Effects of optical axis direction on optical path difference and lateral displacement of Savart polariscope

A simple method is applied to calculating the optical path difference （OPD） of a plane parallel uniaxial plate with an arbitrary optical axis direction. Then, the theoretical expressions of the OPD and lateral displacement （LD） of Savart polariscope under non-ideal conditions are obtained exactly. The variations of OPD and LD are simulated, and some important conclusions are obtained when the optical axis directions have an identical tolerance of ／pm 1^{{／circ}}. An application example is given that the tolerances of optical axis directions are gained according to the spectral resolution tolerances of the stationary polarization interference imaging spectrometer （SPIIS）. Several approximate formulae are obtained for explaining some conclusions above. The work provides a theoretical guidance for the optic design, crystal processing, installation and debugging, data analysis and spectral reconstruction of the SPIIS.

Four-wave mixing and six-wave mixing in a four-level confined atomic system

We have investigated coexisting four-wave mixing and six-wave mixing （SWM） in ultra-thin, micrometre and long vapour cells. There exists competition between Dicke-narrowing features and polarization interference in the micrometre cell. The oscillation behaviour of SWM signal intensities and linewidths results from destructive interference. With a larger destructive interference, the SWM signal in ultra-thin cells shows a narrow spectrum, in contrast to the long cell case. Due to the Dicke-narrowing features, a narrow spectrum can be obtained, and such spectra can be used for high precision measurements and metrological standards.

A high performance tunable optical filter based on cascaded polarization interference filter

A new kind of tunable optical filter is proposed for DWDM optical communication application. It is based on cascaded polarization interference filter (PIF). The period and bandpass width of each PIF are decided by its optical path difference between o-ray and e-ray (OPDOE). When their OPDOEs are proportionately designed, the tuning range and bandpass width depend on OPDOE in the first and the last PIF, respectively. The tuning range, bandpass width and crosstalk are independent each other. The crosstalk is related to the OPDOE ratios among PIFs and can be suppressed by designing the PIF's OPDOE. A set of OPDOE is suggested that are l1, 2 × l1, 22 ×l1, 23 ×l1, 24 ×l1, ..., 2N-4 × l1, 15 × 2N-7 ×l1, 10 × 2N-6 × l1 and 2N-2 ×l1 from the first to the last. This suggested OPDOEs can yield -50-dB crosstalk for any tuning range and bandpass width. The insert loss is less than 1 dB. As its loose alignment requirement, there is no limitation on cascaded PIF number. When 11 PIFs are cascaded, it can achieve 170-nm tuning range, -50-dB crosstalk, bandpass width applicable to 25-GHz channel spacing and 1 dB insert loss.