve better Doppler accuracy.An experiment is performed.Radar echoes with different delays and Doppler frequencies are undersampled and successfully reconstructed to obtain the delay and Doppler information of the targets.Experimental results show that the average reconstruction error of the Doppler frequency is 5.33 kHz using an 8-μs radar signal under the compression ratio of 5.The proposed method provides a promising solution for the sub-Nyquist radar receiver.

Ultralow cross talk arrayed waveguide grating integrated with tunable microring filter array

The silicon-based arrayed waveguide grating(AWG)is widely used due to its compact footprint and its compatibility with the mature CMOS process.However,except for AWGs with ridged waveguides of a few micrometers of cross section,any small process error will cause a large phase deviation in other AWGs,resulting in an increasing cross talk.In this paper,an ultralow cross talk AWG via a tunable microring resonator(MRR)filter is demonstrated on the SOI platform.The measured insertion loss and minimum adjacent cross talk of the designed AWG are approximately 3.2 and-45.1 d B,respectively.Compared with conventional AWG,its cross talk is greatly reduced.

Quantum-enhanced microscopic imaging technology [Invited]

Microscopes are indispensable tools in modern biology and medicine. With the development of microscopy, the signal-tonoise ratio of microscopes is now limited by the shot noise. Recently, quantum-enhanced microscopic imaging provides a feasible approach for improving the signal-to-noise ratio since it can beat the shot-noise limit by using quantum light. In this review, we first briefly introduce quantum states applied in quantum-enhanced microscopic imaging, and then we provide an overview of the principle and progress of quantum-enhanced stimulated Raman scattering microscopy, entangled twophoton microscopy,and quantum-enhanced differential interference contrast microscopy.

Watt-level acousto-optically Q-switched Pr:YLF laser at 639 nm

We present a study on a watt-level acousto-optically Q-switched Pr:YLF laser at three different repetition rates(10 kHz,20 kHz,and 50 kHz)for the first time,to the best of our knowledge.The corresponding average output powers and pulse widths were measured to be 1.14 W,1.2 W,and 1.32 W,and 40 ns,52 ns,and 80 ns,respectively.A maximum pulse energy of0.11 mJ was obtained,corresponding to a peak power of up to 2.8 kW at a repetition rate of 10 kHz.The simulated dynamics of a fast Q-switched Pr:YLF laser is in agreement with the experiment.The laser's ability to generate stable pulses with high peak power and short pulse width makes it highly desirable for various practical applications,such as laser machining and material processing.

Highly sensitive CO_(2)-LITES sensor based on a self-designed low-frequency quartz tuning fork and fiber-coupled MPC

A highly sensitive carbon dioxide(CO_(2))sensor based on light-induced thermoelastic spectroscopy(LITES)utilizing a selfdesigned low-frequency quartz tuning fork(QTF)and a fiber-coupled multipass cell(MPC)is reported in this paper.The QTF with a low resonant frequency of 8675 Hz and a high Q factor of 11,675.64 was used to improve its energy accumulation time and the sensor’s signal level.The MPC with the fiber-coupled structure and optical length of 40 m was adopted to significantly increase the gas absorbance and reduce the optical alignment difficulty as well as improve the robustness of the sensor system.A distributed feedback(DFB),near-infrared diode laser with an emission wavelength of 1.57μm was used as an excitation source.The experimental results showed that this CO_(2)-LITES sensor had an excellent linear response to CO_(2) concentrations.The minimum detection limitation(MDL)of this CO_(2)-LITES sensor was obtained to be 445.91 ppm,and it could be improved to 47.70 ppm(parts per million)when the integration time of the system reached 500 s.Further improvement methods for the detection performance of such sensors were also discussed.

Inverse-designed Jones matrix metasurfaces for high-performance meta-polarizers

Polarizers have always been an important optical component for optical engineering and have played an indispensable part of polarization imaging systems.Metasurface polarizers provide an excellent platform to achieve miniaturization,high resolution,and low cost of polarization imaging systems.Here,we proposed freeform metasurface polarizers derived by adjoint-based inverse design of a full-Jones matrix with gradient-descent optimization.We designed multiple freeform polarizers with different filtered states of polarization(SOPs),including circular polarizers,elliptical polarizers,and linear polarizers that could cover the full Poincarésphere.Note that near-unitary polarization dichroism and the ultrahigh polarization extinction ratio(ER)reaching 50 d B were achieved for optimized circular polarizers.The multiple freeform polarizers with filtered polarization state locating at four vertices of an inscribed regular tetrahedron of the Poincarésphere are designed to form a full-Stokes parameters micropolarizer array.Our work provides a novel approach,we believe,for the design of meta-polarizers that may have potential applications in polarization imaging,polarization detection,and communication.

Concentration sensing system with monolithic InGaN/GaN photonic chips

Using an identical monolithic InGaN/GaN light emitting diode (LED) array as the sensing module and a well-designed data processing module, we demonstrate a small-size concentration sensing prototype. Overlap between the emission and the response spectra of the InGaN/GaN LED makes each pair of LEDs in the arrayed chip form a sensing channel. The changes in liquid concentration can be transformed into variation of photocurrent. The system's sensing properties are further optimized by varying the position, number of receivers, and packaging reflectors. With methyl orange as a tracer agent, the sensing system's resolution is 0.286 μmol/L with a linear measurement region below 40 μmol/L.

Passively stable 0.7-octave microcombs in thin-film lithium niobate microresonators

The optical frequency comb based on microresonators(microcombs)is an integrated coherent light source and has the potential to promise a high-precision frequency standard;self-reference and a long-term stable microcomb are the keys to this realization.Here,we demonstrated a 0.7-octave spectrum Kerr comb via dispersion engineering in a thin-film lithium niobate microresonator,and the single-soliton state can be accessed passively with long-term stability over 3 h.With such a robust broadband coherent comb source using thin-film lithium niobate,a fully stabilized microcomb can be expected for massive practical applications.

Dynamic imaging through scattering medium under white-light illumination [Invited]

Imaging objects hidden behind turbid media is of great scientific importance and practical value, which has been drawing a lot of attention recently. However, most of the scattering imaging methods rely on a narrow linewidth of light, limiting their application. A mixture of the scattering light from various spectra blurs the detected speckle pattern, bringing difficulty in phase retrieval. Image reconstruction becomes much worse for dynamic objects due to short exposure times. We here investigate non-invasively recovering images of dynamic objects under white-light irradiation with the multi-frame OTF retrieval engine (MORE). By exploiting redundant information from multiple measurements, MORE recovers the phases of the optical-transfer-function (OTF) instead of recovering a single image of an object. Furthermore, we introduce the number of non-zero pixels (NNP) into MORE, which brings improvement on recovered images. An experimental proof is performed for dynamic objects at a frame rate of 20 Hz under white-light irradiation of more than 300 nm bandwidth.

SSL Depth: self-supervised learning enables 16× speedup in confocal microscopy-based 3D surface imaging [Invited]

In scientific and industrial research, three-dimensional (3D) imaging, or depth measurement, is a critical tool that provides detailed insight into surface properties. Confocal microscopy, known for its precision in surface measurements, plays a key role in this field. However, 3D imaging based on confocal microscopy is often challenged by significant data requirements and slow measurement speeds. In this paper, we present a novel self-supervised learning algorithm called SSL Depth that overcomes these challenges. Specifically, our method exploits the feature learning capabilities of neural networks while avoiding the need for labeled data sets typically associated with supervised learning approaches. Through practical demonstrations on a commercially available confocal microscope, we find that our method not only maintains higher quality, but also significantly reduces the frequency of the z-axis sampling required for 3D imaging. This reduction results in a remarkable 16×measurement speed, with the potential for further acceleration in the future. Our methodological advance enables highly efficient and accurate 3D surface reconstructions, thereby expanding the potential applications of confocal microscopy in various scientific and industrial fields.

On-chip stimulated Brillouin scattering[Invited]

On-chip stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS)has attracted extensive attention by introducing acousto-optic coupling interactions in all-optical signal processing systems.A series of chip-level applications such as Brillouin lasers,amplifiers,gyroscopes,filters,and nonreciprocal devices are realized based on Brillouin acousto-optic interaction.Here,we first introduce the fundamental principle of SBS in integrated photonics and a method for calculating Brillouin gain;then we illustrate the Brillouin effect on different material platforms with diverse applications.Finally,we make a concise conclusion and offer prospects on the future developments of on-chip SBS.

Sensitivity of ghost imaging compared to conventional imaging [Invited]

Ghost imaging has been attracting more and more attention, which provides a way to obtain images of objects with only a single-pixel detector. Considering possible applications, it becomes urgent to clarify the sensitivity of ghost imaging. Due to the unique characteristics of single-pixel detectors, which collect photons without distributing them to multiple pixels,often outperforming array sensors, ghost imaging is believed to be more sensitive than conventional imaging. However,a systematic analysis on the sensitivity of ghost imaging is yet to be completed. In this paper, we present a method for quantitatively assessing the sensitivity of ghost imaging. A detailed comparison is provided between ghost imaging and conventional imaging, taking into account the particle nature of photons and the noise of detection. With the settings of the two imaging methods being the same to the most extent, the minimal required number of detected photons for images of a certain quality is considered. For the thermal source version, ghost imaging demonstrates enhanced sensitivity under practical situations, with noise considered.Employing an entangled source, ghost imaging surpasses conventional imaging techniques in terms of sensitivity obviously. In one word, ghost imaging promises higher sensitivity at low photon flux and noisy situations.

High-resolution single-photon LiDAR without range ambiguity using hybrid-mode imaging [Invited]

We proposed a hybrid imaging scheme to estimate a high-resolution absolute depth map from low photon counts. It leverages measurements of photon arrival times from a single-photon LiDAR and an intensity image from a conventional high-resolution camera. Using a tailored fusion algorithm, we jointly processed the raw measurements from both sensors and output a high-resolution absolute depth map. We scaled up the resolution by a factor of 10, achieving 1300 × 2611 pixels and extending ~4.7 times the unambiguous range. These results demonstrated the superior capability of long-range high-resolution 3D imaging without range ambiguity.

Ghost imaging—its physics and application [Invited]

Since its first experimental demonstration, “ghost imaging” has attracted much attention, perhaps not only because of its interesting physics but also because of its attractive application. This review article discusses the physics and application of ghost imaging:(1) emphasizes the nonlocal two-photon interference nature of ghost imaging, including detailed analysis and calculations;(2) introduces three types of applications with unique advantages of ghost imaging, including a light detection and ranging device with imaging ability, namely, an Imaging Lidar or ILidar system;a turbulence-resistant, or turbulence-free, imaging technology;and a vibration-resistant X-ray microscope of high resolving capability.This article is prepared for a Special Issue of Chinese Optics Letters, intended for general audiences, especially young researchers and students who are interested in ghost imaging.

Information-theoretic perspective on performance assessment and fundamental limit of quantum imaging [Invited]

Performance assessment of an imaging system is important for the optimization design with various technologies.The information-theoretic viewpoint based on communication theory or statistical inference theory can provide objective and operational measures on imaging performance. These approaches can be further developed by combining with the quantum statistical inference theory for optimizing imaging performance over measurements and analyze its quantum limits, which is demanded in order to improve an imaging system when the photon shot noise in the measurement is the dominant noise source. The aim of this review is to discuss and analyze the recent developments in this branch of quantum imaging.