Measurement apparatus of wavefront and polarization profile of vectorial optical fields
AssigneeUniversity of South Florida
InventorsZhimin Shi, Darrick Hay, Ziyi Zhu, Yiyu Zhou, Robert W. Boyd
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Abstract
An apparatus measures the transverse profile of vectorial optical field beams, including both the phase and the polarization spatial profile. The apparatus contains a polarization separation module, a weak perturbation module, and a detection module. Characterizing the transverse profile of vector fields provides an optical metrology tool for both fundamental studies of vectorial optical fields and a wide spectrum of applications, including microscopy, surveillance, imaging, communication, material processing, and laser trapping.
Claims10
A computerized method of transmitting information via an optical vector beam, the method comprising:
- encoding data onto a primary optical beam to form the optical vector beam, wherein the encoding comprises differential spatial phase shift keying (DSPSK) in which the data is represented by physical changes in the optical vector beam across spatially separated portions of the optical vector beam;
- decoding the data by identifying respective polarization states and respective phase measurements for the spatially separated portions of the optical vector beam by:
- (i) selecting, from the spatially separated portions of the optical vector beam, at least two orthogonally polarized portions of the optical vector beam;
- and
- (ii) identifying the data in the optical vector beam by tracking differences between the respective phase measurements for the at least two orthogonally polarized portions of the optical vector beam.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.