Eynas Amer

Shock wave generation in laser ablation studied using pulsed digital holographic interferometry

Pulsed digital holographic interferometry has been used to study the shock wave induced by a Q-switched Nd–YAG laser (λ = 1064 nm and pulse duration 12 ns) on a polycrystalline boron nitride (PCBN) ceramic target under atmospheric air pressure. A special setup based on using two synchronized wavelengths from the same laser for processing and measurement simultaneously has been introduced. Collimated laser light (λ = 532 nm) passed through the volume along the target and digital holograms were recorded for different time delays after processing starts. Numerical data of the integrated refractive index field were calculated and presented as phase maps showing the propagation of the shock wave generated by the process. The location of the induced shock wave front was observed for different focusing and time delays. The amount of released energy, i.e. the part of the incident energy of the laser pulse that is eventually converted to a shock wave has been estimated using the point explosion model. The released energy is normalized by the incident laser pulse energy and the energy conversion efficiency between the laser pulse and PCBN target has been calculated at different power densities. The results show that the energy conversion efficiency seems to be constant around 80% at high power densities.

Depth-resolved measurement of phase gradients in a transient phase object field using pulsed digital holography

A technique to gain depth information from an image-plane digital holographic recording of a transient phase object positioned between a diffuser and an imaging system is demonstrated. The technique produces telecentric reconstructions of the complex amplitude throughout the phase volume using numerical lenses and the complex spectrum formulation of the diffraction integral. The in-plane speckle movements as well as the phase difference between the disturbed field and a reference field are calculated in a finite number of planes using a cross-correlation formulation. It is shown that depth information about in-plane phase gradients can be determined in two planes using reconstructed speckle fields from four different depths. In addition, the plane of optimum reconstruction for calculating the phase difference with maximum contrast is detected from the technique. The method is demonstrated on a measurement of a laser ablation process.

Stimulated Raman scattering signals recorded by the use of an optical imaging technique

In this paper, stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) signals have been recorded by an optical imaging technique that is based on spatial modulation. A frequency doubled Q-switched Nd:YAG laser (532 nm) was used to pump a polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) target. The frequency tripled (355 nm) beam from the same laser was used to pump an optical parametric oscillator (OPO). The Stokes beam (from the OPO) was tuned to 631.27 nm so that the frequency difference between the pump and the Stokes beams fit the Raman active vibrational mode of the PMMA molecule (2956  cm(-1)). The pump beam has been spatially modulated with fringes produced in a Michelson interferometer. The pump and the Stokes beams were overlapped on the target resulting in a gain of the Stokes beam of roughly 2.5% and a corresponding loss of the pump beam through the SRS process. To demodulate the SRS signal, two images of the Stokes beam without and with the pump beam fringes present were recorded. The difference between these two images was calculated and Fourier transformed. Then, the gain of the Stokes beam was separated from the background in the Fourier domain. The results show that spatial modulation of the pump beam is a promising method to separate the weak SRS signal from the background.

Single-shot dual-polarization holography: measurement of the polarization state of a magnetic sample

In this paper a single-shot digital holographic set-up with two orthogonally polarized reference beams is proposed to achieve rapid acquisition of Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect images. Principles of the method and the background theory for dynamic state of polarization measurement by use of digital holography are presented. This system has no mechanically moving elements or active elements for polarization control and modulation. An object beam is combined with two reference beams at different off-axis angles and is guided to a detector. Then two complex fields (interference terms) representing two orthogonal polarizations are recorded in a single frame simultaneously. Thereafter the complex fields are numerically reconstructed and carrier frequency calibration is done to remove aberrations introduced in multiplexed digital holographic recordings. From the numerical values of amplitude and phase, a real time quantitative analysis of the polarization state is possible by use of Jones vectors. The technique is demonstrated on a magnetic sample that is a lithographically patterned magnetic microstructure consisting of thin permalloy parallel stripes.

UV laser interaction with a fluorescent dye solution studied using pulsed digital holography.

A frequency tripled Q-switched Nd-YAG laser (wavelength 355 nm, pulse duration 12 ns) has been used to pump Coumarin 153 dye solved in ethanol. Simultaneously, a frequency doubled pulse (532 nm) from the same laser is used to probe the solvent perpendicularly resulting in a gain through stimulated laser induced fluorescence (LIF) emission. The resulting gain of the probe beam is recorded using digital holography by blending it with a reference beam on the detector. Two digital holograms without and with the pump beam were recorded. Intensity maps were calculated from the recorded digital holograms and used to calculate the gain of the probe beam due to the stimulated LIF. In addition numerical data of the local temperature rise was calculated from the corresponding phase maps using Radon inversion. It was concluded that about 15% of the pump beam energy is transferred to the dye solution as heat while the rest is consumed in the radiative process. The results show that pulsed digital holography is a promising technique for quantitative study of fluorescent species.

Measurement of selective species concentration using spectroscopic holography

Spectroscopic holography refers to techniques in which the detected hologram contains information about specific species in the medium under study. In general, at least two lasers are required with wavelengths chosen carefully to fit the interaction process utilized. In this process, energy from the shorter wavelength laser beam is transferred to the longer wavelength coherently through the process of stimulated emission. Two interaction mechanisms are considered; Stimulated Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) and Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS), which both are species specific with the ability of coherent interaction. In this paper, the fundamental properties of spectroscopic holography is presented and demonstrated with a few idealized experiments. These validation experiments are performed in a gas chamber in which different gases may be blended and the gas pressure changed between 1-12 bars. In addition, two examples of applications are presented. In the first set of experiments, LIF holography is used to image light absorption and laser heating in a dye simultaneously. The second set of experiments is performed in a ow of methane gas. It is demonstrated that the combination of holographic phase measurements and SRS gain images may be used for calibration. This calibration may further be used to measure absolute concentration in a burning flame.

Quantitative measurement of thin phase objects: comparison of speckle deflectometry and defocus-variant lateral shear interferometry

The two techniques of lateral shear interferometry and speckle deflectometry are analyzed in a common optical system for their ability to measure phase gradient fields of a thin phase object. The optical system is designed to introduce a shear in the frequency domain of a telecentric imaging system that gives a sensitivity of both techniques in proportion to the defocus introduced. In this implementation, both techniques successfully measure the horizontal component of the phase gradient field. The response of both techniques scales linearly with the defocus distance, and the precision is comparative, with a random error in the order of a few rad/mm. It is further concluded that the precision of the two techniques relates to the transverse speckle size in opposite ways. While a large spatial coherence width, and correspondingly a large lateral speckle size, makes lateral shear interferometry less susceptible to defocus, a large lateral speckle size is detrimental for speckle correlation. The susceptibility for the magnitude of the defocus is larger for the lateral shear interferometry technique as compared to the speckle deflectometry technique. The two techniques provide the same type of information; however, there are a few fundamental differences. Lateral shear interferometry relies on a special hardware configuration in which the shear angle is intrinsically integrated into the system. The design of a system sensitive to both in-plane phase gradient components requires a more complex configuration and is not considered in this paper. Speckle deflectometry, on the other hand, requires no special hardware, and both components of the phase gradient field are given directly from the measured speckle deformation field.

Single-shot polarization digital holography for recording stimulated Raman scattering signal for time-resolved measurement of gaseous species

The stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) process is sensitive to the relation between the polarization direction of the two laser beams (the pump and the Stokes) that generate it. In this paper, we ma ...

Stimulated Raman scattering detection for chemically specific time-resolved imaging of gases

A stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) imaging technique based on spatial modulation of the pump beam has been used to study gases. The SRS gain signal was separated from the Stokes beam background in the spatial frequency domain. The SRS signal shows linear behaviour with the gas pressure at a range from 1.0 to 8.0 bars. The signal is linearly proportional to the pump beam intensity while it is enhanced with increasing the Stokes beam intensity to a certain limit than it saturates. Further, the chemical specificity of the technique has been investigated. Two sharp peaks with line width at half maximum of about 0.30 nm have been obtained at Stokes beam wavelengths of 629.93 nm and 634.05 nm corresponding to the methane and ethylene gases, respectively. The results show that SRS imaging is a promising technique to provide chemical specificity as well as spatial and temporal information of gaseous species.

Stimulated Raman scattering imaging for studying specific species

The stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) signal in diffuse light has been recorded using an optical imaging technique based on spatial modulation. A frequency doubled Q-switched Nd-YAG laser (wavelength 532 nm) has been used to pump a polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) cylinder. The frequency tripled (355 nm) beam from the same laser is used to pump an optical parametric oscillator (OPO). The Stokes beam (from the OPO) has been tuned to 631.27 nm so that the frequency difference between the pump and the Stokes beams fits a Raman active vibrational mode of the PMMA molecule (2956 cm-1). The two laser beams were overlapped in time and space on a PMMA cylinder resulting in a gain of the Stokes beam through the SRS process of about 4.0 %. For separating the SRS signal, the pump beam was spatially modulated with fringes produced in a Michelson interferometer. The gain of the Stokes beam due to SRS was separated from the Stokes beam background in the Fourier domain. The intensity image has been calculated from an inverse Fourier transform of the separated gain signal. The intensity image shows a gain of the Stokes beam at the area of overlap between the pump beam fringes and the Stokes beam compared to the undisturbed surrounding. The results show that spatial modulation of the pump beam is a promising method to separate the weak SRS signal from the Stokes beam background. This technique can be applied to pin-point specific species and record its spatial and temporal distribution.