Advanced Mathematical Methods for Scientists and Engineers

We review recent progress in inducing and harnessing stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in integrated photonic circuits. Exciting SBS in a chip-scale device is challenging due to the stringent requirements on materials and device geometry. We discuss these requirements, which include material parameters, such as optical refractive index and acoustic velocity, and device properties, such as acousto-optic confinement. Recent work on SBS in nano-photonic waveguides and micro-resonators is presented, with special attention paid to photonic integration of applications such as narrow-linewidth lasers, slow- and fast-light, microwave signal processing, Brillouin dynamic gratings, and nonreciprocal devices.

Inducing and harnessing stimulated Brillouin scattering in photonic integrated circuits

This article reviews two types of ultrasound-mediated biophotonic imaging–acousto-optical tomography (AOT, also called ultrasound-modulated optical tomography) and photo-acoustic tomography (PAT, also called opto-acoustic or thermo-acoustic tomography)–both of which are based on non-ionizing optical and ultrasonic waves. The goal of these technologies is to combine the contrast advantage of the optical properties and the resolution advantage of ultrasound. In these two technologies, the imaging contrast is based primarily on the optical properties of biological tissues, and the imaging resolution is based primarily on the ultrasonic waves that either are provided externally or produced internally, within the biological tissues. In fact, ultrasonic mediation overcomes both the resolution disadvantage of pure optical imaging in thick tissues and the contrast and speckle disadvantages of pure ultrasonic imaging. In our discussion of AOT, the relationship between modulation depth and acoustic amplitude is clarified. Potential clinical applications of ultrasound-mediated biophotonic imaging include early cancer detection, functional imaging, and molecular imaging.

/pdf/ultrasound-mediated-biophotonic-imaging-a-review-of-acousto-3eaqlzes3c.pdf

Ultrasound-mediated biophotonic imaging: A review of acousto-optical tomography and photo-acoustic tomography

We investigate the effect of nonlinearity in novel parity-time (PT) symmetric potentials. We show that new types of nonlinear self-trapped modes can exist in optical PT synthetic lattices.

/pdf/optical-solitons-in-pt-periodic-potentials-gr30h4uehw.pdf

Optical solitons in PT periodic potentials

Optical nonlinearities give rise to many ubiquitous effects in optical fibers. These effects are interesting in themselves and can be detrimental in optical communications, but they also have many useful applications, especially for the implementation of all-optical functionalities in optical networks. In the present paper, we briefly review the different kinds of optical nonlinearities encountered in fibers, pointing out the essential material and fiber parameters that determine them. We describe the effects produced by each kind of nonlinearity, emphasizing their variations for different values of essential parameters. Throughout the paper, we refer to recent systems applications in which these effects have been dealt with or exploited.

Optical nonlinearities in fibers: review, recent examples, and systems applications

Ultrasound modulated light for optical tomography is very useful, since it can provide three-dimensional data with minimal mathematical processing. Although several experimental studies have shown the potential of this method, the link between the ultrasound location and the modulated signal intensity at the detector is not yet fully understood. We derive an analytical formula relating the position of the ultrasound transducer and the optical signal at the detector. We also derive an expression for the signal-to-shot-noise ratio as a function of the transducer position. We show that in certain conditions this ratio is only slowly decreasing as a function of the light penetration depth, which makes this technique attractive for optical tomography.

http://physics.biu.ac.il/files/physics/shared/staff/u103/josa_a_18_1962_2001.pdf

Detection of inhomogeneities with ultrasound tagging of light

A method and processing device are presented for reconstructing an absorption and/or scattering image of a region of interest inside a scattering medium. A mathematical model is provided being representative of a relation between the distribution of the intensity and phase of electromagnetic radiation components scattered from a medium and a certain attenuation factor, which is function of spatial variations of scattering and absorption coefficients of the medium. The mathematical is used for processing a map of distribution of the intensity of electromagnetic radiation components scattered from known locations within the region of interest, thereby producing a halftone pattern of the region of interest.

Method and apparatus for imaging absorbing objects in a scattering medium

By varying the absorption coefficient and width of an intralipid–India ink solution in a quasi-one-dimensional experiment, we investigate the transition between the ballistic and the diffusive regimes. The medium’s attenuation coefficient changes abruptly between two different values within a single mean free path. This problem is analyzed both experimentally and theoretically, and it is demonstrated that the transition location depends on the scattering coefficient as well as on the measuring solid angle.

Transition from the ballistic to the diffusive regime in a turbid medium

A general solution to the shutter problem is presented. The propagation of an arbitrary initially bounded wave function is investigated, and the general solution for any such function is formulated. It is shown that the exact solution can be written as an expression that depends only on the values of the function (and its derivatives) at the boundaries. In particular, it is shown that at short times (t << 2mx2/, where x is the distance to the boundaries) the wave function propagation depends only on the wave function's values (or its derivatives) at the boundaries of the region. Finally, we generalize these findings to a non-singular wave function (i.e., for wave packets with finite-width boundaries) and suggest an experimental verification.

Generic short-time propagation of sharp-boundaries wave packets

We analyze the effects of additional terms in the nonlinear Schrodinger equation for spatial solitons, directly derived from the Maxwell’s equations with the Kerr nonlinearity, on the shapes of bright and dark solitons with a fixed polarization. Combining analytical and numerical methods, we find that the additional terms always render the solitons broader. The most essential result is a fundamental limitation on the width of the subwavelength soliton: The ratio of the FWHM of the bright soliton to the wavelength cannot be smaller than 1/2, and the same ratio for the FWHM of the dark soliton cannot be smaller than 1/4.

Er'el Granot

Papers

Detection of inhomogeneities with ultrasound tagging of light

Method and apparatus for imaging absorbing objects in a scattering medium

Transition from the ballistic to the diffusive regime in a turbid medium

Generic short-time propagation of sharp-boundaries wave packets

Subwavelength spatial solitons