Water Jet Guided Laser (WJGL) processing uses high-pressure water jet as a waveguide for processing pulse laser. The processing laser is focused and coupled inside the water jet and delivered to the workpiece by total internal reflection (TIR). Therefore, monitoring how the laser propagates inside the water jet is important in maintaining quality processing. In this study, a novel evaluation method for the laser propagation characteristic in the water jet waveguide is suggested utilizing the distribution of Raman scattering which comes out from the water jet in response to the processing laser. In the experiment, the feasibility of this method was demonstrated by comparing it to a conventional evaluation method of water jet breakup and it was applied to the evaluation of laser propagation characteristic during the WJGL drilling process on SiC workpiece. From high-speed imaging of Raman scattering in the water jet, it was found that Raman scattering breaks in the middle of the water jet for most of the pulses once the drilling made certain progress. This breakdown in Raman scattering distribution could suggest that the processing laser did not reach the workpiece for those pulses and therefore that the workpiece was processed only intermittently. The potential for achieving more efficient processing, if such disturbance in the water jet could be controlled, was also suggested.
Orientation control of microparticles of irregular shape is highly needed in various fields such as cell surgery and microassembly. While a lot of techniques have been developed for rotating microparticles with optical tweezers, it is still a difficult task to control orientation (i.e. to stop rotation in a desired posture) of irregular particles with conventional optical tweezers since such particles’ motion with optical tweezers are complex. In this research, to accomplish the task, we propose a concept of adaptive optical tweezers, which realizes 3D orientation control of irregular microparticles by automatically adapting the illumination patterns to the observed shapes of microparticles in real time. In this paper, as a simple realization of adaptive optical tweezers, we report on “contour-shape” optical tweezers, which generate illumination patterns along observed contour shapes of microparticles in real time. Contour-shape optical tweezers are intended to trap irregular microparticles without out-of-plane rotation, which occurs with conventional optical tweezers of one-point illumination. With contour-shape optical tweezers, particles are illuminated only in edge parts, where optical responses can be approximated with those of spheres. Thus, it is expected that the torque applied to a particle is to be cancelled out throughout the particle, so that the particle stops out-of-plane rotation. In the experiment, polystyrene microparticles (~20μm) of irregular shape were trapped with out-of-plane rotation suppressed using contour-shape optical tweezers. This result suggests the feasibility of the concept of adaptive optical tweezers.
Diameter is one of the most fundamental and important parameters that characterize the optical properties of a tapered fiber, so it is necessary to accurately measure its diameter. In this study, we proposed a method for measuring the diameter in the sub-1 µm diameter region of a tapered fiber by measuring the spatial period of the standing wave formed by counter-propagating light waves incident from its both sides. We used a scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) probe fabricated from an optical fiber to measure the standing wave intensity distribution along the tapered fiber axial direction and its spatial period, from which the tapered fiber diameter can be estimated.
The significant development of terahertz wave technology requires precise measurement of terahertz optical devices such as diffractive gratings with micrometer-scale periodicity. We propose a new measurement method for fast, robust and precise shape measurement of micro-periodic structures, which can be regarded as a scan-less version of the deflectometry. Whereas the deflectometry demands the scanning of the beam spot in order to collect the tilt angle information from various different position on the sample surface, the proposed method simultaneously obtains it from a single diffraction image, then reconstructs the sample shape based on a light reflection model called ray reflection model. In comparison to the interferometry, the proposed method is principally robust to the mechanical vibration because the diffraction image is hardly affected by the displacement of the sample. The limitation of the proposed method is also discussed, and the mathematical expression of the constraint conditions required for the shape reconstruction is clarified. The numerical experiment based on the electromagnetic simulation with rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) demonstrates the possible accuracy on the order of 10 nm and the effectiveness of the use of the incoherent light. The physical experiment is also conducted by the constructed optical system, and the fundamental validity of the measurement result of the proposed method is confirmed.
Tapered fibers with a diameter of sub-micrometer to several micrometer show various optical characteristics, and the diameter is the most important parameter. To guarantee their functions, it is necessary to measure the fiber diameter with high precision during manufacturing. In this research, we propose an in-process measurement method of the diameter of sub-micro-optical fiber. The proposed technique is based on analyzing optically scattered light generated by standing wave illumination. First, we show the scattering characteristics of sub-microfibers using numerical simulation based on finite element method (FEM). From the result of simulation, it was revealed that the optical fiber of 100 nm in diameter can be evaluated with the standing wave illumination.
KEYWORDS: Finite-difference time-domain method, Super resolution, Near field, Near field optics, Microscopy, Waveguides, Reflection, Reconstruction algorithms, Diffraction, Light scattering
The optical-based super-resolution, non-invasive method is preferred for the inspection of surfaces with massive
microstructures widely applied in functional surfaces. The Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM) uses standing-wave
illumination to reach optical super-resolution. Recently, coherent SIM is being studied. It can obtain both the super-resolved
intensity distribution and the phase and amplitude distribution from the sample surface. By analysis of the phase-depth
dependency, the depth measurement for microgroove structures with coherent SIM is expected. FDTD analysis is applied
for observing the near-field response of microgroove narrower than the diffraction limit under the standing-wave
illumination. The near-field phase shows depth dependency in this analysis.
As represented by "Lab on a Tip" using microchannels, the miniaturization of manufacturing and inspection processes attracts widespread interest. Therefore, many micro-tool fabrication techniques using optical tweezers have been reported. Most reported methods focus on assembling trapped microbeads, and it was necessary to have a photocurable resin phase and surface modification process to assemble solid beads. However, because many procedures such as dispersion of microbeads and removal from the resin solution were required, flexible one-step fabrication is difficult with previous methods. This study proposed a direct adhesion and assembly of the photocurable resin droplets dispersed in the aqueous solution. Since the photocurable droplets work as both base material and an adhesive, a flexible one-step fabrication of micro-tools can be achieved. It was experimentally found that the morphology of emulsion droplets in contact significantly affects the adhesion. Generally, oil-in-water emulsion droplets are stabilized by a surfactant, and adhesion between droplets can be disturbed by a surfactant bilayer. By controlling the contact angle between the droplets, the optically trapped droplets successfully adhered together with photopolymerization. Furthermore, combining the various diameter and materials of emulsion droplets using microfluidic channels, more functional and complex microtools can be expected.
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