An electro-optic beam controller, material processing apparatus, or optical amplifier, and corresponding methods, can include an actively controlled, waveguide-based, optical spatial mode conversion device. The conversion device can include a coupler, which can be a photonic lantern, configured to combine light beams into a common light beam; a sensor configured to measure at least one characteristic of the common light beam; and a controller configured to modulate optical parameters of the individual, respective light beams to set one or more spatial modes of the common light beam. Actively controlled and modulated devices can be used to maintain a stable, diffraction-limited beam for use in an amplification, communications, imaging, laser radar, switching, or laser material processing system. Embodiments can also be used to maintain a fundamental or other spatial mode in an optical fiber even while scaling to kilowatt power.

Embodiments of the disclosure provide an apparatus for emitting laser light and a system and method for detecting laser light returned from an object. The system includes a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter includes one or more laser sources, at least one of the laser sources configured to provide a respective native laser beam having a wavelength above 1,100 nm. The transmitter also includes a wavelength converter configured to receive the native laser beams provided by the laser sources and convert the native laser beams into a converted laser beam having a wavelength below 1,100 nm. The transmitter further includes a scanner configured to emit the converted laser beam to the object in a first direction. The receiver is configured to detect a returned laser beam having a wavelength below 1,100 nm and returned from the object in a second direction.

An integrated optical beam steering device includes a planar dielectric lens that collimates beams from different inputs in different directions within the lens plane. It also includes an output coupler, such as a grating or photonic crystal, that guides the collimated beams in different directions out of the lens plane. A switch matrix controls which input port is illuminated and hence the in-plane propagation direction of the collimated beam. And a tunable light source changes the wavelength to control the angle at which the collimated beam leaves the plane of the substrate. The device is very efficient, in part because the input port (and thus in-plane propagation direction) can be changed by actuating only log.sub.2 N of the N switches in the switch matrix. It can also be much simpler, smaller, and cheaper because it needs fewer control lines than a conventional optical phased array with the same resolution.

An optical modulator in which an optical signal is input from one side of a package, includes in the package, a chip that optically modulates the optical signal and in which an input waveguide and an output waveguide of the optical signal are led to mutually different destinations each being one end of the chip facing the one side of the package and a side surface of the chip orthogonal to the one end of the chip; an input optical system coupled to the input waveguide of the chip; and an output optical system coupled to the output waveguide of the chip.

Apparatus and methods for improved HHG of ultrashort pulse laser beams. A HHG assembly includes a gas distribution block and a waveguide cartridge having a HHG hollow core waveguide. The waveguide cartridge is attached to the gas distribution block and may be removed and replaced, while the gas distribution block remains affixed within the apparatus. The gas distribution block is configured to maintain a pressure profile within the hollow core fiber. The system also includes two operating beam sensors and two actuatable mirrors. The operating beam sensors are fixed with respect to the HHG assembly. The system is aligned before operation by adjusting the actuatable mirrors to optimize a sample beam through the waveguide and recording the position of the beam on the operating beam sensors. In operation, the mirrors are actuated to maintain the same positions of the input beam on the operating beam sensors.

Described herein is an optical device that is arranged to emit electromagnetic radiation and a method of forming an optical device. In one embodiment, the optical device comprises an optical fibre that is arranged to transmit electromagnetic radiation between a source of electromagnetic radiation and an area of interest of a sample material. The optical device also comprises an optical element coupled to an end portion of the optical fibre. The optical element comprises a graphene lens that is arranged to focus the electromagnetic radiation transmitted by the optical fibre to a focal region within the area of interest of the sample material.

In order to provide an optical waveguide element that is capable of reducing coupling loss at a coupling portion with an optical fiber and of reducing propagation loss in an optical waveguide, the optical waveguide element comprises a supporting substrate and a waveguide layer consisting of a material having an electro-optic effect stacked on the supporting substrate, wherein a rib portion for forming an optical waveguide is provided protruding on an upper surface of the waveguide layer; a groove portion is formed on an upper surface of the supporting substrate directly below a part of the rib portion; and the groove portion is filled with a material having an effective refractive index comparable to that of the waveguide layer.

A magnetic field sensor element 30 has a first polarization maintaining fiber 31 separating the linearly polarized light into a first linearly polarized wave propagated along the first slow axis and a second linearly polarized wave propagated along the first phase advance axis faster than the first linearly polarized wave, and propagating the first linearly polarized wave and the second linearly polarized wave, a second polarization maintaining fiber 32 having a second slow axis and a second phase advance axis, and connected to the first polarization maintaining fiber so that the second phase advance axis and the second slow axis are inclined 45 degrees with respect to the first phase advance axis and the first slow axis, a Faraday rotator 33 optically connected to the second polarization maintaining fiber, and shifting a phase of circularly polarized light emitted from the second polarization maintaining fiber in response to magnetic field at which the magnetic field sensor element is disposed, and a mirror element 34 connected to the Faraday rotator, and generating the return light.

Recent remarkable progress in wave-front shaping has enabled control of light propagation inside linear media to focus and image through scattering objects. In particular, light propagation in multimode fibers comprises complex intermodal interactions and rich spatiotemporal dynamics. Control of physical phenomena in multimode fibers and its applications is in its infancy, opening opportunities to take advantage of complex mode interactions. Various embodiments of the present technology provide wave-front shaping for controlling nonlinear phenomena in multimode fibers. Using a spatial light modulator at the fiber's input and a genetic algorithm optimization, some embodiments control a highly nonlinear stimulated Raman scattering cascade and its interplay with four wave mixing via a flexible implicit control on the superposition of modes that are coupled into the fiber.

A robotic fiber switching system switching between two sets of patch cords is disclosed. The connectors for inner patch cords are placed on multiple layers of stackable rotors which moves into the targeted port by utilizing the interaction of magnetically activated coils and nearby magnets. Multiple layers of stackable stator base are placed outside of the stackable rotors, around which the outer patch cords are placed. To establish a connection, a robot sliding on a rail surrounding the stackable stator is configured to move to the targeted port on the rail, using a robotic arm to pull the corresponding outer patch cord connector from a parking stand and latch it into the adaptor of the inner patch cord at the targeted port.