Dual-comb spectroscopic ellipsometry

Integer-locking condition for stable dual-comb interferometry in situations with fluctuating frequency-comb repetition rates

To make dual-comb interferometry usable in a wide range of applications, it is important to achieve reproducible measurement results even in non-ideal environments that affect the repetition-rate stability. Here, we consider dual-comb interferometry based on a pair of fully referenced optical frequency combs (OFCs) and investigate the impact of fluctuations in the OFC repetition frequencies on the peak position of the center burst in the interferogram. We identify a phase-locking scheme that minimizes the impact of these fluctuations through choosing a special combination of phase-locked frequencies, and the resulting type of operating condition is termed integer-locking condition. Under the integer-locking condition, the number of sampling points in each interferogram remains constant regardless of repetition-rate variations, and this enables more stable phase-resolved measurements in non-ideal environments. We demonstrate the application of this approach using absolute path-length measurements and discuss the accuracy limit imposed by the integer-locking condition. Our findings offer a strategy for robust dual-comb interferometry outside metrology laboratories.

Metasurface array for single-shot spectroscopic ellipsometry

Spectroscopic ellipsometry is a potent method that is widely adopted for the measurement of thin film thickness and refractive index. Most conventional ellipsometers utilize mechanically rotating polarizers and grating-based spectrometers for spectropolarimetric detection. Here, we demonstrated a compact metasurface array-based spectroscopic ellipsometry system that allows single-shot spectropolarimetric detection and accurate determination of thin film properties without any mechanical movement. The silicon-based metasurface array with a highly anisotropic and diverse spectral response is combined with iterative optimization to reconstruct the full Stokes polarization spectrum of the light reflected by the thin film with high fidelity. Subsequently, the film thickness and refractive index can be determined by fitting the measurement results to a proper material model with high accuracy. Our approach opens up a new pathway towards a compact and robust spectroscopic ellipsometry system for the high throughput measurement of thin film properties.

Dual-comb fiber laser for stable frequency distribution

A passive dual-comb laser can generate two optical frequency combs with different repetition frequencies. These repetition differences have high relative stability and mutual coherence through passive common-mode noise suppression without complex tight phase locking from a single-laser cavity. The comb-based frequency distribution requires the dual-comb laser to have a high repetition frequency difference. This paper presents a high repetition frequency difference bidirectional dual-comb fiber laser based on an all-polarization-maintaining cavity configuration and a semiconductor saturable absorption mirror with single polarization output. The proposed comb laser has a standard deviation of 69 Hz and an Allan deviation of 1.17 × 10^-7 at τ = 1 s under different repetition frequencies of 12.815 MHz. Moreover, a transmission experiment has been conducted. Owing to the passive common-mode noise rejection capability of dual-comb laser, after passing an 84 km fiber link, the frequency stability of the repetition frequency difference signal is improved by two orders of magnitude than the repetition frequency signal at the receiver side.

Dual-comb optical activity spectroscopy for the analysis of vibrational optical activity induced by external magnetic field

Optical activity (OA) spectroscopy is a powerful tool to characterize molecular chirality, explore the stereo-specific structure and study the solution-state conformation of biomolecules, which is widely utilized in the fields of molecular chirality, pharmaceutics and analytical chemistry. Due to the considerably weak effect, OA spectral analysis has high demands on measurement speed and sensitivity, especially for organic biomolecules. Moreover, gas-phase OA measurements require higher resolution to resolve Doppler-limited profiles. Here, we show the unmatched potential of dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) in magnetic optical activity spectroscopy (MOAS) of gas-phase molecules with the resolution of hundred-MHz level and the high-speed measurement of sub-millisecond level. As a demonstration, we achieved the rapid, high-precision and high-resolution MOAS measurement of the nitrogen dioxide [Formula: see text]+[Formula: see text] band and the nitric oxide overtone band, which can be used to analyze fine structure of molecules. Besides, the preliminary demonstration of liquid-phase chiroptical activity (as weak as 10^-5) has been achieved with several seconds of sampling time, which could become a routine approach enabling ultrafast dynamics analysis of chiral structural conformations.

Multi spectral holographic ellipsometry for a complex 3D nanostructure

We present an innovative ellipsometry technique called self-interferometric pupil ellipsometry (SIPE), which integrates self-interference and pupil microscopy techniques to provide the high metrology sensitivity required for metrology applications of advanced semiconductor devices. Due to its unique configuration, rich angle-resolved ellipsometric information from a single-shot hologram can be extracted, where the full spectral information corresponding to incident angles from 0° to 70° with azimuthal angles from 0° to 360° is obtained, simultaneously. The performance and capability of the SIPE system were fully validated for various samples including thin-film layers, complicated 3D structures, and on-cell overlay samples on the actual semiconductor wafers. The results show that the proposed SIPE system can achieve metrology sensitivity up to 0.123 nm. In addition, it provides small spot metrology capability by minimizing the illumination spot diameter up to 1 µm, while the typical spot diameter of the industry standard ellipsometry is around 30 µm. As a result of collecting a huge amount of angular spectral data, undesirable multiple parameter correlation can be significantly reduced, making SIPE ideally suited for solving several critical metrology challenges we are currently facing.

Calibration of the Soleil–Babinet Compensator Based on the Vectorial Optical Field

The Soleil–Babinet compensator (SBC) is a variable retarder and has been used in a variety of application fields. A scheme based on the vectorial optical field is proposed to calibrate the SBC by transforming the change of the phase retardation into the visible rotation of the petal-like pattern. The relationship between the rotation angle of the petal-like pattern and the phase retardation of the SBC is established theoretically. In the experiment, the vector beam is generated by using the spiral phase plate (SPP) and the modified Mach–Zehnder interferometer based on the superposition principle of two orthogonal circularly polarized vortex beams with opposite topological charges. Taking advantage of the image processing method, the rotation angles of the acquired petal patterns are calculated, and the relationship between the phase retardation of the SBC and the displacements of its micrometer screw is determined. The measured phase retardation of the SBC ranges from −277.00° to 516.57°. By linearly fitting the experimental data, the phase sensitivity is 33.076 ± 0.147 °/mm, and the coefficient of determination value that shows the linearity of the experimental data is 0.9995. The experimental results agree well with the theoretical data.

Superachromatic polarization modulator for stable and complete polarization measurement over an ultra-wide spectral range

The polarization measurement system deals with polarized light-matter interactions, and has been a kind of powerful optical metrology applied in wide fields of physics and material. In this paper, we address several general theoretical aspects related to the system model and optimization for linear polarization systems from a view of the matrix algebra. Based on these theories, we propose a new framework of superachromatic polarization modulator (PM) by combining a linear polarizer and a sequence of parallel linear retarders (LRs) for a typical kind of linear polarization system based on the rotating compensator (RC) principle. In the proposed PM, the LRs are made of quarter-wave plates and as a whole act as the RC. Compared with conventional achromatic/superachromatic composite waveplates, the LR sequence has general axis orientations and is optimized by the condition number of the instrument matrix of the PM, which thereby provide much more flexibility to achieve uniform, stable and complete polarization modulation over ultra-wide spectral range. The intrinsic mechanisms, including the working principle, optimization strategy and in-situ calibration method of the proposed PM, are presented and revealed mathematically by the matrix algebra. Results on several prototypes of the PM demonstrate the validity and capability of the proposed methods for applications in broadband polarization measurement systems. The fabricated PM is further applied to a home-made dual RC Mueller matrix ellipsometer, and the accuracy and precision in the full Mueller matrix measurement are better than 2‰ and 0.6‰ respectively over the ultra-wide spectral range of 200∼1000 nm. Compared with existing techniques, the proposed PM has advantages due to superachromatic performances over ultra-wide spectral ranges, stable and complete modulation of the polarized light, and convenience for adjustment and calibration.

Dynamic ellipsometry measurement based on a simplified phase-stable dual-comb system

Spectroscopic ellipsometry is a powerful tool for characterizing thin film, polarization optics, semiconductors, and others. Conventional approaches are subject to restrictions of mechanical instability and measurement speed. The complex locking scheme of previous dual-comb spectroscopic ellipsometry belies its practicability. We present and demonstrate here dynamic spectroscopic ellipsometry based on a simplified phase-stable dual-comb system, which could realize the online dynamic measurement of optical properties of materials. A precision of 1.31 nm and a combined uncertainty of 13.80 nm (k = 2) in the thickness measurement of thin-film samples has been achieved. Moreover, the dynamic performance of the system is investigated under a high data acquisition rate (1 kHz) with a dynamic resolution of ellipsometric parameter better than 0.1 rad.

Fast polarization control for optical frequency combs

Polarization of an optical frequency comb is electrically controlled using a waveguide electro-optic phase modulator (WG-EOM). Owing to the low operation voltage and wide electric bandwidth of the WG-EOM, fast polarization control is possible. It is found that birefringence of the WG-EOM and polarization-maintaining optical fibers causes polarization-dependent pulse separation, which makes polarization control of the optical frequency comb impossible. Therefore, compensation of the birefringence is required for polarization control. In the experiment, a delay line in free space is used for birefringence compensation, and pulse-to-pulse polarization control of an optical frequency comb (with a repetition rate of 100 MHz) is demonstrated.

Interferogram-based determination of the absolute mode numbers of optical frequency combs in dual-comb spectroscopy

Dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS), which uses two optical frequency combs (OFCs), requires an accurate knowledge of the mode number of each comb line to determine spectral features. We demonstrate a fast evaluation method of the absolute mode numbers of both OFCs used in DCS system. By measuring the interval between the peaks in the time-domain interferogram, it is possible to accurately determine the ratio of one OFC repetition frequency (f_rep) to the difference between the f_rep values of the two OFCs (Δf_rep). The absolute mode numbers can then be straightforwardly calculated using this ratio. This method is applicable to a broad range of Δf_rep values down to several Hz without any additional instruments. For instance, the minimum required measurement time is estimated to be about 1 s for Δf_rep ≈ 5.6 Hz and f_rep ≈ 60 MHz. The optical frequencies of the absorption lines of acetylene gas obtained by DCS with our method of mode number determination shows good agreement with the data from the HITRAN database.

Mode-resolved dual-comb spectroscopy using error correction based on single optical intermedium

Dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) is an emerging and promising spectrometric technique with high resolution, high sensitivity, broad spectral range, and fast acquisition speed. For the recovery of the information encoded on comb modes without resolution loss, two continuous wave lasers are commonly utilized as optical intermedia to track the real-time jitter of dual-comb interferograms. This paper presents a simplified error correction method based on single optical intermedium for quasi-free-running fiber DCS. This method combines the strengths of conventional optical referencing and self-referencing error correction. We acquired whole P branch H¹³C¹⁴N transmittance spectra in the near infrared as a demonstration. In contrast to that of conventional dual intermedium error correction, the standard deviation of our method was merely 0.01 over the 4 THz spectral range. Our method provides a balanced and practical postprocessing routine for high-performance mode-resolved DCS applications.

Improving Resolution of Dual-Comb Gas Detection Using Periodic Spectrum Alignment Method

Dual-comb spectroscopy has been an infusive spectroscopic tool for gas detection due to its high resolution, high sensitivity, and fast acquisition speed over a broad spectral range without any mechanical scanning components. However, the complexity and cost of high-performance dual-comb spectroscopy are still high for field-deployed applications. To solve this problem, we propose a simple frequency domain post-processing method by extracting the accurate position of a specific absorption line frame by frame. After aligning real-time spectra and averaging for one second, the absorbance spectrum of H13C14N gas in the near-infrared is obtained over 1.1 THz spectral range. By using this method, the standard deviation of residual error is only ~0.002, showing great agreement with the conventional correction method. In addition, the spectral resolution is improved from 13.4 GHz to 4.3 GHz compared to direct spectrum averaging. Our method does not require a specially designed common-mode suppression comb, rigorous frequency control system, or complicated computational algorithm, providing a cost-effective scheme for field-deployed Doppler-limited spectroscopy applications.

Normal-incidence type solution immersed silicon (SIS) biosensor for ultra-sensitive, label-free detection of cardiac troponin I

Early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) significantly reduce the mortality rate and can be achieved via high-sensitive detection of AMI specific cardiac troponin I (cTnI) biomarker. Here, we present normal-incident type solution-immersed silicon (NI-SIS) ellipsometric biosensor, designed for ultra-high sensitive, high-throughput, label-free detection of the target protein. The NI-SIS sensors are equipped with a specially designed prism that maintains the angle of incidence close to the Brewster angle during operation, which significantly reduces SIS noise signals induced by the refractive index fluctuations of the surrounding medium, improves the signal-to-noise ratio, in-results lowers the detection limit. We applied NI-SIS biosensor for ultra-sensitive detection of cTnI biomarkers in human serum. The optimized sensor chip fabrication and detection operation procedures are proposed. The wide linear concentration ranges of fg/mL to ng/mL is achieved with the detection limit of 22.0 fg/mL of cTnI. The analytical correlation was assessed by linear regression analysis with the results of the Pathfast reference system. These impressive biosensing capabilities of NI-SIS technology have huge potentials for accurate detection of target species in different application areas, such as diagnosis, drug discovery, and food contaminations.

Photon-level broadband spectroscopy and interferometry with two frequency combs

Dual-comb spectroscopy has emerged a powerful technique of Fourier transform spectroscopy without moving parts. Broad spectra can be acquired with a single photodetector in any spectral range where laser frequency combs are available. Because the technique is multiplex, systematic effects are minimized and a great consistency of the spectra can be achieved. We show that dual-comb spectroscopy can be implemented with photon-counting instrumentation and work at power levels one-billion-fold weaker than those usually employed. Our demonstration opens many scenarios for applications of this powerful spectroscopic technique.

Dynamic characterization of polarization property in liquid-crystal-on-silicon spatial light modulator using dual-comb spectroscopic polarimetry

Spectroscopic polarimetry (SP) is a powerful tool for characterization of thin film, polarization optics, semiconductor, and others. However, mechanical polarization modulation of broadband light hampers its application for dynamic monitoring of a sample. In this article, we demonstrate the dynamic SP with features of polarization-modulation-free polarimetry and spectrometer-free spectroscopy benefiting from dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) using a pair of optical frequency combs (OFCs). DCS enables the direct determination of polarization without the need for polarization modulation by using mode-resolved OFC spectra of amplitude and phase for two orthogonally linear-polarized lights while securing rapid, high-precision, broadband spectroscopy without the need for spectrometer. Effectiveness of the proposed system is highlighted by visualizing the hysteresis property of dynamic response in a liquid-crystal-on-silicon spatial light modulator at a sampling rate of 105 Hz.

Radio frequency polarization modulation based on an optical frequency comb

We propose a method to generate stabilized radio-frequency polarization modulation based on optical frequency combs. Two pulse trains with the same repetition rate and different offset frequencies generate arbitrary polarization states that are modulated at the offset frequency difference. Long-term stability of the polarization modulation is demonstrated with the modulation frequency at f_rep/2. Modulation at f_rep/4 is also demonstrated to show the flexibility of the technique. We employ an electrical delay line to fine-tune the polarization states that constitute the time-dependent modulation.

Optical image amplification in dual-comb microscopy

Dual-comb microscopy (DCM), based on a combination of dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) with two-dimensional spectral encoding (2D-SE), is a promising method for scan-less confocal laser microscopy giving an amplitude and phase image contrast with the confocality. However, signal loss in a 2D-SE optical system hampers increase in image acquisition rate due to decreased signal-to-noise ratio. In this article, we demonstrated optical image amplification in DCM with an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA). Combined use of the image-encoded DCS interferogram and the EDFA benefits from not only the batch amplification of amplitude and phase images but also significant rejection of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) background. Effectiveness of the optical-image-amplified DCM is highlighted in the single-shot quantitative nanometer-order surface topography and the real-time movie of polystyrene beads dynamics under water convection. The proposed method will be a powerful tool for real-time observation of surface topography and fast dynamic phenomena.

Multi-pulse sampling dual-comb ranging method

A multi-pulse sampling dual-comb ranging (MS-DCR) method is proposed in this paper. Four sampling pulses and two signal pulses separated in the time domain are generated in a repetition period by fiber delay. Through multi-pulse linear optical sampling, eight cross-correlation interferograms (IGMs) are generated in an updating period. The proposed method realizes the multiplication of IGMs so that additional ranging results can be obtained. The experimental results demonstrate that we suppress any random noise by averaging the ranging results and improve the precision of the time-of-flight (TOF) method and carrier-wave interferometric (CWI) method simultaneously. The precision of TOF is improved from 3.85 µm to 1.39 µm without time averaging and that of CWI is improved from 25 nm to 11 nm. The TOF result can link to the interferometric phase with 15 ms averaging, and a precision of 0.48 nm is reached with 0.5 s averaging. The proposed technique overcomes the limitations of linear optical sampling in conventional dual-comb interferometers and achieves faster and higher precision distance measurements without decreasing the unambiguity range.

Polarization-sensitive dual-comb spectroscopy with an electro-optic modulator for determination of anisotropic optical responses of materials

We propose and demonstrate a polarization-sensitive dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) technique that employs an electro-optic modulator for determining the anisotropic optical responses of materials. This straightforward extension of the typical DCS setup directly provides amplitudes and phases in two mutually orthogonal directions of the electric field of light. Using this method, we determined the optic axis direction and the anisotropy in the complex refractive index of a sample whose optical parameter is well defined. We estimate a birefringence of the sample to be 5.49(55)×10^-5 at a comb tooth in the 780 nm region.

Static pure strain sensing using dual-comb spectroscopy with FBG sensors

We propose a method to precisely characterize the optical response of a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor for static strain sensing by using dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS). By digitally post-correcting the mutual noise between the two combs, a robust and pure strain sensing system is achieved by compensating for the temperature-induced frequency shift of the FBG sensor. The comb-resolved radio-frequency (RF) spectra generated by DCS are obtained. Meanwhile, the stability of the central Bragg frequency of the FBG-reflected spectrum in the RF domain is 0.315 kHz, which is better than the difference of repetition rate (1 kHz). A reference FBG is used for detecting and compensating for the temperature-induced central frequency drift. Finally, a spectral sensitivity of 0.85 pm/µɛ with 0.8 µɛ static strain resolution is achieved.

Simplified phase-stable dual-comb interferometer for short dynamic range distance measurement

A simplified phase-stable dual-comb interferometer for absolute distance measurement within a short dynamic range is proposed in this paper. The experimental results demonstrate that stable phase-difference information and lower timing jitter can be obtained within a time delay of 2000 ns between the reference interference signal and measurement interference signal. Using the proposed technique, the time-of-flight (TOF) result can link directly to the carrier-wave interferometric (CWI) result in an average time of 20 ms and can reach 2 nm precision in 0.5 s averaging time. Millimeter-scale measurement dynamic range and nanometer-level precision can thus be achieved without additional noise suppression. This method can also be applied at different stand-off distances.

Refractive index sensing with temperature compensation by a multimode-interference fiber-based optical frequency comb sensing cavity

We proposed a refractive index (RI) sensing method with temperature compensation by using an optical frequency comb (OFC) sensing cavity including a multimode-interference (MMI) fiber, namely, the MMI-OFC sensing cavity. The MMI-OFC sensing cavity enables simultaneous measurement of material-dependent RI and sample temperature by decoding from the comb spacing frequency shift and the wavelength shift of the OFC. We realized the simultaneous and continuous measurement of RI-related concentration of a liquid sample and its temperature with precisions of 1.6 × 10^-4 RIU and 0.08 °C. The proposed method would be a useful means for the various applications based on RI sensing.

One-piece polarizing interferometer for ultrafast spectroscopic polarimetry

This paper describes a new class of ultrafast dynamic spectro-polarimetry based on a specially designed one-piece polarizing interferometer. It provides spectral polarimetric parameters of an anisotropic object in milliseconds with high precision. The proposed ultrafast spectro-polarimetry has no moving parts and it is highly robust to external noises. The one-piece polarizing interferometric scheme enables the world fastest and simplest solution in spectroscopic polarimetry. The distinct simple concept on one-piece polarizing interferometer can extract spectroscopic polarimetric parameters Ψ(k) and Δ(k) precisely with a speed of over 200 Hz over the entire visible wavelength range with a spectral resolution of less than 1 nm. The proposed novel one-piece scheme will have a significant potential of a paradigm shift from lab to fab in polarization metrology.

High-coherence ultra-broadband bidirectional dual-comb fiber laser

Dual-comb spectroscopy has emerged as an attractive spectroscopic tool for high-speed, high-resolution, and high-sensitivity broadband spectroscopy. It exhibits certain advantages when compared to the conventional Fourier-transform spectroscopy. However, the high cost of the conventional system, which is based on two mode-locked lasers and a complex servo system with a common single-frequency laser, limits the applicability of the dual-comb spectroscopy system. In this study, we overcame this problem with a bidirectional dual-comb fiber laser that generates two high-coherence ultra-broadband frequency combs with slightly different repetition rates (f_rep). The two direct outputs from the single-laser cavity displayed broad spectra of > 50 nm; moreover, an excessively small difference in the repetition rate (< 1.5 Hz) was achieved with high relative stability, owing to passive common-mode noise cancellation. With this slight difference in the repetition rate, the applicable optical spectral bandwidth in dual-comb spectroscopy could attain ~479 THz (~3,888 nm). In addition, we successfully generated high-coherence ultra-broadband frequency combs via nonlinear spectral broadening and detected high signal-to-noise-ratio carrier-envelope offset frequency (f_CEO) beat signals using the self-referencing technique. We also demonstrated the high relative stability between the two f_CEO beat signals and tunability. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of f_CEO detection and frequency measurement using a self-referencing technique for a dual-comb fiber laser. The developed high-coherence ultra-broadband dual-comb fiber laser with capability of f_CEO detection is likely to be a highly effective tool in practical, high-sensitivity, ultra-broadband applications.

Two-color phase-stable dual-comb ranging without precise environmental sensing

High-precision long geometrical distance measurement performs a vital role in large-scale manufacturing and future light detection and ranging (LIDAR) for tight formation. Its high precision, fast measurement rate, and large ambiguity range have traditionally made dual-comb ranging (DCR) a powerful tool for absolute distance measurement. However, DCR experiences the same issues caused by the refractive index of air as other laser-based ranging systems. The conventional method used to compensate refractive index of air is through using empirical equations by monitoring environment parameters. This real-time compensation method relies on precise sensors and cannot be easily applied to long-distance measurement. Thus, a two-color compensation method is proposed that requires only two co-propagating lights at different wavelengths, without specific identification of the refractive index of air. In this paper, the two-color method is combined with a low-noise DCR realized by a digital correction method. Mode resolved and phase-stable comb spectra are available for ranging at both two wavelengths with ~200 THz difference. The experimental result demonstrates 46 nm precision and 2.7 m ambiguity range by two-color DCR (TC-DCR) with 0.1 s coherent averaging at 1 kHz repetition rate difference. This method achieves a precision of the order of ~10^-8 and an accuracy of the order of ~10^-7, which is comparable to the single-color DCR results by empirical equations with environmental sensing. The proposed two-color DCR demonstrates great potential for long-distance measurement in open air.

Phase-controlled Fourier-transform spectroscopy

Fourier-transform spectroscopy (FTS) has been widely used as a standard analytical technique over the past half-century. FTS is an autocorrelation-based technique that is compatible with both temporally coherent and incoherent light sources, and functions as an active or passive spectrometer. However, it has been mostly used for static measurements due to the low scan rate imposed by technological restrictions. This has impeded its application to continuous rapid measurements, which would be of significant interest for a variety of fields, especially when monitoring of non-repeating or transient complex dynamics is desirable. Here, we demonstrate highly efficient FTS operating at a high spectral acquisition rate with a simple delay line based on a dynamic phase-control technique. The independent adjustability of phase and group delays allows us to achieve the Nyquist-limited spectral acquisition rate over 10,000 spectra per second, while maintaining a large spectral bandwidth and high resolution. We also demonstrate passive spectroscopy with an incoherent light source.

Dual-comb interferometry via repetition rate switching of a single frequency comb

We experimentally demonstrate a versatile technique for performing dual-comb interferometry using a single frequency comb. By rapid switching of the repetition rate, the output pulse train can be delayed and heterodyned with itself to produce interferograms. The full speed and resolution of standard dual-comb interferometry is preserved while simultaneously offering a significant experimental simplification and cost savings. We show that this approach is particularly suited for absolute distance metrology due to an extension of the nonambiguity range as a result of the continuous repetition rate switching.

Refractive-index-sensing optical comb based on photonic radio-frequency conversion with intracavity multi-mode interference fiber sensor

Optical frequency combs (OFCs) have attracted attention as optical frequency rulers due to their tooth-like discrete spectra together with their inherent mode-locking nature and phase-locking control to a frequency standard. Based on this concept, their applications until now have been demonstrated in the fields of optical frequency metrology. However, if the utility of OFCs can be further expanded beyond their application by exploiting new aspects of OFCs, this will lead to new developments in optical metrology and instrumentation. Here, we report a fiber sensing application of OFCs based on a coherent link between the optical and radio frequencies, enabling high-precision refractive index measurement based on frequency measurement in radio-frequency (RF) region. Our technique encodes a refractive index change of a liquid sample into a repetition frequency of OFC by a combination of an intracavity multi-mode-interference fiber sensor and wavelength dispersion of a cavity fiber. Then, the change in refractive index is read out by measuring the repetition frequency in RF region based on a frequency standard. Use of an OFC as a photonic RF converter will lead to the development of new applications in high-precision fiber sensing with the help of functional fiber sensors and precise RF measurement.

Digital correction method for realizing a phase-stable dual-comb interferometer

A phase-stable dual-comb interferometer measures materials' broadband optical response functions, including amplitude, frequency, and phase, making it a powerful tool for optical metrology. Normally, the phase-stable dual-comb interferometer is realized via tight phase-locking methods. This paper presents a post-correction algorithm that can compensate for carrier wave phase noise and interferogram timing jitter. The compensating signal is a beat between two combs using a free-running continuous wave laser as an optical intermediary. In our experiment, sub-hertz relative linewidth, ~1 ns relative timing jitter, and 0.2 rad precision in the carrier phase is demonstrated.

Strain sensing based on strain to radio-frequency conversion of optical frequency comb

We propose an optical frequency comb (OFC)-based strain sensing method, namely OFC sensing cavity, which is capable of radio-frequency (RF)-based strain measurement. We developed a null-method-based strain sensing system with a comb-spacing-stabilized OFC generator. We realized strain measurement from 1.83 µε to 1800 µε with a sensing fiber length of 20 mm. The measurable strain frequency range of the developed strain sensing system was from 0 to 310 Hz. Owing to the use of RF-based strain measurement, our approach would be a useful and powerful tool for sensing of strain or other physical quantities, and the concept of the OFC sensing cavity is a new aspect of OFC technology.