Improved resolution optical time stretch imaging based on high efficiency in-fiber diffraction

Guoqing Wang; Zhijun Yan; Lei Yang; Lin Zhang; Chao Wang

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-18920-8

Improved resolution optical time stretch imaging based on high efficiency in-fiber diffraction

Guoqing Wang, Zhijun Yan, Lei Yang, Lin Zhang, Chao Wang^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AiPT)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Most overlooked challenges in ultrafast optical time stretch imaging (OTSI) are sacrificed spatial resolution and higher optical loss. These challenges are originated from optical diffraction devices used in OTSI, which encode image into spectra of ultrashort optical pulses. Conventional free-space diffraction gratings, as widely used in existing OTSI systems, suffer from several inherent drawbacks: limited diffraction efficiency in a non-Littrow configuration due to inherent zeroth-order reflection, high coupling loss between free-space gratings and optical fibers, bulky footprint, and more importantly, sacrificed imaging resolution due to non-full-aperture illumination for individual wavelengths. Here we report resolution-improved and diffraction-efficient OTSI using in-fiber diffraction for the first time to our knowledge. The key to overcome the existing challenges is a 45° tilted fiber grating (TFG), which serves as a compact in-fiber diffraction device offering improved diffraction efficiency (up to 97%), inherent compatibility with optical fibers, and improved imaging resolution owning to almost full-aperture illumination for all illumination wavelengths. 50 million frames per second imaging of fast moving object at 46 m/s with improved imaging resolution has been demonstrated. This conceptually new in-fiber diffraction design opens the way towards cost-effective, compact and high-resolution OTSI systems for image-based high-throughput detection and measurement.

Original language	English
Article number	600
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	8
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-18920-8
Publication status	Published - 12 Jan 2018

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© The Author(s) 2018

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10.1038/s41598-017-18920-8Licence: CC BY 3.0

Improved Resolution Optical Time Stretch Imaging Based on High Efciency In-Fiber Difraction
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Te images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2018
Final published version, 2.14 MBLicence: CC BY 3.0

Cite this

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Improved resolution optical time stretch imaging based on high efficiency in-fiber diffraction

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