Abstract:
An optical wavelength analyser including: an entrance slit (4) for receiving a light beam (3) including signals with various wavelengths and passings the beam at least partly; a diffractor (6, 7, 9) for receiving the passed beam and diffracting the signals dependent on their wavelength; a detector (8) including adjacent detector elements (32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39) for receiving the diffracted signals and generating their output signals; a processor (21) for determining the wavelengths from the output signals, in which the received light beam has a spatially uniform intensity; the diffractor diffracts each signal on a different detector element subset, consisting of at least a first element (32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39) for receiving at least a first signal with a first signal level; the processor determines each signal's wavelength dependent on the first signal level and a calibration value.
Abstract:
There is disclosed a method and apparatus for spectroscopically sensing a magnetic field emanating from an object that includes receiving a radiance emission from an object and dispersing the radiance emission into parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. The method also includes detecting a part of the electromagnetic spectrum identified with a selected gas and measuring the magnetic field from a part of the electromagnetic spectrum based on spectral spreading of a spectral line.
Abstract:
An Optical Domain Signal Analyzer, having an optical filter, a dispersive element and a detector is utilized to provide high resolution spectrum analysis over a wide optical bandwidth. The optical domain signal analyzer broadly includes an optical filter for providing wavelength samples of a received optical signal, a dispersive element for receiving the samples and dispersing the samples, and a detector for receiving the dispersed signal and for providing electrical signals representative of the dispersed sample. A preferred embodiment includes a processor for receiving the electrical signal and calculating the characteristics of the spectrum.
Abstract:
Systems and methods for modifying, switching, rearranging or otherwise controlling the individual wavelength components of DWDM optical signals are described, which employ compact refolding and reshaping of these dimensionally patterned beams within a confined volume. The wavelength components of the beam are diffractively dispersed with high diffraction efficiency, and then reversely converged to beam waists incident on different ones of an array of control elements such as liquid crystal cells, MEMs and other spatial light modulators, or fixed distributed patterns. With reflective control elements the wavelength components may be reversely refolded along reciprocal paths with rediffraction, to form a reconstituted and revised DWDM output signal. If the control elements transmit at least one of the wavelength components, a separate, adjacent three dimensional beam refolding path, with rediffraction, is used to feed recombined signals to a separate output. High diffraction efficiency and minimal optical aberrations are achieved by employing a diffraction grating and opposed Mangin mirror system as the principal elements for beam refolding. The approach is useful in systems servicing narrow channel separations, and in a wide variety of applications including channel equalization, interleaving, channel blocking, and channel grouping.
Abstract:
A multi-channel wavelength monitor is described that includes a dispersive element that is positioned in an optical path of an incident optical beam having a plurality of wavelengths. The dispersive element disperses the optical beam into a plurality of optical beams that simultaneously propagate in a plurality of optical paths, where each of the plurality of optical beams has one of the plurality of wavelengths. An optical filter is positioned to intercept each of the plurality of optical paths at a plurality of locations. The optical filter substantially passes a respective one of the plurality of optical beams at a respective one of the plurality of locations and substantially blocks the other optical beams. A plurality of optical detectors is positioned adjacent to the optical filter in a direction of propagation of the plurality of optical beams. A respective one of the plurality of optical detectors is positioned in a respective one of the plurality of optical paths. Each of the plurality of detectors generates an electrical signal that is proportional to an intensity of a respective one of the plurality of optical beams.
Abstract:
Lighting systems comprising a spectrum former upstream from a reflective pixelated spatial light modulator (reflective SLM), the SLM reflecting substantially all of the light in the spectrum into at least two different light paths, that do not reflect back to the light source or the spectrum former. At least one of the light paths acts as a projection light path and transmits desired light out of the lighting system. The lighting systems provide virtually any desired color(s) and intensity(s) of light, and avoid overheating problems by deflecting unwanted light and other electromagnetic radiation out of the system or to a heat management system. The systems can be part of another system, a luminaire, or any other suitable light source. The systems can provide virtually any desired light, from the light seen at the break of morning to specialized light for treating cancer or psoriasis, and may change color and intensity at speeds that are perceptually instantaneous.
Abstract:
A compact, grating spectrometer (1A) particularly adapted for visual observation of the sun's spectrum, from the Calcium K line to the Fraunhofer B line, at very high dispersion. The numerical aperture of the spectrometer's collimating mirror is intentionally mismatched to the numerical aperture of the spectrometer's light-input device in order to exploit, by means of the exceedingly narrow width of the spectrometer's entrance slit (110), the high degree of coherence of the central region of the Airy disk formed by the light-input device. The resulting Fraunhofer diffraction illuminates totally, or nearly totally, the collimating mirror throughout the K-B interval. The human eye's dynamic range is compensated to maintain resolution at the lowest, light levels of the K-B interval. UV spill is suppressed. Both input-optics and slit are shielded against differential heating.
Abstract:
An optical communication channel switch includes an aberration corrected spectrometer adapted for receiving plural channels of communication in a one dimensional array of sites where each site corresponds to a source, and a channel selector for selectively switching channels. After receiving the plural channels, the aberration corrected spectrometer provides the channels in a two dimensional array in which channels are distributed in rows (or columns) of similar frequency and different sources and in columns (or rows) of differing frequency and common sources. The channel selector selectively switches channels among sites in the two dimensional array and provides a single dimensional reconfigured array of frequency separated channels that is combined into the two dimensional array. Another aberration corrected spectrometer receives the selectively switched two dimensional array and combines the channels into a single dimensional array of sites having one or more frequency separated channels.
Abstract:
An optical spectrum analyzer comprises a diffraction grating (DG), a polarization decomposing unit (PDM) for decomposing the input light beam into first and second light beams having mutually-perpendicular linear states of polarization, and two output ports (FP2/1, FP2/2) each for receiving from the grating, substantially exclusively, a respective one of the polarized light beams (LT, LR) after diffraction by the diffraction grating (DG). Each of the linearly-polarized light beams is directed onto the diffraction grating with its linear state of polarization at any prescribed angle to a corresponding plane of diffraction of the diffraction grating The arrangement is such that the state of polarization of the light beams, at any particular wavelength within an operating band of the analyzer remains substantially unchanged with respect to time, The analyzer also may have a reflector (RAM) for reflecting the light beams leaving the diffraction grating after diffraction a first time so as to return them to the diffraction grating for diffraction a second time.
Abstract:
A spectroscopic system according to the present invention 10 comprises: an optical fiber bundle 12 whose emitting end 12a is arranged in a vertical direction; a slit 16 which is arranged so as to oppose the emitting end 12a of the optical fiber bundle 12; spectroscopic element arrangement means 20 which can switchably arrange either a first diffraction grating 23 in which grooves extending along the vertical direction are arranged in a horizontal direction at a predetermined groove density, or a second diffraction grating 24 in which grooves extending along the vertical direction are arranged in the horizontal direction at a groove density larger than that of the first diffraction grating 23, on an optical path of light which is emitted from the emitting end 12a of the optical fiber bundle 12 and passes through the slit 16; and a photomultiplier tube 30 in which a plurality of anodes 53 extending along the vertical direction are arranged in the horizontal direction.