We describe a project underway since 2015 at the Université de Franche-Comté in France where we have been preserving the history of optics and photonics, with the particular aim of ensuring our students are made aware of this rich scientific heritage. We have successfully located and preserved a wide range of instrumentation and archival material dating from the mid-19th century to the 1960s, including some of the first European studies of lasers, holograms, and their applications. We are currently placing an emphasis on recording oral histories of current and former researchers and educators to ensure that our history during the latter part of the 20th century is fully recorded whilst memories are still fresh, and whilst supporting equipment and laboratory material can be found and archived.
The Bessel beam is a versatile tool for several applications thanks to its propagation-invariant spatial profile. We demonstrate for the first time the possibility of generating high aspect ratio micro-pillars with an ultrafast first-order Bessel beam on a sapphire sample. A single pulse expels matter shaped as a high-aspect ratio pillar. The height can exceed 10 µm with a typical diameter of 500 nm. Importantly, our method does not require milling or deposition of new material. The process is also fast since it requires only a single pulse, and there is no need for sample post-processing.
Bessel beams are quasi-nondiffracting beams. They find numerous applications in high-aspect ratio laser material processing, optical trapping and nonlinear photonics. It is desirable to reach the highest angles to increase the local intensity and reduce the diameter of the laser-generated nanostructures. Here we report on experimental and numerical results of a new Bessel beam shaper which reaches half-cone angle of 48 degrees, i.e. approximately twice higher than state of the art. Numerical analysis of the setup and impact of component misalignment will be presented.
Ultrafast pump-probe imaging requires both an accurate synchronization of probe pulses with the pump and that the probe pulses are free from spatio-temporal distortions. However, characterizing weak probes inside transparent solids reveals to be particularly difficult. We report a new in-situ diagnostic for ultrashort probes using a micrometric-sized Kerr-based transient grating induced in the sample by a shaped pump pulse. Our configuration allows us to synchronize pump and probe pulses in-situ, to measure the ultrashort probe pulse duration, and to remove pulse front tilt of the weak probe. Our approach is valid for any probe wavelength and polarization.
Shaping complex light fields such as nondiffracting beams, provide important novel routes to control laser materials processing. Nondiffracting beams are produced from an interference between waves with an angle kept constant along the propagation direction. These beams are of outmost importance for laser materials processing because they offer invariant light-matter interaction conditions. We have used and developed several families of beams generated with phase and amplitude shaping and we will review their impact for laser surface processing and high aspect ratio laser processing in the bulk of transparent materials. Bessel beams and higher order Bessel beams allow for high aspect ratio channel drilling, elongated void creation in the bulk of transparent media, or tubular damage creation. We will also discuss the impact of accelerating beam shaping, ie beams with a curved main intensity lobe, to dice materials with a curved edge.
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European
Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 682032-PULSAR).
Systems for imaging require to employ high quality optical components in order to dispose of optical aberrations and thus reach sufficient resolution. However, well-known methods to get rid of optical aberrations, such as aspherical profiles or diffractive corrections are not easy to apply to micro-optics. In particular, some of these methods rely on polymers which cannot be associated when such lenses are to be used in integrated devices requiring high temperature process for their further assembly and separation. Among the different approaches, the most common is the lens splitting that consists in dividing the focusing power between two or more optical components. In here, we propose to take advantage of a wafer-level technique, devoted to the generation of glass lenses, which involves thermal reflow in silicon cavities to generate lens doublets. After the convex lens sides are generated, grinding and polishing of both stack sides allow, on the first hand, to form the planar lens backside and, on the other hand, to open the silicon cavity. Nevertheless, silicon frames are then kept and thinned down to form well-controlled and auto-aligned spacers between the lenses. Subsequent accurate vertical assembly of the glass lens arrays is performed by anodic bonding. The latter ensures a high level of alignment both laterally and axially since no additional material is required. Thanks to polishing, the generated lens doublets are then as thin as several hundreds of microns and compatible with micro-opto-electro-systems (MOEMS) technologies since they are only made of glass and silicon. The generated optical module is then robust and provide improved optical performances. Indeed, theoretically, two stacked lenses with similar features and spherical profiles can be almost diffraction limited whereas a single lens characterized by the same numerical aperture than the doublet presents five times higher wavefront error. To demonstrate such assumption, we fabricated glass lens doublets and compared them to single lenses of equivalent focusing power. For similar illumination, the optical aberrations are significantly reduced.
In this paper, we present construction, fabrication and characterization of an electrostatic MOEMS vertical microscanner for generation of an optical phase shift in array-type interferometric microsystems. The microscanner employs asymmetric comb-drives for a vertical displacement of a large 4x4 array of reference micromirrors and for in-situ position sensing. The device is designed to be fully compatible with Mirau configuration and with vertical integration strategy. This enables further integration of the device within an "active" multi-channel Mirau micro-interferometer and implementation of the phase shifting interferometry (PSI) technique for imaging applications. The combination of micro-interferometer and PSI is particularly interesting in the swept-source optical coherence tomography, since it allows not only strong size reduction of a system but also improvement of its performance (sensitivity, removal of the image artefacts). The technology of device is based on double-side DRIE of SOI wafer and vapor HF releasing of the suspended platform. In the static mode, the device provides vertical displacement of micromirrors up to 2.8μm (0 - 40V), whereas at resonance (fo=500 Hz), it reaches 0.7 μm for only 1VDC+1VAC. In both operation modes, the measured displacement is much more than required for PSI implementation (352nm peak-to-peak). The presented device is a key component of array-type Mirau micro-interferometer that enables the construction of portable, low-cost interferometric systems, e.g. for in vivo medical diagnostics.
Some of the critical limitations for widespread use in medical applications of optical devices, such as confocal or optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems, are related to their cost and large size. Indeed, although quite efficient systems are available on the market, e.g. in dermatology, they equip only a few hospitals and hence, are far from being used as an early detection tool, for instance in screening of patients for early detection of cancers. In this framework, the VIAMOS project aims at proposing a concept of miniaturized, batch-fabricated and lower-cost, OCT system dedicated to non-invasive skin inspection. In order to image a large skin area, the system is based on a full-field approach. Moreover, since it relies on micro-fabricated devices whose fields of view are limited, 16 small interferometers are arranged in a dense array to perform multi-channel simultaneous imaging. Gaps between each channel are then filled by scanning of the system followed by stitching. This approach allows imaging a large area without the need of large optics. It also avoids the use of very fast and often expensive laser sources, since instead of a single point detector, almost 250 thousands pixels are used simultaneously. The architecture is then based on an array of Mirau interferometers which are interesting for their vertical arrangement compatible with vertical assembly at the wafer-level. Each array is consequently a local part of a stack of seven wafers. This stack includes a glass lens doublet, an out-of-plane actuated micro-mirror for phase shifting, a spacer and a planar beam-splitter. Consequently, different materials, such as silicon and glass, are bonded together and well-aligned thanks to lithographic-based fabrication processes.
This paper proposes a method for the characterization of focusing micro-optical components such as microlens. Based on the measurement of the focal volume generated by the micro-element, the wavefront map reconstruction as well as the optical aberrations can be estimated. To record the slices of the focal volume, this technique requires a simple optical arrangement which consists of a microscope objective and a camera. Then, an iterative phase retrieval algorithm is applied on each recorded intensity slice. This approach is less sensitive to the environmental variations than interferometry and is less expensive than wavefront sampling sensors although it leads to similar results than interferometry. As an example, ball microlens with 596μm diameter and 0.56 numerical aperture, has been characterized and comparison with more conventional technique demonstrates the good performances of the proposed phase retrieval method.
In recent years, optical coherence tomography (OCT) became gained importance in medical disciplines like ophthalmology, due to its noninvasive optical imaging technique with micrometer resolution and short measurement time. It enables e. g. the measurement and visualization of the depth structure of the retina. In other medical disciplines like dermatology, histopathological analysis is still the gold standard for skin cancer diagnosis. The EU-funded project VIAMOS (Vertically Integrated Array-type Mirau-based OCT System) proposes a new type of OCT system combined with micro-technologies to provide a hand-held, low-cost and miniaturized OCT system. The concept is a combination of full-field and full-range swept-source OCT (SS-OCT) detection in a multi-channel sensor based on a micro-optical Mirau-interferometer array, which is fabricated by means of wafer fabrication. This paper presents the study of an experimental proof-of-concept OCT system as a one-channel sensor with bulk optics. This sensor is a Linnik-interferometer type with similar optical parameters as the Mirau-interferometer array. A commercial wavelength tunable light source with a center wavelength at 845nm and 50nm spectral bandwidth is used with a camera for parallel OCT A-Scan detection. In addition, the reference microscope objective lens of the Linnik-interferometer is mounted on a piezo-actuated phase-shifter. Phase-shifting interferometry (PSI) techniques are applied for resolving the conjugate complex artifact and consequently contribute to an increase of image quality and depth range. A suppression ratio of the complex conjugate term of 36 dB is shown and a system sensitivity greater than 96 dB could be measured.
The EU-funded project VIAMOS1 proposes an optical coherence tomography system (OCT) for skin cancer detection, which combines full-field and full-range swept-source OCT in a multi-channel sensor for parallel detection. One of the project objectives is the development of new fabrication technologies for micro-optics, which makes it compatible to Micro-Opto-Electromechanical System technology (MOEMS). The basic system concept is a wafer-based Mirau interferometer array with an actuated reference mirror, which enables phase shifted interferogram detection and therefore reconstruction of the complex phase information, resulting in a higher measurement range with reduced image artifacts. This paper presents an experimental one-channel on-bench OCT system with bulk optics, which serves as a proof-of-concept setup for the final VIAMOS micro-system. It is based on a Linnik interferometer with a wavelength tuning light source and a camera for parallel A-Scan detection. Phase shifting interferometry techniques (PSI) are used for the suppression of the complex conjugate artifact, whose suppression reaches 36 dB. The sensitivity of the system is constant over the full-field with a mean value of 97 dB. OCT images are presented of a thin membrane microlens and a biological tissue (onion) as a preliminary demonstration.
Scientific articles focusing on fabrication of micro-components often evaluate their optical performances by techniques such as scanning electron microscopy or surface topography only. However, deriving the optical characteristics from the shape of the optical element requires using propagation algorithms. In this paper, we present a simple and intuitive method, based on the measurement of the intensity point spread function generated by the micro-component. The setup is less expensive than common systems and does not require heavy equipments, since it requires only a microscope objective, a CMOS camera and a displacement stage. This direct characterization method consists in scanning axially and recording sequentially the focal volume. Our system, in transmissive configuration, consists in the investigation of the focus generated by the microlens, allowing measuring the axial and lateral resolutions, estimating the Strehl ratio and calculating the numerical aperture of the microlens. The optical system can also be used in reflective configuration in order to characterize micro-reflective components such as molds. The fixed imaging configuration allows rapid estimation of quality and repeatability of fabricated micro-optical elements.
KEYWORDS: 3D metrology, Optical components, Objectives, Imaging systems, Point spread functions, Microscopes, Cameras, Microlens, CMOS cameras, High dynamic range imaging
High-resolution miniature imaging systems require high quality micro-optical elements. Therefore, it is essential to characterize their optical performances in order to optimize their fabrication. Usually, basic evaluation of micro-optical elements quality is based on the measurement of their topography since their optical properties are largely defined by their shape. However, optical characteristics have to be derived from the measured geometry. An alternative method is the direct measurement of their optical properties. Unlike topography measurement, it allows characterization of high numerical aperture components. Moreover, it can be applied to single elements but also to optical systems composed of several micro-optical components. In this work, we propose a simple method based on the measurement of the 3D intensity point spread function (IPSF). IPSF is defined by the 3D shape of the focal spot generated by the micro-element. The direct characterization of focusing response through the measurement of IPSF allows very precise estimation of micro-structures quality. The considered method consists in imaging different slices of the focal volume generated by the focusing component. It allows, depending on the configuration, characterizing both transmissive and reflective micro-optical components.
The presented paper shows the concept and optical design of an array-type Mirau-based OCT system for early diagnosis of skin cancer. The basic concept of the sensor is a full-field, full-range optical coherence tomography (OCT) sensor. The micro-optical interferometer array in Mirau configuration is a key element of the system allowing parallel imaging of multiple field of views (FOV). The optical design focuses on the imaging performance of a single channel of the interferometer array and the illumination design of the array. In addition a straylight analysis of this array sensor is given.
Numerous optical imaging techniques have been developed for clinical diagnostics; among these, optical coherence
tomography (OCT) has proven to be of considerable utility due to its ability to non-destructively image below
the surface of tissue. Endoscopic OCT systems will further extend the capabilities of this approach but require
an additional means for scanning in two or three dimensions.
We present an integrated optical microsystem which allows scanning of an optical beam in three dimensions
(an area scan combined with dynamic focus) suitable for an endoscopic OCT probe. The system is defined by
a tunable pneumatically-actuated micro-lens combined with an electrostatically-actuated two-axis micro-mirror,
allowing functionality hitherto not achievable.
Optical Coherence Tomography is an emerging technique for biomedical diagnostic help. This is a non-invasive, high resolution, non-destructive mean for some optical biopsy. Since a few years new developments have been undergone in the field of OCT trying to functionalize OCT measurements. One of them is Spectroscopic OCT where simultaneous access to depth resolution as well as spectral features depth resolved in the media are obtained. These spectroscopic OCT system are mainly based on post processing of classical OCT signals what is time consuming and which add numerical noise. We propose an 'all optical' system for real-time direct display of depth-frequency analysis of media.
We present an imaging system which could be used for endoscopic topography. Indeed it allows for two dimensional information transmission through a unidimensional imaging channel which is a monomode optical fiber. The principle is the coupling of wavelength multiplexing and spectral interferometry and a special configuration renders this system dispersion self compensated what enables a high signal stability. Principles will be presented as well as results and limits of the system
The combination of wavelength multiplexing and spectral interferometry allows for the encoding of multidimensional information and its transmission over a mono-dimensional channel; for example, measurements of a surface's topography acquired through a monomode fiber in a small endoscope. The local depth of the imaged object is encoded in the local spatial frequency of the signal measured at the output of the fiber-decoder system. We propose a procedure to retrieve the depth-map by determining the signal's instantaneous frequency. First, we compute its continuous, complex-valued, wavelet transform (CWT). The frequency signature at every position is contained in the resulting scalogram. We then extract the ridge of maximal response by use of a dynamic programming algorithm thus directly recovering the object's topography. We present results that validate this procedure based on both simulated and experimental data.
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