We have studied light-induced birefringence (LIB) and surface relief grating (SRG) formation in the series of methylacrylate polymers. The effect of material structure such as length of photochromic side chain, glass transition temperature and molecular structure of azo units on LIB and SRG are studied. The optical formation of self-induced SRG on films of these materials is also presented.

Collagen, a triple helical protein with the primary role of mechanical function, provides tensile strength to the skin, and plays a pivotal task in tissue repair. During tissue regeneration, collagen level increases gradually and therefore, monitoring of such changes in vivo by laser induced fluorescence was the main objective behind the present study. In order to accomplish this, 15 mm diamete...

We demonstrate and characterize a highly linearly polarized (18.8 dB) narrow spectral emission (<80 pm) from an all-fiber Tm laser utilizing femtosecond-laser-written fiber Bragg gratings. Thermally-dependent anisotropic birefringence is observed in the FBG transmission, the effects of which enable both the generation and elimination of highly linearly polarized output. To our knowledge, this i...

We review our recent work on Yb-doped and hybridstructured solid photonic bandgap fibers (Yb-HS-SPBGFs) for linearlypolarized fiber lasers oscillating in the small gain wavelength range from 1160 nm to 1200 nm. The stack-and-draw or pit-in-jacket method is employed to fabricate two Yb-HS-SPBGFs. Both of the fiber shows optical filtering property for eliminating ASE in the large gain wavelength ...

An initially isotropic medium, when subjected to either a magnetic field or a coherent field, can induce anisotropy in the medium and can cause the polarization of a probe field to rotate. Therefore the rotation of probe polarization, due to magnetic field alone, can be controlled efficiently with the use of a coherent control field. We demonstrate this enhancement of the magneto-optical rotati...

Femtosecond laser-based terahertz (THz) sources have gained attention for their potential in various applications. As any electromagnetic radiation, the wave polarization is a critical parameter, which needs to be under control wide class of those However, characterizing broadband THz pulses remains challenging due limited efficient optics. air-biased coherent detection has emerged as promising...

The National Ignition Facility is a next generation inertial confinement laser with approximately 7,000 large optics (0.5 m x 0.5 m) in 192 separate lasers with each beam needing minimal wavefront aberrations to maintain the desired spot size upon the target. Since the laser cavity design uses polarization switches and phase-matched frequency conversion crystals, it is sensitive to polarization...

The production of efficient, tunable, and switchable circularly polarized laser emission would have far reaching implications in optical communications or biophotonics. In this work, it is demonstrated the direct generation of circularly polarized (CP) laser emission in achiral and isotropic dye laser systems without the use of extracavity polarizing elements, and without resorting to chiral dy...

PURPOSE To determine whether the nerve fiber analyzer GDx with the new variable corneal compensation (VCC) device allows measurements of retinal nerve fiber layer parameters independent from birefringence changes of the cornea after photorefractive keratectomy (PRK). METHODS Retinal nerve fiber layers of 32 eyes in 32 myopic patients undergoing PRK were analyzed using the GDx-VCC. Photorefrac...

Dispersion-flattened dispersion-decreased all-normal dispersion (DFDD-ANDi) photonic crystal fibers have been identified as promising candidates for high-spectral-power coherent supercontinuum (SC) generation. However, the effects of the unintentional birefringence of the fibers on the SC generation have been ignored. This birefringence is widely present in nonlinear non-polarization maintainin...