Latest ArticlesErbium glass lasers offer advantages such as compact size, high efficiency, and excellent beam quality. Additionally, the 1 535 nm wavelength falls within the atmospheric transmission window, exhibits strong penetration capability, and lies in the eye-safe range, significantly reducing operational risks. These lasers are widely used in laser ranging systems and also hold important applications in fields such as lidar and military medicine. However, the weak stability, hydrophilicity, and high thermal expansion coefficient of erbium glass often lead to excessive stress in thin-film devices, resulting in poor adhesion—a critical technical bottleneck limiting the development of erbium glass lasers. Research on reducing residual stress and improving thin-film adhesion on erbium glass substrates remains scarce. To address this, this study employs the control variable method combined with magnetron sputtering technology to optimize three key process parameters—argon (Ar) flow rate, target (TG) power, and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) power—thereby reducing thin-film stress and enhancing the adhesion of erbium glass thin-film devices.
First, the optical constants of the erbium glass substrate were determined using a Cary7000 spectrophotometer. Based on optical thin-film design theory, Ta2O5 and SiO2 were selected as coating materials for the near-infrared band. The initial film structure was designed as Sub |(0.5LH0.5L)S| Air, with the reflection bandwidth formula confirming a bandwidth of 355.2 nm at the central wavelength of 1 535 nm, meeting the specifications. The reflectivity formula indicates that, for a given ratio of high-to-low refractive indices, reflectivity increases with the number of film periods (S). To achieve a reflectivity of 99.9%, at least 12 periods were required, resulting in the finalized structure: Sub|(0.5LH0.5L)12|Air. The film design was globally optimized using Macleod software, yielding the following configuration: Sub| 1.06H 0.76L 0.97H 0.86L 1.16H 1.11L 0.93H 0.92L H 1.08L H 0.93L 0.96H 1.06L 1.03H 0.94L 0.93H 1.02L 1.08H 1.02L 0.87H 0.96L 0.75H 0.49L |Air. Theoretical spectra showed an average reflectivity of 0.076% in the 800~1 000 nm band and 99.92% in the 1 500~1 600 nm band. Based on the robustness principle and considering deposition process constraints, manufacturability was improved by introducing film thickness error analysis. Subsequently, a beam-splitting film sample was prepared following standard deposition processes.
After deposition, adhesion testing was performed using 3M tape pressed onto the film surface and rapidly peeled off vertically five times, revealing delamination. Comprehensive analysis indicated that film delamination was primarily caused by thin-film stress, which consists of intrinsic stress and thermal stress. To address this issue, the study focused on optimizing deposition parameters and temperature variations during coating. By analyzing the influence of deposition parameters on single-layer film stress using the Stoney formula and thermal stress equations, the following trends were observed:The stress of Ta2O5 and SiO2 single-layer films decreased with increasing Ar flow rate. The stress of Ta2O5 and SiO2 single-layer films initially decreased and then gradually increased with rising TG power. The stress of Ta2O5 and SiO2 single-layer films increased with higher ICP power. A low-stress film preparation process was identified, and the curvature radii of the samples were measured before and after deposition using an ET-4000A step profiler. The calculated multilayer film stress was -105 MPa, and subsequent adhesion tests showed no delamination.
The final beam-splitting film prepared on the erbium glass substrate exhibited an average reflectivity of 0.16% in the 800~1 000 nm band and 99.87% in the 15 00~1 600 nm band, meeting the specifications. The slightly higher reflectivity in the 800~1 000 nm band compared to the design spectrum was attributed to surface roughness-induced interfacial scattering in the multilayer film. This was further analyzed using a Zygo laser interferometer to measure surface roughness. After undergoing environmental tests in accordance with specifications, the film showed no defects such as cracking, delamination, or bubbles. As laser energy increases, the thermo-mechanical coupling interaction between the laser and the film raises the risk of film failure due to residual stress. Further reducing film stress remains a key focus for future research.
At present, most optical chaotic logic devices can only complete a single logic function, and can not meet the requirements of more complex logic functions for optical signal packet switching nodes in chaotic networks, so the related research of optical chaotic logic devices has shifted from basic logic to complex sequential logic. Optical chaotic latches and flip-flops, serving as the basic building blocks and memory units of optical chaotic sequential logic devices, can be integrated with combinational logic devices such as adders, subtractors, and multipliers to enable the realization of more advanced modules, including shift registers, counters, and random-access memories. However, previous studies have predominantly focused on clock-free single-trigger flip-flops with identical triggering conditions, exhibiting limited confidentiality and weak noise immunity. Current research on implementing flip-flops using chaotic lasers remains relatively scarce.
Based on optical injection cascaded VCSELs chaotic system, electro-optic modulation theory and polarization bistability, we successfully implement high-speed reconfigurable multi-triggered optical chaotic D-latch and D-flip-flop operations under clock synchronization. Firstly, we numerically investigate the evolution of dynamic states for both polarization component (x-PC and y-PC) in the strongly injected VCSEL2 with respect to the optical injection amplitude and applied electric field, as well as the polarization bistability as a function of the optical injection amplitude. We observe that the polarization switching behavior of VCSEL2 can be induced by alternating the applied electric field between 11 kV/mm and 25 kV/mm. When E0=11 kV/mm and Einj exceeds 4.7, the y-PC is completely suppressed by the x-PC, and the x-PC assumes absolute dominance. If E0=25 kV/mm and Einj also exceeds 4.7, y-PC dominates, while the x-PC is completely suppressed. And we propose a novel mean-value comparison mechanism to demodulate the x-PC and y-PC from VCSEL2 for the acquisition of logic outputs. Then we demonstrate the implementations of reconfigurable multi-triggered optical chaotic D-latches and D-flip-flops that are synchronized by a clock signal and response for as short as 10 ps bit time. By calculating the dependence of the success probability of D-latches and D-flip-flops on bit time and optical injection strength, we discover that when the optical injection strength kx (ky) is less than 9 ns⁻¹, the success probability of the D-latches is below 1, indicating the occurrence of bit errors in the logic output. And under the premise of a success probability of 1, increasing the optical injection strength can effectively reduce the lower limit of bit time. When the optical injection strength exceeds 43 ns-1, the lower limit of bit time can be stably reduced to 3 ps, achieving a computational speed of up to 333.3 Gb/s. Finally, by evaluating the impact of spontaneous emission noise on the reliability of D-latches and D-flip-flops, we demonstrate that the success probability remains unity even at a noise strength as high as 1.6×1010. Even the noise strength increases to 5×1010, the success probability remain above 0.98. These results demonstrate that the D-latches and D-flip-flops exhibit outstanding characteristics including high-speed operation, strong noise immunity, and flexible reconfigurability, which hold significant application and reference value in chaotic secure communication networks.
In adaptive Optics (AO) systems, wavefront aberrations are commonly represented by Zernike polynomials, whose coefficients describe distortions such as tilt, defocus, coma, and spherical aberration. Accurate estimation of Zernike coefficients is critical for high-quality imaging and effective wavefront correction. Due to the symmetry of the Fourier transform, Zernike coefficients with opposite signs can produce identical Point Spread Function (PSF) images, causing ambiguity in coefficient prediction. The Phase Diversity (PD) method mitigates this issue by simultaneously capturing focal and defocused intensity images, introducing additional phase information to improve reconstruction accuracy.
Based on PD theory, this study proposes a MobileViT-based wavefront reconstruction method. The approach uses a pair of focal and defocused intensity images as input and automatically extracts image features to achieve non-iterative phase retrieval. The reconstruction performance of MobileViT is systematically evaluated under varying turbulence intensities and compared with CNN, ResNet-50, and EfficientNet-B0 models, providing a reference for practical applications.
Experimental results demonstrate that MobileViT consistently outperforms the other models across all turbulence conditions. Although CNN has the fewest parameters and fastest inference, its reconstruction accuracy is the lowest. Under weak turbulence, all four models achieve reasonable wavefront reconstruction; as turbulence intensity increases, CNN's accuracy deteriorates, EfficientNet-B0 performs slightly worse than ResNet-50, and MobileViT maintains the highest accuracy, with the smallest residual RMS and largest Strehl Ratio (SR), indicating stronger robustness under strong turbulence. Mean Absolute Error (MAE) comparisons of predicted versus true Zernike coefficients further show that MobileViT is least affected by turbulence, achieving superior precision and stability.
Considering reconstruction accuracy, model size, training time, and inference speed, MobileViT achieves an optimal balance between lightweight design and high precision. This method demonstrates strong robustness under varying turbulence conditions, improving wavefront correction efficiency while reducing hardware dependency. These findings highlight the potential of combining deep learning with phase diversity for practical sensorless AO systems and suggest promising applications in fields such as astronomical imaging and laser communications. Future work will involve building an experimental platform to further validate the proposed approach.
This study tackles the key challenges in designing integrated, lightweight, and high-resolution remote sensing satellites, with a focus on miniaturization, structural stability, and thermal control. Its primary objective is to propose and validate a novel satellite-borne integrated scheme that incorporates an optical camera, a laser communication terminal, and star trackers onto a unified platform. The design aims to achieve sub-meter resolution imaging and high-speed laser data transmission while maintaining high optical axis stability and thermal performance under complex on-orbit conditions.
A holistic, multi-disciplinary design and optimization approach was adopted. The imaging payload centers on an improved Cassegrain system. A key innovation is the square primary mirror (190 mm× 190 mm), providing an equivalent circular aperture of 215 mm. This design increases the photon collection area by approximately 27% within the same envelope compared to a conventional circular mirror, directly enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio. Coupled with a 3.2 µm pixel pitch detector and a 1 300 mm focal length, the system is designed to deliver better than 1-meter ground sampling distance from a 400 km orbit. For the laser communication terminal, a reflective off-axis afocal beam expander was developed. This system features multiplexed optical paths, allowing the transmit, receive, fine tracking, and self-calibration subsystems to share key components such as the fast steering mirror and beam expander optics. This integration drastically reduces the terminal's volume, resulting in a compact assembly with a 60 mm effective aperture capable of supporting a 4× beam expansion ratio for high-rate data transmission. Structurally, the integration cornerstone is a Z-shaped precision base made of aluminum-based silicon carbide (SiC/Al). This material was selected for its superior specific stiffness and high thermal conductivity, which are critical for maintaining dimensional stability under thermal and mechanical loads. All core payloads such as the optical camera, laser terminal telescope, and star sensor are mounted on this unified reference structure, which not only ensures inherent alignment stability among the payloads but also simplifies the system architecture. To counteract the detrimental effects of temperature fluctuations on optical alignment and image quality, a sophisticated “active compensation + passive isolation” thermal management strategy was implemented. The active system employs a network of five distributed heaters on the Z-base, governed by a discrete Proportional-Integral (PI) control algorithm with finely tuned parameters (proportional gain=0.8, integral gain=0.05), maintaining the base temperature within 20±0.5 ℃. Passive measures include applying high-conductivity graphene films to critical structures like the camera truss to homogenize temperature gradients and using L-shaped thermal isolation brackets to decouple sensitive optical paths from external thermal disturbances. We established a rigorous analytical framework to guide and validate the design. This involved developing linear mathematical models for multi-payload line-of-sight stability and system wavefront aberration, which directly link mechanical and thermal deformations to optical performance metrics. These models feed into a coupled optical-mechanical-thermal multi-disciplinary analysis and optimization workflow. This integrated simulation platform enables the iterative assessment and refinement of system performance under a comprehensive set of environments, including ground gravity-thermal coupling and extreme on-orbit thermal cases spanning the satellite's full orbital beta angle range. The final design underwent extensive verification through thermal balance testing in a space environment simulator and thermal-optical MTF testing, culminating in on-orbit performance evaluation after launch.
The proposed integrated design demonstrates significant improvements in compactness, stability, and performance. The optical system has a total length of 330 mm with an equivalent aperture of 215 mm, enabling sub-meter resolution. The laser terminal beam expander has a 60 mm effective aperture, supporting 4× beam expansion/reduction for data transmission up to 10 Gbps. The Z-shaped SiC/Al base ensures high structural rigidity. Under a coupled gravity and 4 ℃ thermal load, the maximum optical axis deviation between payloads is ≤3.24″, and mirror displacements are ≤5 µm with tilts ≤5″. The system wavefront error remains ≤0.06λ (RMS, λ=632.8 nm). In extreme on-orbit thermal cases, the peak-to-peak optical axis variation is ≤6.77″. The thermal control system maintains the camera and base within 19.5~20.5 ℃, with gradients <1 ℃ and stability ≤±0.3 ℃. Thermal balance and thermal-optical tests confirm that the MTF remains >0.1 under controlled conditions. On-orbit validation shows that the satellite maintains a dynamic MTF >0.08 at the Nyquist frequency (156 lp/mm) after one year in orbit, with no significant degradation. High-resolution panchromatic images have been successfully downlinked via the laser terminal, confirming stable imaging and data transmission performance.
In conclusion, this work successfully develops and validates a highly integrated, miniaturized satellite design that effectively combines high-resolution optical imaging and high-speed laser communication within a compact 42 kg platform. The innovative use of a common Z-shaped precision base, advanced thermal management, and multi-disciplinary optimization results in a system with superior structural stability, thermal precision, and optical performance compared to existing designs. The integration scheme not only reduces volume and mass but also enhances payload synergy, as demonstrated by using the optical camera for coarse tracking in the laser communication link. The proposed approach provides a feasible and efficient technical pathway for future lightweight, high-performance multi-payload remote sensing satellites, balancing rigorous performance requirements with stringent size and mass constraints.
Raman microscopy, a label-free detection technique that identifies targets through the intrinsic vibrational spectra of samples, is highly significant in biomedicine, especially for early disease diagnosis. Its ability to avoid exogenous labels offers distinct advantages when studying biological tissues. However, biological tissues and complex materials have strong optical scattering properties, which disrupt light propagation by randomizing their paths. This severely limits the detection depth of traditional Raman techniques—often restricting imaging to superficial layers, rarely exceeding 100 μm in most biological tissues—and impairs signal contrast, as scattered light mix with target signals, resulting in blurred or noisy outputs. To tackle these critical limitations, this study presents an innovative wavefront shaping method based on spectrally resolved variance optimization.
The core of this method is establishing a sophisticated wavefront feedback mechanism that combines Raman spectroscopy with speckle variance analysis. The detailed process is as follows: First, the experimental sample is carefully designed to simulate in vivo conditions, consisting of Raman-active particles embedded in a scattering medium. This medium is engineered to replicate the forward scattering characteristics of biological tissues, such as those in epithelial layers or soft tissues, ensuring the results are relevant to real-world applications. The Raman particles, chosen for their biological significance, show a unique and distinct Raman peak at 1 200 cm⁻¹, a wavelength range less prone to autofluorescence interference in biological samples. Using an imaging spectrometer with high spatial and spectral resolution, the system simultaneously captures both the spatial distribution (2D speckle patterns) and spectral signatures of Raman signals. A custom-developed algorithm then filters these data to isolate speckle signals specifically at the 1 200 cm⁻¹ peak. This targeted selection minimizes interference from background noise in non-target wavebands—like autofluorescence from cellular components or stray light—thus extracting speckle contrast parameters suitable for quantitative analysis.
Next, an iterative optimization algorithm is used to build a closed-loop feedback system, a key innovation of this approach. In each iteration, the Spatial Light Modulator (SLM), a device with high phase modulation precision, dynamically adjusts the wavefront of the input light. This adjustment causes changes in the excited speckles, rearranging their distribution within the scattering medium. At the same time, the system monitors Raman speckle variance in real time, with maximizing variance as the main objective. By continuously refining the phase modulation depth of the SLM—adjusting individual pixels to counteract wavefront distortions from the scattering medium—the input light is gradually guided to focus on a single Raman particle in the medium. The optimization process goes through 3 000 iterations, a number determined by preliminary tests to balance convergence speed and accuracy, ensuring stable and reliable focusing of excitation energy on the target particle. A critical point for this enhancement is the strict linear relationship between the intensity of spontaneous Raman signals and the excitation light intensity: when the focused excitation light reaches maximum intensity, the Raman signal is proportionally amplified to its peak level. Additionally, to address potential focal deformation caused by light absorption by Raman particles—a common issue in high-intensity focusing—a pair of galvanometers rotate the incident light at small angles (within the optical memory effect range). Using the memory effect principle, where speckles translate as a whole without changing their distribution under small-angle rotations, the system obtains clear, undistorted focused spots from the translated speckle patterns.
Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of this method it achieves a 6-fold enhancement of Raman signals in scattering media, outperforming many existing techniques. The spatial resolution reaches the micrometer scale, allowing precise targeting of individual particles—essential for distinguishing between cellular or subcellular structures in biological samples. Furthermore, the method enables non-invasive focusing on single Raman particles with high specificity: background noise outside the 1200 cm⁻¹ peak is enhanced by only~30%, showing effective suppression of non-target signals. This specificity comes from the spectral filtering step, which limits optimization to the target Raman peak.
In summary, this method provides a new technical solution for enhancing weak Raman signals in scattering environments, addressing long-standing challenges in deep-tissue imaging. Its ability to support label-free imaging in deep biological tissues, along with high signal enhancement and precise spatial focusing, makes it a valuable tool in biomedicine. Potential applications include early diagnosis of diseases like cancer—where subtle Raman spectral changes precede morphological alterations—and sensitive detection of biomarkers, such as proteins or metabolites, in their native tissue environments. By overcoming limitations in depth and signal strength, this approach advances the practical use of Raman microscopy in clinical and research settings.
The Surface Plasmon Polariton (SPP) vortices confined to a metal-dielectric interface, are characterized by the near-field enhancement and orbital angular momentum. They find broad applications in particle manipulation, super-resolution imaging, biochemical sensing, and so on. Recent advances in Plasmonic Vortex Lenses (PVLs) for SPP vortex generation have progressively simplified the excitation source requirements—evolving from complex vector beams inherently carrying orbital angular momentum to scalar fields employing circularly or linearly polarized light. Although positive elliptically polarized light, as a fundamental polarization state of scalar fields, has been utilized for PVL excitation, the existing schemes necessitate the incorporation of additional transmission phases—achieved through spiral contour designs—to generate arbitrary-order SPP vortices under positive elliptically polarized light. The SPPs generated by the meta-atoms arranged at the end of the spiral have more attenuation because of the more optical paths they have to travel than those generated by the slit pairs at the front, which ultimately leads to an uneven field distribution of the SPP vortex. Furthermore, an issue arises as the size of the PVL increases with the radius of the spiral contour, presenting a challenge for miniaturizing the PVLs. Furthermore, these devices exhibit inherent polarization sensitivity, which substantially restricts the application scenarios of both SPP vortices and PVLs.
To address the aforementioned challenges, this work proposes a geometric phase-based PVL. The lens comprises composite meta-atoms arranged along a circular contour, with each meta-atom integrating four rectangular slits. By systematically controlling the rotation angles of slits within meta-atoms, the proposed PVL not only generates SPP vortices sensitive or insensitive to the amplitude ratio and handedness of incident positive elliptically polarized light but also enables flexible manipulation of the Topological Charge (TC) of the SPP vortices. Specifically, the rotation angles of slits are adjusted through four parameters, namely , , , and , to construct different configurations of PVL1 and PVL2. Under illumination by the positive elliptically polarized light of arbitrary handedness and amplitude ratio, PVL1 generates SPP vortices with a TC of and the intensity of the vortex field varies with changes in the incident light's handedness and amplitude ratio. When illuminated by circularly polarized light of opposite handedness, PVL2 produces SPP vortices with TCs of and . Notably, under the condition , PVL2 generates SPP vortices with for any positive elliptically polarized incident light, and the vortex field intensity remains invariant to changes in the incident polarization's handedness or amplitude ratio. By modulating the slit rotation parameter , the TC of SPP vortices generated by both PVL1 and PVL2 can be tuned. To demonstrate the properties of PVL1 and PVL2, eight structures with of 0.5,1,1.5 and 2 respectively were designed. Finite-difference Time-domain (FDTD) simulations reveal that PVL1-1 and PVL2-1 both generate SPP focal spots with . When is 1, 1.5 and 2 respectively, both PVL1 and PVL2 produce SPP vortices with TC of -1, -2 and -3 respectively. Crucially, the intensity of the SPP field generated by PVL1 varies with the amplitude ratio and handedness of the incident positive elliptically polarized light, confirming its polarization-sensitive nature. In contrast, the SPP field intensity from PVL2 remains unchanged under identical variations, validating its polarization-insensitive functionality.
Leveraging these functionalities, the proposed PVLs can be deployed in optical tweezers, optical field manipulation, and optical switching systems, thereby expanding the application domains and practical scenarios for plasmonic vortex lenses. Beyond this extended applicability, the device architecture offers inherent advantages in simplified fabrication workflows and miniaturization. This stems from its exclusive use of single-shaped, uniformly sized slit structures and the absence of introduced transmission phases. These features collectively facilitate the streamlined design and on-chip integration of advanced photonic devices.