In this work we study the enhancement of the field-of-view of an infrared image up-converter by means of a thermal gradient in a PPLN crystal. Our work focuses on compact upconverters, in which both a short PPLN crystal length and high numerical aperture lenses are employed. We found a qualitative increase in both wavelength and angular tolerances, compared to a constant temperature upconverter, which makes it necessary a correct IR wavelength allocation in order to effectively increase the up-converted area.

We report an image wavelength upconversion system. The system mixes an incoming image at around 1550 nm (eye-safe region) illuminated by an amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) fiber source with a Gaussian beam at 1064 nm generated in a continuous-wave diode-pumped ${\mathrm{Nd}}^{3+}\text{:}{\mathrm{GdVO}}_4$ laser. Mixing takes place in a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystal placed intra-cavity. The upconverted image obtained by sum-frequency mixing falls around the 631 nm red spectral region, well within the spectral response of standard silicon focal plane array bi-dimensional sensors, commonly used in charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) video cameras, and of most image intensifiers. The use of ASE illumination benefits from a noticeable increase in the field of view (FOV) that can be upconverted with regard to using coherent laser illumination. The upconverted power allows us to capture real-time video in a standard nonintensified CCD camera.

We study the field-of-view (FOV) of an upconversion imaging system that employs an Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) fiber source to illuminate a transmission target. As an intermediate case between narrowband laser and thermal illumination, an ASE fiber source allows for higher spectral intensity than thermal illumination and still keeps a broad wavelength spectrum to take advantage of an increased non-collinear phase-matching angle acceptance that enlarges the FOV of the upconversion system when compared to using narrowband laser illumination. A model is presented to predict the angular acceptance of the upconverter in terms of focusing and ASE spectral width and allocation. The model is experimentally checked in case of 1550-630 nm upconversion.

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Fiber-optics sensors using interrogation based on incoherent optical frequency-domain reflectometry (I-OFDR) offer benefits such as the high stability of interference in the radio-frequency (RF) domain and the high SNR due to narrowband RF detection. One of the main impairments of the technique, however, is the necessity of high-frequency detectors and vector network analyzers (VNA) in systems requiring high resolution. In this paper, we report on two C-band implementations of an I-OFDR architecture based on homodyne electro-optic downconversion enabling detection without VNA and using only low-bandwidth, high-sensitivity receivers, therefore alleviating the requirements of conventional I-OFDR approaches. The systems are based on a pair of modulators that are synchronized to perform modulation and homodyne downconversion at a reference frequency of 25.5 kHz. In the first system, we attain centimeter resolution with a sensitivity down to −90 dB using the modulation frequency range comprised between 3.2 and 14.2 GHz. In the second, we measured, for the first time using this approach, Rayleigh backscattering traces in standard single mode fiber with resolution of 6 m and a sensitivity of −83 dB by use of the 10.1–30.1 MHz range. These results show the feasibility of these simple, homodyne downconversion I-OFDR systems as compact interrogators for distributed or quasi-distributed optical fiber sensors.

The pulsed optoelectronic terahertz emitter based on a $\delta$ -doped $p\text{-}i\text{-}n\text{-}i$ $\text{GaAs}/{\text{Al}}_x{\text{Ga}}_{1-x}\text{As}$ heterostructure, which was suggested by Reklaitis [Phys. Rev. B 77, 153309 (2008)], is investigated experimentally. It is shown that the heterostructure can serve as efficient antenna- and bias-free surface emitter. Its power exceeds the emission from InGaAs and InAs surfaces for optical excitation fluences below $0.7\mu \text{J}/{\text{cm}}^2$ at 82 MHz pulse repetition rate, respectively, $7\mu \text{J}/{\text{cm}}^2$ at 1 kHz, with potential for further improvement by carrier recombination management.