Estimation of the proximal temperature rise of an excited upconversion particle by detecting the wavefront of emission

Monitoring the temperature distribution within a local environment at the micro and nanoscale is vital as many processes are solely thermal. Various thermometric techniques have been explored in the community, and out of these, fluorescent nano/micro particle-based mechanisms are accepted widely (fluorescence intensity ratio (FIR) techniques, where the ratio of populations in two consecutive energy levels is compared with Boltzmann distribution). We describe a new technique to account for the temperature rise near an illuminated upconverting particle (UCP) using wavefront imaging, which is more sensitive than the conventional thermometric techniques on the microscale. We rely on a thermo-optical phase microscopic technique by reconstructing the wavefront of emission from an upconverting particle using a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor. The wavefront maps the local phase distribution, which is an indicator of the surroundings' optical parameters, particularly the suspended medium's temperature-induced refractive index in the presence of convection currents. We describe how these extracted phase values can provide information about the optical heating due to the particle and hence its local environment along the direction of the emission. Our findings demonstrate the detection of a minimum temperature rise of 0.23 K, while the FIR methods indicate a minimum of 0.3 K rise. This technique is used to study the temperature increase in the backscattered direction for an upconverting particle illuminated on pump resonance. We also estimate the Soret coefficient for an upconverting particle optically trapped on pump resonance and experiencing anisotropic heating across the body.

Analyses on the distribution and influence of higher-order aberrations both clinically and experimentally among varied refractive errors

PURPOSE:

The aim of this work is to determine and compare the distribution and influence of higher-order aberrations (HOAs) both clinically and experimentally between different refractive errors.

METHODS:

Commercially available Shack–Hartmann aberrometer was employed to measure the HOA clinically in human eyes. Experimentally, HOA was measured in a model eye by simulating various refractive errors by constructing an aberrometer based on the same Shack Hartmann principle. One-way analyses of variance and simple regression were employed to analyze the distribution and influence of HOA among various refractive errors.

RESULTS:

A total of 100 eyes were clinically measured for aberrations, of which 35, 50, and 15 eyes were emmetropes, myopes, and hyperopes, respectively. Out of the total root mean square (RMS) value, the HOAs found in the human eyes were 23%, 7%, and 26% and in the model eye, it was 20%, 8%, and 10% between emmetropes, myopes, and hyperopes, respectively. The mean higher-order RMS was almost similar between the groups and among various refractive errors. There was no statistical significance between the individual Zernikes except for the coma in both human and model eyes.

CONCLUSION:

The mean HOA is similar amidst the different refractive errors. The presence of 23% HOA in emmetropes signifies that larger part of the human eye is capable of complying with HOA without compromising the image quality. This work signifies that HOA does not play an important role in image clarity for human eyes with regular refractive surface unlike irregular refractive surfaces.

A Clinical Study to Validate the Pupil Rescaling Technique by using COAS Shack Hartmann Aberrometer

In any optical system, optical aberrations of the imaging system affect the image quality. The human eye is also like an optical system which has optical aberrations influencing the quality of the retinal image. When pupil size exceeds 3 mm, ocular aberrations increase and play a major role on retinal image degradation. Pupil diameter is made constant in commercially available aberrometers by mathematically rescaling it. The aim of this study is to validate the pupil rescaling technique by using COAS (Complete Ophthalmic Analysis System)Shack Hartmann Aberrometer. Five subjects were recruited for this study. The measurements were taken over a moderately large pupil of 5mm in normal room illumination to allow for natural pupil dilation. The analyses diameter is fixed at 5 mm in COAS which means it rescales the aberration data to 5 mm if the pupil diameter recorded was more than 5 mm at the time of measurement. Ocular aberrations for natural and rescaled pupil sizes were analyzed. Estimation of ocular aberrations showed there was no statistical significance between natural pupil and rescaled pupil diameter.

Particle image velocimetry: improving fringe quality with a negative-mask method

The photographic negative-mask method of neutralizing the diffraction-halo effect in speckle photography is applied to enhance the quality of Young's fringes obtained in particle-image-velocimetry studies. The improvement of the fringes achieved with the negative-mask method is compared with improvements by the commonly used method of analyzing a contact copy of particle-image-velocimetry specklegrams. Theoretical analysis and experimental results are presented.

Laser beam collimation using Talbot interferometry

A modified method of checking laser beam collimation by using Talbot interferometry coupled with a moir6 phenomenon is described.

Pulsed lasers in speckle photography: error owing to pulse width

The effect of the pulse width of a pulsed laser in the studies of speckle velocimetry and transient vibration analysis is discussed. Because of the motion of the object during an exposure, a sine function is obtained by using the pointwise filtering method. This function modulates the halo along with the Young's fringes. It is shown that for high object velocities the sinc function modifies the halo distribution; as a result, the error in calculating the fringe position increases. An aperture geometry for which the autocorrelation halo is made constant in certain regions is proposed in which the intensity variation in this region is the result of the modulating sinc function only. A closed-form solution for the shift in the position of the fringes in this region is obtained. Experimental results of the simulation are presented.

Removal of the diffraction halo effect in speckle photography by using a negative mask

A method to neutralize the diffraction halo effect in speckle photography is presented. A negative of the halo is used in the fringe observation plane to achieve this goal. Experimental irradiance distributions as well as Young's fringes with and without the negative mask are presented. It is shown that the apodization procedure is effective in solving the problems caused by varying the diffraction halo irradiance.

Subtractive Moire technique for evaluating the wedge angle of a beam splitter

This Technical Note describes a method to measure the wedge angle of a beam splitter that relies on shear interferometry and the moire phenomenon.

Universal digital speckle shearing interferometer

A speckle shear interferometer is presented which can be used to yield lateral, radial, rotational, and inversion shear fringes in real time in conjunction with a digital image processing system. A modification of the optical arrangement yields reversal or folding shear as well. Experiments are conducted on an edge-clamped diaphragm with concentrated load. Unit contrast fringes have been obtained by resorting to nonlinear processing techniques such as level slicing. The results are presented for various types of shear.