Simultaneous determination of thickness and refractive index based on time-of-flight measurements of terahertz pulse

Simultaneous thickness and phase index measurements with a motion-free actively tunable Twyman-Green interferometer

In this paper, we present a scheme to simultaneously measure the thickness and refractive index of parallel plate samples, involving no bulk mechanical motion, by deploying an electronically tunable Twyman-Green interferometer configuration. The active electronic control with no bulk mechanical motion is realized via the introduction of a tunable focus lens within the classical motion-based Twyman-Green interferometer configuration. The resulting interferometer is repeatable and delivers accurate estimates of the thickness and refractive index of a sample under test. Elimination of bulk motion also promises a potential for miniaturization. We develop a theoretical model for estimating sample thickness and index values using this reconfigurable interferometer setup and present detailed experimental results that demonstrate the working principle of the proposed interferometer.

Terahertz and Photoelectron Emission from Nanoporous Gold Films on Semiconductors

Efficient terahertz and photoelectron emission were observed from nano-porous gold (NPG) films deposited on an intrinsic gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductor substrate stimulated by femtosecond laser with pulse width of 60 fs. Time-domain THz emission and reflection spectroscopy confirmed that the free charges accelerated by irradiated femtosecond laser pulses transferred from the NPG films into the GaAs substrates. Accordingly, charges accumulation was reduced in the NPG films, resulting in a stronger emission of THz pulse than that from NPG films deposited on SiO₂ substrate. Charges injected into the GaAs substrate enforced an observable decrease of the THz refractive index proportional to the intensity of incident light. In comparison, for NPG deposited on glass substrates, laser induced free charges were accumulated in the NPG films, and femtosecond laser pulses irradiating on the NPG films made no changes of the THz refractive index of the glass substrates.

Spectrometer-based refractive index and dispersion measurement using low-coherence interferometry with confocal scanning

This paper describes a technique for measuring refractive index and thickness of transparent plates using a fibre-optic low-coherence interferometer. The interferometer is used to independently measure quantities related to the phase and group refractive indices, n_p and n_g, of the material under investigation. Additionally, the dispersion of the phase index dependent quantity is measured by taking advantage of the range of wavelengths available from a broadband source. These three quantities are related to simultaneously yield n_p and n_g as well as the geometrical thickness t of the sample. Measurements are presented for a range of transparent materials including measurements of the ordinary and extraordinary refractive indices of a birefringent sapphire window. The mean percentage errors across all the samples tested were 0.09% for n_p, 0.08% for n_p, and 0.11% for t.

Preparation of freestanding graphene-based laminar membrane for clean-water intake via forward osmosis process

Here, a thin freestanding graphene oxide based laminar membrane was prepared for clean-water intake through a forward osmosis process.

Glass thickness and index measurement using optical sampling by cavity tuning

In this paper, we describe a method based on optical sampling by cavity tuning, which is capable of high-accuracy glass thickness and index measurement. By tuning the repetition frequency of the frequency comb, a series of cross-correlation patterns can be obtained that correspond to the front and rear surfaces of the specimen and the co-operation mirror. Both the geometrical thickness and the optical thickness of the specimen can be measured via the cross-correlation patterns, and consequently, the glass refractive index can be determined at the same time. The comparison with the reference value shows an agreement within 1.3 μm for the thickness measurement, and within 5×10^-4 for the refractive index measurement.

Refractive index measurements of multiple layers using numerical refocusing in FF-OCT

We propose and demonstrate the novel method of refractive index (RI) measurement for each layer of multilayered samples, which is based on numerical refocusing in full field optical coherence tomography (FF-OCT). The en-face FF-OCT image on an inner layer boundary of a multilayered sample is unintentionally blurred or defocused due to the RI of the sample itself, but can be numerically refocused. The refocusing is performed by numerically shifting the image sensor plane of the system, in general. However, by calculating the corresponding sample shift and then compared it with the actual sample shifting distance, we could extract the average RI of the layer between any two layer boundaries within the multilayered sample. In addition, the thickness of that particular layer could be derived at the same time. For the idea proof, several samples were prepared by stacking, for each sample, two transparent plates with a gap in between. While changing the material of the plate and filling the gap with oil, the RIs of the plate and the oil were measured. For oils of various RIs, from 1.2977 to 1.3857, the measured RIs were well matched with the reported ones within 0.205%. Moreover, even with a stack of various and multiple plates in front of the same oil layer, the oil RI and the physical thickness of the oil layer were extracted with average errors of only 0.065% and 0.990%, respectively.