Seeing at a distance with multicore fibers

Images and videos provide a wealth of information for people in production and life.Although most digital information is transmitted via optical fiber,the image acquisition and transmission processes still rely heavily on electronic circuits.The development of all-optical transmission networks and optical computing frameworks has pointed to the direction for the next generation of data transmission and information processing.Here,we propose a high-speed,low-cost,multiplexed parallel and one-piece all-fiber architecture for image acquisition,encoding,and transmission,called the Multicore Fiber Acquisition and Transmission Image System(MFAT).Based on different spatial and modal channels of the multicore fiber,fiber-coupled self-encoding,and digital aperture decoding technology,scenes can be observed directly from up to 1 km away.The expansion of capacity provides the possibility of parallel coded transmission of multimodal high-quality data.MFAT requires no additional signal transmitting and receiving equipment.The all-fiber processing saves the time traditionally spent on signal conversion and image pre-processing(compression,encoding,and modulation).Additionally,it provides an effective solution for 2D information acquisition and transmission tasks in extreme environments such as high temperatures and electromagnetic interference.

Feature Recognition of Low-resolution Fiber Image

The interpolatory edge operator is applied to the recognition of cotton and ramie fibers. Its performance is studied in comparison with the Canny edge operator in the fiber’s edge detection for cross-sectional image. The input image is interpolated other than Gaussian function smoothing. The quality of edge output is improved by the interpolatory edge operator. It produces edge output with good continuity for low-resolution input. The fine edge output, such as cross-markings, can be distinguished clearly, so the interpolatory edge operator is suitable for the study of cotton and ramie fibers. Furthermore, the application of the interpolatory edge operator can cut the hardware cost, reduce the storage and speed up the data transmission.

Eyewear-style three-dimensional endoscope derived from microstructured polymer fiber with the function of image transmission

A method of fabricating multi-core polymer image fiber is proposed.Image fiber preform is fabricated by stacking thousands of polymer fibers each with a 0.25-mm diameter orderly in a die by only one step.The preform is heated and stretched into image fiber with an outer diameter of 2mm.Then a portable eyewear-style three-dimensional（3D） endoscope system is designed,fabricated,and characterized.This endoscopic system is composed of two graded index lenses,two pieces of 0.35-m length image guide fibers,and a pair of oculars.It shows good ？exibility and portability,and can provide the depth information accordingly.

Meso-mechanical Interfacial Behavior of Elbow Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete

The strain distributions near the interface when the elbow steel fiber is pulled out from the half-mould concrete matrix are directly measured using a combined method of single fiber pull-out test and digital image correlation. Meanwhile, the real-time processes of the bonding, debonding and sliding at the interface are observed. The micro-mechanism of the strain localization in the failure process of interface when debonding occurs and the strengthening mechanism at the imbedded fiber are discussed. The experimental results show that the meso-scale strain localization gives rise to the localization of shear damage near the fiber interface. This strain localization characterized by the debonding process near the interface occurs, develops and moves gradually at an apparently regular interval. At the elbow part of the imbedded fiber, the peak value of the shearing stress occurs. But the primary debonding does not occur at this place because the strength of the shear damage is increased at the local area of the elbow part in the concrete, displaying an apparent reinforced effect at the end of the fiber.

Planning for selective amygdalohippocampectomy involving less neuronal fiber damage based on brain connectivity using tractography

Temporal lobe resection is an important treatment option for epilepsy that involves removal of potentially essential brain regions. Selective amygdalohippocampectomy is a widely performed temporal lobe surgery. We suggest starting the incision for selective amygdalohippocampectomy at the inferior temporal gyrus based on diffusion magnetic resonance imaging（MRI） tractography. Diffusion MRI data from 20 normal participants were obtained from Parkinson＇s Progression Markers Initiative（PPMI） database（www.ppmi-info.org）. A tractography algorithm was applied to extract neuronal fiber information for the temporal lobe, hippocampus, and amygdala. Fiber information was analyzed in terms of the number of fibers and betweenness centrality. Distances between starting incisions and surgical target regions were also considered to explore the length of the surgical path. Middle temporal and superior temporal gyrus regions have higher connectivity values than the inferior temporal gyrus and thus are not good candidates for starting the incision. The distances between inferior temporal gyrus and surgical target regions were shorter than those between middle temporal gyrus and target regions. Thus, the inferior temporal gyrus is a good candidate for starting the incision. Starting the incision from the inferior temporal gyrus would spare the important（in terms of betweenness centrality values） middle region and shorten the distance to the target regions of the hippocampus and amygdala.

Nonconvex optimization for optimum retrieval of the transmission matrix of a multimode fiber

Transmission matrix(TM)allows light control through complex media,such as multimode fibers(MMFs),gaining great attention in areas,such as biophotonics,over the past decade.Efforts have been taken to retrieve a complex-valued TM directly from intensity measurements with several representative phase-retrieval algorithms,which still see limitations of slow or suboptimum recovery,especially under noisy environments.Here,we propose a modified nonconvex optimization approach.Through numerical evaluations,it shows that the optimum focusing efficiency is approached with less running time or sampling ratio.The comparative tests under different signal-to-noise levels further indicate its improved robustness.Experimentally,the superior focusing performance of our algorithm is collectively validated by single-and multispot focusing;especially with a sampling ratio of 8,it achieves a 93.6%efficiency of the gold-standard holography method.Based on the recovered TM,image transmission through an MMF is realized with high fidelity.Due to parallel operation and GPU acceleration,our nonconvex approach retrieves a 8685×1024 TM(sampling ratio is 8)with 42.3 s on average on a regular computer.The proposed method provides optimum efficiency and fast execution for TM retrieval that avoids the need for an external reference beam,which will facilitate applications of deep-tissue optical imaging,manipulation,and treatment.

High-speed multimode fiber imaging system based on conditional generative adversarial network

The multimode fiber(MMF)has great potential to transmit high-resolution images with less invasive methods in endoscopy due to its large number of spatial modes and small core diameter.However,spatial modes crosstalk will inevitably occur in MMFs,which makes the received images become speckles.A conditional generative adversarial network(GAN)composed of a generator and a discriminator was utilized to reconstruct the received speckles.We conduct an MMF imaging experimental system of transmitting over 1 m MMF with a 50μm core.Compared with the conventional method of U-net,this conditional GAN could reconstruct images with fewer training datasets to achieve the same performance and shows higher feature extraction capability.

Pencil-beam scanning catheter for intracoronary optical coherence tomography

Current gradient-index(GRIN)lens based proximal-driven intracoronary optical coherence tomography(ICOCT)probes consist of a spacer and a GRIN lens with large gradient constant.This design provides great flexibility to control beam profiles,but the spacer length should be well controlled to obtain desired beam profiles and thus it sets an obstacle in mass catheter fabrication.Besides,although GRIN lens with large gradient constant can provide tight focus spot,it has short depth of focus and fast-expanded beam which leads to poor lateral resolution for deep tissue.In this paper,a type of spacer-removed probe is demonstrated with a small gradient constant GRIN lens.This design simplifies the fabrica-tion process and is suitable for mass production.The output beam of the catheter is a narrow nearly collimated light beam,referred to as pencil beam here.The full width at half maximum beam size varies from 35.1μm to 75.3μm in air over 3-mm range.Probe design principles are elaborated with probe/catheter fabrication and performance test.The in vivo imaging of the catheter was verified by a clinical ICOCT system.Those results prove that this novel pencil-beam scanning catheter is potentially a good choice for ICOCT systems.

Deep-learning cell imaging through Anderson localizing optical fiber

We demonstrate a deep-learning-based fiber imaging system that can transfer real-time artifact-free cell images through a meter-long Anderson localizing optical fiber.The cell samples are illuminated by an incoherent LED light source.A deep convolutional neural network is applied to the image reconstruction process.The network training uses data generated by a setup with straight fiber at room temperature(∼20°C)but can be utilized directly for high-fidelity reconstruction of cell images that are transported through fiber with a few degrees bend or fiber with segments heated up to 50°C.In addition,cell images located several millimeters away from the bare fiber end can be transported and recovered successfully without the assistance of distal optics.We provide evidence that the trained neural network is able to transfer its learning to recover images of cells featuring very different morphologies and classes that are never“seen”during the training process.

Microball lens integrated fiber probe for optical frequency domain imaging

An integrated microball lens fiber catheter probe is demonstrated, which has better lateral resolution and longer working distance than a corresponding bare fiber probe with diverging beam for Fourier domain optical coherence tomography （FDOCT）. Simulation results are shown to gain the effect of the distance between the mieroball lens and the bare fiber to the focusing plane and beam width. The freedom of modifying the working distance and lateral resolution is shown. This is achieved by changing the gap distance between the single-mode fiber and the microball lens within the packaged surgical needle catheter without using an additional beam expander having a fixed length. The probe successfully acquired crosssectional images of ocular tissues from an animal sample with the proposed miniaturized imaging probe.

A Fiber Tractography Study of Social-Emotional Related Fiber Tracts in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The symptoms of autism spectrum disorder（ASD） have been hypothesized to be caused by changes in brain connectivity. From the clinical perspective, the‘‘disconnectivity＇＇ hypothesis has been used to explain characteristic impairments in ‘‘socio-emotional＇＇ function.Therefore, in this study we compared the facial emotional recognition（FER） feature and the integrity of socialemotional-related white-matter tracts between children and adolescents with high-functioning ASD（HFA） and their typically developing（TD） counterparts. The correlation between the two factors was explored to find out if impairment of the white-matter tracts is the neural basis of social-emotional disorders. Compared with the TD group,FER was significantly impaired and the fractional anisotropy value of the right cingulate fasciculus was increased in the HFA group（P ／ 0.01）. In conclusion, the FER function of children and adolescents with HFA was impaired and the microstructure of the cingulate fasciculus had abnormalities.

Defect Recognition in Thermosonic Imaging

This work is aimed at developing an effective method for defect recognition in thermosonic imaging.The heat mechanism of thermosonic imaging is introduced,and the problem for defect recognition is discussed.For this purpose,defect existing in the inner wall of a metal pipeline specimen and defects embedded in a carbon fiber reinforced plastic（CFRP） laminate are tested.The experimental data are processed by pulse phase thermography（PPT） method to show the phase images at different frequencies,and the characteristic of phase angle vs frequency curve of thermal anomalies and sound area is analyzed.A binary image,which is based on the characteristic value of defects,is obtained by a new recognition algorithm to show the defects.Results demonstrate good defect recognition performance for thermosonic imaging,and the reliability of this technique can be improved by the method.

Deep learning for position fixing in the micron scale by using convolutional neural networks

We propose here a novel method for position fixing in the micron scale by combining the convolutional neural network(CNN) architecture and speckle patterns generated in a multimode fiber. By varying the splice offset between a single mode fiber and a multimode fiber, speckles with different patterns can be generated at the output of the multimode fiber. The CNN is utilized to learn these specklegrams and then predict the offset coordinate. Simulation results show that predicted positions with the precision of 2 μm account for 98.55%.This work provides a potential high-precision two-dimensional positioning method.

Experimental observation of topologically protected defect states in silicon waveguide arrays

Photonic waveguide arrays provide a simple and versatile platform for simulating conventional topological systems.Here,we investigate a novel one-dimensional(1D)topological band structure,a dimer chain,consisting of silicon waveguides with alternating self-coupling and inter-coupling.Coupled mode theory is used to study topological features of such a model.It is found that topological invariants of our proposed model are described by the global Berry phase instead of the Berry phase of the upper or lower energy band,which is commonly used in the1 D topological models such as the Su–Schrieffer–Heeger model.Next,we design an array configuration composed of two dimer patterns with different global Berry phases to realize the topologically protected waveguiding.The topologically protected propagation feature is simulated based on the finite-difference time-domain method and then observed in the experiment.Our results provide an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of the topological defect state in a 1D silicon waveguide array,and may provide different routes for on-chip lightwave shaping and routing.

A novel 2-dimensional cosmic ray position detector based on a CsI(Na) pixel array and an ICCD camera

A novel 2-D cosmic ray position detector has been built and studied. It is integrated from a CsI（Na） crystal pixel array, an optical fiber array, an image intensifier and an ICCD camera. The 2-D positions of one cosmic ray track is determined by the location of a fired CsI（Na） pixel. The scintillation light of these 1.0× 1.0 mm CsI（Na） pixels is delivered to the image intensifier through fibers. The light information is recorded in the ICCD camera in the form of images, from which the 2-D positions can be reconstructed. The background noise and cosmic ray images have been studied. The study shows that the cosmic ray detection efficiency can reach up to 11.4%, while the false accept rate is less than 1%.