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Optical laser characterization was performed on reflectors for the GigaBREAD and InfraBREAD experiments to compare to the designs and confirm they were machined properly. These slides go over a background of ultralight dark matter, as well as the optical setup to perform the measurements and the results.
The Target Absorbers for Neutrals (TANs) represent one of the most radioactive regions in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Seven 40 cm long fused silica rods with different dopant specifications, manufactured by Heraeus, were irradiated in one of the TANs located around the ATLAS experiment by the Beam RAte of Neutrals (BRAN) detector group. This campaign took place during the Run 2 p+p data taking, which occurred between 2016 and 2018. This paper reports a complete characterization of optical transmission per unit length of irradiated fused silica materials as a function of wavelength (240 nm - 1500 nm), dose (up to 18 MGy), and level of OH and H$_2$ dopants introduced in the manufacturing process. The dose delivered to the rods was estimated using Monte Carlo simulations performed by the CERN FLUKA team.
Optical trap arrays are being developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center for holding, manipulating, and optically interrogating arrays of nanotube sensors. The trap arrays, for example, might be used to arrange arrays of chemical sensors for insertion onto a chip in liquid, air, and vacuum environments. Neural-network-controlled spatial light modulators (SLMs) are to generate and control the trap positions and trap profiles in three dimensions.
The SeaWiFS Transfer Radiometer (SXR) was built for the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) Project as part of an Interagency Agreement with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The SXR is a multichannel radiometer designed to verify and compare measurements of spectral radiance at six discrete wavelengths in the visible and near infrared for various calibration sources in the SeaWiFS Project. In addition, the SXR is used to compare these sources to standards of spectral radiance maintained at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The SXR was designed, built, and thoroughly characterized in the Optical Technology Division at NIST. A unique optical design provides six independent optical paths, each equipped with a temperature stabilized interference filter and silicon photodiode. A separate beam path through the input lens is used to visually align the SXR. The entrance windows for each channel overlap at the source, with each channel sampling a unique solid angle within the field of view of the SXR; this allows for simultaneous sampling of all channels. The combined standard relative uncertainty of spectral radiance measurements with the SXR is estimated to be between 0.6% and 1.3%. This report describes the design and construction of the SXR in detail, and gives the results of the optical characterization and calibrations done at NIST. The SXR has been used for several intercomparisons which include several SeaWiFS Intercalibration Round-Robin Experiments (SIRREXs); those done at the Marine Optical Buoy (MOBY) laboratories in Honolulu, Hawaii; at the NEC Corporation in Yokohama, Japan; and Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC) in Germantown, Maryland. Thorough optical characterization and calibration of the SXR was essential to the successful application of the radiometer for these measurements.
The SeaWiFS Transfer Radiometer (SXR) was built for the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) Project as part of an Interagency Agreement with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The SXR is a multichannel radiometer designed to verify and compare measurements of spectral radiance at six discrete wavelengths in the visible and near infrared for various calibration sources in the SeaWiFS Project. In addition, the SXR is used to compare these sources to standards of spectral radiance maintained at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The SXR was designed, built, and thoroughly characterized in the Optical Technology Division at NIST. A unique optical design provides six independent optical paths, each equipped with a temperature stabilized interference filter and silicon photodiode. A separate beam path through the input lens is used to visually align the SXR. The entrance windows for each channel overlap at the source, with each channel sampling a unique solid angle within the field of view of the SXR; this allows for simultaneous sampling of all channels. The combined standard relative uncertainty of spectral radiance measurements with the SXR is estimated to be between 0.6% and 1.3%. This report describes the design and construction of the SXR in detail, and gives the results of the optical characterization and calibrations done at NIST. The SXR has been used for several intercomparisons which include several SeaWiFS Intercalibration Round-Robin Experiments (SIRREXs); those done at the Marine Optical Buoy (MOBY) laboratories in Honolulu, Hawaii; at the NEC Corporation in Yokohama, Japan; and Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC) in Germantown, Maryland. Thorough optical characterization and calibration of the SXR was essential to the successful application of the radiometer for these measurements.
Increasing our understanding of the Earth-atmosphere system has been a scientific and political priority for the last few decades. This system not only touches on environmental science, but it has applicability to our broader understanding of planetary atmospheres in general. While this issue focuses primarily on electromagnetics, other fundamental fields of science, including fluid and thermodynamics play major roles. In recent years, significant research efforts have led to advances in the fields of radiative transfer and electromagnetic scattering from irregularly shaped particles. Recently, several workshops and small conferences have taken place to promote the fusion of these efforts. Late in 2013, for instance, two such meetings took place. The Optical Characterization of Atmospheric Aerosols (OCAA) meeting took place in Smolenice, Slovakia to promote a better understanding of microphysical properties of aerosol particles, and the characterization of such atmospheric particles using optical techniques. A complementary conference was organized in Nagoya, Japan, the 3rd International Symposium on Atmospheric Light Scattering and Remote Sensing (ISALSaRS), whose goal is to fuse the advances achieved in particle characterization with remote-sensing techniques. While the focus of these meetings is slightly different, they represent the same aspects of this rapidly growing field. This Topical Issue is the first of two parts. Within this issue we analyze different aspects of the problem of atmospheric characterization and present a broad overview of the topical area. Research includes theory and experiment, ranging from fundamental microphysical properties of individual aerosol particles to broad characterizations of atmospheric properties. Since this is an active field, we also have encouraged the submission of ideas for new methodologies that may represent the future of the field.
Astronomical dust is observed in a variety of astrophysical environments and plays an important role in radiative processes and chemical evolution in the galaxy. Depending upon the environment, dust can be either carbon-rich or oxygen-rich (silicate grains). Both astronomical observations and ground-based data show that the optical properties of silicates can change dramatically with the crystallinity of the material, and recent laboratory research provides evidence that the optical properties of silicate dust vary as a function of temperature as well. Therefore, correct interpretation of a vast array of astronomical data relies on the understanding of the properties of silicate dust as functions of wavelength, temperature, and crystallinity. The OPASI-T (Optical Properties of Astronomical Silicates with Infrared Techniques) project addresses the need for high quality optical characterization of metal-enriched silicate condensates using a variety of techniques. A combination of both new and established experiments are used to measure the extinction, reflection, and emission properties of amorphous silicates across the infrared (near infrared to millimeter wavelengths), providing a comprehensive data set characterizing the optical parameters of dust samples. We present room temperature measurements and the experimental apparatus to be used to investigate and characterize additional metal-silicate materials.
Characterizing Gravity-sag (G-sag) is an essential part of developing a large space-based optic. A method to back out gravity sag of a light-weighted optic using a CGH will be demonstrated. The results from the G-sag CGH determination is compared to the G-sag and Zero-G figure obtained during horizontal G-sag testing. The results from the CGH testing are also compared to the G-sag figure determined from modeling.
This represents the second topical issue on optical particle characterization and remote sensing. These two issues resulted from recent interest in increasing our understanding of the Earth-atmosphere system that has been a scientific and political priority for the last few decades. While the initial issue had a stronger focus on microphysics and its implications to the Earth-atmosphere system, this issue is more applied, with a heavier weighting on remote-sensing aspects, atmospheric information retrieval. The first issue was roughly divided into studies that focused on observations of aerosols, associated properties of aerosols and their effects on light-scattering, retrievals of aerosol properties and novel applications.This topical issue is the second of two parts. Within this issue we analyze different aspects of the problem of atmospheric characterization and present a broad overview of the topical area, with a focus especially on lidar measurements and information retrieval. Research includes the development of new observational techniques, theory, experiment and atmospheric characterizations ranging from fundamental microphysical properties of individual aerosol particles to broad characterizations of the entire atmosphere.
Optical emission spectroscopy is employed to correlate BN insulator erosion with high-power operation of the NASA 300M Hall-effect thruster. Actinometry leveraging excited xenon states is used to normalize the emission spectra of ground state boron as a function of thruster operating condition. Trends in the strength of the boron signal are correlated with thruster power, discharge voltage, discharge current and magnetic field strength. The boron signals are shown to trend with discharge current and show weak dependence on discharge voltage. The trends are consistent with data previously collected on the NASA 300M and NASA 457M thrusters but are different from conventional wisdom.
Optical emission spectroscopy is employed to correlate BN insulator erosion with high-power Hall thruster operation. Specifically, actinometry leveraging excited xenon states is used to normalize the emission spectra of ground state boron as a function of thruster operating condition. Trends in the strength of the boron signal are correlated with thruster power, discharge voltage, and discharge current. In addition, the technique is demonstrated on metallic coupons embedded in the walls of the HiVHAc EM thruster. The OES technique captured the overall trend in the erosion of the coupons which boosts credibility in the method since there are no data to which to calibrate the erosion rates of high-power Hall thrusters. The boron signals are shown to trend linearly with discharge voltage for a fixed discharge current as expected. However, the boron signals of the higher-power NASA 300M and NASA 457Mv2 trend with discharge current and show an unexpectedly weak to inverse dependence on discharge voltage. Electron temperatures measured optically in the near-field plume of the thruster agree well with Langmuir probe data. However, the optical technique used to determine Te showed unacceptable sensitivity to the emission intensities. Near-field, single-frequency imaging of the xenon neutrals is also presented as a function of operating condition for the NASA 457 Mv2.
A new fiber optic probe developed for determining transport properties of sub-micron particles in fluids experiments in a microgravity environment has been applied to characterize particulate dispersions/suspensions in various challenging environments which have been hitherto impossible. The probe positioned in front of a sample delivers a low power light (few nW - 3mW) from a laser and guides the light which is back scattered by the suspended particles through a receiving optical fiber to a photo detector and to a digital correlator. The probe provides rapid determination of macromolecular diffusivities and their respective size distributions. It has been applied to characterize various biological fluids, protein crystals, and ophthalmic diseases.
The Advanced ACTPol (AdvACT) upgrade to the Atacama Cosmology Telescope features large arrays of multichroic pixels consisting of two orthogonal-polarization pairs of superconducting bolometers at two observing frequency bands. We present measurements of the detector properties and noise data in a subset of a fielded multichroic array of AlMn transition-edge sensor (TES) detectors. In this array, the distribution of critical temperature T(sub c) across detectors appears uniform at the percent level. The measured noise-equivalent power (NEP) distributions over approximately 1200 detectors are consistent with expectations. We find median NEPs of 4.0×10(exp −17) W/ √ Hz for low-band detectors and 6.2×10(exp −17) W/ √ Hz for high-band detectors under covered-window telescope test conditions with optical loading comparable to observing with precipitable water vapor approximately 0.5 mm. Lastly, we show the estimated detector optical efficiency, and demonstrate the ability to perform optical characterization over hundreds of detectors at once using a cryogenic blackbody source.
The Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE) is a solar occultation experiment that will fly on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite to measure mixing ratio profiles of O3, H2O, NO2, NO, CH4, HCl, and HF. The inversion of the HALOE data will be critically dependent on a detailed knowledge of eight optical filters. A filter characterization program was undertaken to measure in-band transmissions, out-of-band transmissions, in-band transmission shifts with temperature, reflectivities, and age stability. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometers were used to perform measurements over the spectral interval 400/cm to 6300/cm (25 micrometers to 1.6 micrometers). Very high precision (0.1 percent T) in-band measurements and very high resolution (0.0001 percent T) out-of-band measurements have been made. The measurements revealed several conventional leaks at 0.01 percent transmission and greatly enhanced (1,000) leaks to the 2-element filters when placed in a Fabry-Perot cavity. Filter throughput changes by 5 percent for a 25 C change in filter temperature.
Three InAs/GaAs single quantum wells of two-, three-, and four-monolayer thickness were characterized using optical and structural techniques. The results of high-resolution transmission electron (HRTEM) microscopy and optical studies which combine absorption, photoluminescence (PL), photoreflectance, and cathodoluminescence are presented. Using the polarization modulated absorptance technique, we observed two absorption features in our samples at 77 K. On the basis of their polarization properties and comparison with an envelope function calculation, these structures are assigned to transitions between the confined heavy-hole and confined and unconfined electron levels. Photoreflectance spectra of the three-monolayer sample in 77-300 K range show only the fundamental quantum well transition. The temperature dependence of this transition is approximately linear with a slope of 2.2 x 10 exp -4 eV/K, which is significantly lower than in both constituent materials. Comparison to the absorption data reveals that the PL spectra are affected by the carrier diffusion and therefore do not provide direct measure of the exciton density of states. The HRTEM images indicate that, while the interfaces of the two-monolayer sample are smooth and the well thickness is uniform, the four-monolayer sample has uneven interfaces and contains domains of two, three, and four monolayers.
Experiments were carried out to grow 3.Nitroaniline (m.NA) crystals doped with 4.Nitroaniline (p.NA) and 2.chloro 4.Nitroaniline (CNA). The measured undercooling for m.NA, p.NA, and CNA were 0.21 tm K, 0.23 tm K, and 0.35 tm K respectively, where tm represents the melting temperature of the pure component. Because of the crystals' large heat of fusion and large undercooling, it was not possible to grow good quality crystals with low thermal gradients. In the conventional two-zone Bridgman furnace we had to raise the temperature of the hot zone above the decomposition temperature of CNA, p.NA, and m.NA to achieve the desired thermal gradient. To avoid decomposition, we used an unconventional Bridgman furnace. Two immiscible liquids, silicone oil and ethylene glycol, were used to build a special two-zone Bridgman furnace. A temperature gradient of 18 K/cm was achieved without exceeding the decomposition temperature of the crystal. The binary crystals, m.NA-p.NA and m.NA-CNA, were grown in centimeter size in this furnace. X-ray and optical characterization showed good optical quality.
To better characterize and model optical data acquired from ground-based telescopes, the Optical Measurements Center (OMC) at NASA/JSC attempts to emulate illumination conditions seen in space using equipment and techniques that parallel telescopic observations and source-target-sensor orientations. The OMC uses a 75 Watt Xenon arc lamp as a solar simulator, an SBIG CCD camera with standard Johnson/Bessel filters, and a robotic arm to simulate an object's position and rotation. The laboratory uses known shapes, materials suspected to be consistent with the orbital debris population, and three phase angles to best match the lighting conditions of the telescope based data. The fourteen objects studied in the laboratory are fragments or materials acquired through ground-tests of scaled-model satellites/rocket bodies as well as material samples in more/less "flight-ready" condition. All fragments were measured at 10 increments in a full 360 rotation at 6 , 36 , and 60 phase angles. This paper will investigate published color photometric data for a series of orbital debris targets and compare it to the empirical photometric measurements generated in the OMC. Using the data acquired over specific rotational angles through different filters (B, V, R, I), a color index is acquired (B-R, R-I). Using these values and their associated lightcurves, this laboratory data is compared to observational data obtained on the 1 m telescope of the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern (AUIB), the 0.9 m operated by the Small- and Medium-Aperture Research Telescope System (SMARTS) Consortium and the Curtis-Schmidt 0.6 m Michigan Orbital Debris Space Debris Telescope both located at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). An empirical based optical characterization model will be presented to provide preliminary correlations between laboratory based and telescope-based data in the context of classification of GEO debris objects.
The Modified Gerchberg-Saxton (MGS) algorithm is an image-based wavefront-sensing method that can turn any science instrument focal plane into a wavefront sensor. MGS characterizes optical systems by estimating the wavefront errors in the exit pupil using only intensity images of a star or other point source of light. This innovative implementation of MGS significantly accelerates the MGS phase retrieval algorithm by using stream-processing hardware on conventional graphics cards. Stream processing is a relatively new, yet powerful, paradigm to allow parallel processing of certain applications that apply single instructions to multiple data (SIMD). These stream processors are designed specifically to support large-scale parallel computing on a single graphics chip. Computationally intensive algorithms, such as the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), are particularly well suited for this computing environment. This high-speed version of MGS exploits commercially available hardware to accomplish the same objective in a fraction of the original time. The exploit involves performing matrix calculations in nVidia graphic cards. The graphical processor unit (GPU) is hardware that is specialized for computationally intensive, highly parallel computation. From the software perspective, a parallel programming model is used, called CUDA, to transparently scale multicore parallelism in hardware. This technology gives computationally intensive applications access to the processing power of the nVidia GPUs through a C/C++ programming interface. The AAMGS (Accelerated Adaptive MGS) software takes advantage of these advanced technologies, to accelerate the optical phase error characterization. With a single PC that contains four nVidia GTX-280 graphic cards, the new implementation can process four images simultaneously to produce a JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) wavefront measurement 60 times faster than the previous code.