An accelerated radiation damage testing method for an optical sample includes disposing the optical sample inside or external to an optical cavity and injecting a predetermined number of light pulses into the optical cavity at a selected wavelength and at spaced intervals. Each light pulse injected into the optical cavity produces a train of pulses which are focused on the optical sample. The method further includes allowing each light pulse in the optical cavity to decay to a selected value and...

Methods and apparatus are employed to enhance the efficiency and applicability of Fabry-Perot interferometers. In existing devices, light introduced at a first off-axis point on the image plane is partially transmitted through the interferometer to the detector and partially reflected to a second off-axis point on the image plane. Broadly, the invention re-uses the light reflected to the second off-axis point rather than discarding it. As one example, the reflected light is guided to a third off...

A nonlinear interferometer wavelength separation mechanism for use in a dense wavelength division multiplexer is provided. The mechanism includes a first glass plate optically coupled to a second glass plate, forming a space therebetween; a mechanism for introducing a phase shift at least one channel of an optical signal; and a mechanism for broadening a pass band of the optical signal. The nonlinear interferometer of the present invention allows a dense wavelength division multiplexer to have a...

An interferometer, preferably a wedge etalon, produces a spatial pattern of fringes when incident radiant energy is coherent. A system for analyzing these fringes uses a transform operation to detect spatial regularity. The transform operation may be electronic (computational) based on the output of individual photodetectors of an array disposed adjacent to the interferometer, or optical by a Fourier transform lens disposed adjacent to the interferometer. In either case, the combination of fring...

An interferometer comprises a membrane, a substrate, and a support structure. The membrane comprises a first reflector. The substrate comprises a second reflector. The support structure circumferentially couples the membrane to the substrate and orients the first reflector parallel to and facing the second reflector.

A wavemeter for determining a wavelength of an incident optical beam comprises four optical components, each being arranged in the incident optical beam or in a part of it, providing a path with a respective effective optical length, and generating a respective optical beam with a respective optical power depending on the wavelength of the incident optical beam. The optical powers oscillate periodically with increasing wavelength, and a phase shift of approximately pi/2 is provided between two r...

A method and an apparatus for enhancing a resolving power of a tunable optical filter. An optical input is applied to the tunable filter. An electrical signal is applied to the tunable optical filter. The electrical signal has a first component that has a first frequency and a second component that has a second frequency. The second frequency is higher than the first frequency. An optical output of the tunable optical filter is applied to a photodetector. The electrical output from the photodete...

A Fabry-Perot interferometer is provided by vacuum depositing mirrors on two separate quartz supports, vacuum depositing a separator ring of a few wavelengths thickness on one of the mirrors, and then clamping the two mirror sections together, the separator ring thickness providing the separation between the two mirrors.

A method of and an input device for measuring scroll or click movement of an object and the input device relative to each other, includes determining the presence of the object on a window of the input device. Lower frequencies of an output signal from single sensor unit are separated and used for determining both the scroll and click motions. This allows measuring scroll movement and click movement with one sensor unit of the input device and reduction of costs and size of the input device.

The invention relates to a device for remote measurement of the properties of the atmosphere, more particularly a device used to detect atmospheric turbulence. The device operates on the lidar principle, using the backscattering of a laser beam by the air. The device comprises a laser emission source (1), optical means (5) for collecting a backscattered beam (3) that is backscattered by targets illuminated by the emission source (1), the backscattered beam (3) being substantially centerd about t...