Optical interferometry has empowered an impressive variety of biosensing and medical imaging techniques. A widely held assumption is that devices based on optical interferometry require coherent light to generate a precise optical signature in response to an analyte. Here we disprove that assumption. By directly embedding light emitters into subwavelength cavities of plasmonic interferometers, ...

Highest resolution imaging in astronomy is achieved by interferometry, connecting telescopes over increasingly longer distances and at successively shorter wavelengths. Here, we present the first diffraction-limited images in visual light, produced by an array of independent optical telescopes, connected electronically only, with no optical links between them. With an array of small telescopes,...

We have developed a set of college-level, table-top labs for teaching the basics of radio interferometry and aperture synthesis. These labs are performed with the Very Small Radio Telescope (VSRT), an interferometer using satellite TV electronics as detectors and compact fluorescent light bulbs as microwave signal sources. The hands-on experience provided by the VSRT in these labs allows studen...

Optical frequency combs have developed into powerful tools for distance metrology. In this paper we demonstrate absolute long distance measurement using a single femtosecond frequency comb laser as a multi-wavelength source. By applying a high-resolution spectrometer based on a virtually imaged phased array, the frequency comb modes are resolved spectrally to the level of an individual mode. Ha...

A hybrid atomic force microscopic (AFM) measurement system combined with white light scanning interferometry for micro/nanometer dimensional measurement is developed. The system is based on a high precision large-range positioning platform with nanometer accuracy on which a white light scanning interferometric module and an AFM head are built. A compact AFM head is developed using a self-sensin...

White-light interferograms provide a simple, accurate, and physically intuitive picture of what happens to broadband optical pulses on transmission through, or reflection from, common optical materials. Quantitative measurement of group delay are made with an accuracy of 60.1 fs and with high spectral resolution. This measurement accuracy is applied to the determination of d2nydl2 and d3nydl3 o...

In this thesis, a new approach for the reconstruction of height maps from scanning white light interferometry is presented. This method unifies the conventional steps of preand postprocessing within Bayesian inference. An adept formulation of the prior allows for the exact computation of the height estimate, obviating the need for stochastic sampling or simulation methods. In conventional surfa...

We describe the operation of a light pulse interferometer using cold Rb atoms in reduced gravity. Using a series of two Raman transitions induced by light pulses, we have obtained Ramsey fringes in the low gravity environment achieved during parabolic flights. With our compact apparatus, we have operated in a regime which is not accessible on ground. In the much lower gravity environment and lo...

– We investigate the use of ground-based gravitational-wave interferometers for studies of the strong-field domain of QED. Interferometric measurements of phase velocity shifts induced by quantum fluctuations in magnetic fields can become a sensitive probe for nonlinear self-interactions among macroscopic electromagnetic fields. We identify pulsed magnets as a suitable strong-field source, sinc...

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is expected to launch in the middle of the next decade. LISA will detect gravitational waves generated by sources ranging from galactic sources like neutron star and white dwarf binaries to mergers between super-massive black holes in the centers of colliding galaxies. LISA will consist of six freely-falling proof masses shielded by three identical ...