Giuseppe Coppola

Bio: Giuseppe Coppola is an academic researcher from National Research Council. The author has contributed to research in topics: Digital holography & Holography. The author has an hindex of 40, co-authored 256 publications receiving 5489 citations. Previous affiliations of Giuseppe Coppola include Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli & University of Naples Federico II.

Digital holographic microscopy for the evaluation of human sperm structure

Abstract: The morphology of the sperm head has often been correlated with the outcome of in vitro fertilization (IVF), and has been shown to be the sole parameter in semen of value in predicting the success of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection (IMSI). In this paper, we have studied whether Digital Holographic (DH) microscopy may be useful to obtain quantitative data on human sperm head structure and compared this technique to high power digitally enhanced Nomarski microscope. The main advantage of DH is that a high resolution 3-D quantitative sample imaging may be obtained thorugh numerical refocusing at different object planes without any mechanical scanning. We show that DH can furnish useful information on the dimensions and structure of human spermatozoo, that cannot be revealed by conventional phase contrast microscopy. In fact, in this paper DH has been used to evaluate volume and indicate precise location of vacuoles, thus suggesting its use as an additional useful prognostic quantitative tool in assisted reproduction technology (ART).

Laser direct-writing of Bragg gratings waveguides on porous silicon

Abstract: In this work we present the realization through a laser oxidation process of a Bragg grating over a porous silicon (PSi) waveguide. In the last years, the possibility of patterning the Porous Silicon (PSi) with photolithographic processes has been investigated in silicon micromachining. Unfortunately, the masking process of PSi by using standard photoresist presents remarkable difficulties since the low resistance of the polymer to the electrochemical process. The PSi localized laser oxidation process is a good and cheaper alternative to the traditional photolithographic method to realize micropatterned structures. We exploited this technique to realize a Bragg grating. The morphological characteristic of the structure, constituted by 50 periods with a pitch of 10 mum, has been investigated by optical microscopy and profilometric technique. The transmission spectrum of the structure has been measured and compared with the calculated one by using the transfer matrix method and the slab waveguide modal calculation.

Phase map retrieval in digital holography: avoiding the under-sampling effect by a lateral shear approach

Abstract: In Digital Holography (DH) the numerical reconstruction of the whole wavefront refracted or reflected by a sample object allows one to extract the wrapped phase map mod, 2π. In fact, since the hologram is coded numerically as a digitized image, both the wavefront amplitude and phase can be reconstructed simultaneously to provide amplitude and phase contrast imaging. The resolution in the image plane is the reconstruction pixel size that depends on wavelength, reconstruction distance and the size of the CCD recording area. Efforts to improve the resolution of DH reconstructions have been accomplished, following various strategies: increasing of the hologram aperture by moving the camera in different positions or even by using synthetic aperture approaches, using a diffraction grating to record digital holograms with a wider solid angle in the object beam, or using multiple sources and/or multiple acquisitions. Although all of these methods allow one to increase the spatial resolution, one more complication exists concerning the loss of resolution that occurs in the usual DH reconstruction approaches. It can occur that the reconstructed wrapped phase map in the image plane is undersampled because of the limited pixel size which limits the spatial bandwidth of the reconstructed image. In such a case the phase distribution cannot be retrieved correctly by the usual unwrapping procedures. We show that the use of the digital Lateral-Shearing Interferometry (LSI) approach in DH provides the correct reconstruction of the phase map in the image plane, even in extreme cases where the phase profile changes very rapidly. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method in a particular case where the profile of a highly curved silicon micro-electromechanical system membrane has to be reconstructed.

Raman sex sorting of bovine spermatozoa

Abstract: This work relates to the problem of sex predetermination in animals based on the separation of Xand Y -bearing sperm cells before insemination. We developed a device for efficient, non-destructive and label-free sorting of X-and Y -bearing sperm cells based on their Raman spectroscopic characteristics. Raman spectroscopy (RS) is a non-invasive technique that allows the biochemical analysis of the cellular components and the characterization of molecular structure from their stretching and bending vibrational transitions. RS offers detailed information on the conformation, composition and molecular interactions of important cellular macromolecules, such as DNA, proteins and lipids, and can be used to characterize and study individual living cells. In this paper, we present a Raman spectroscopy-based method for selective and sensitive discrimination of Xand Ybearing bovine sperm cells.

I and i

Abstract: There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality. Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

Photonic crystals

Abstract: The term photonic crystals appears because of the analogy between electron waves in crystals and the light waves in artificial periodic dielectric structures. During the recent years the investigation of one-, two-and three-dimensional periodic structures has attracted a widespread attention of the world optics community because of great potentiality of such structures in advanced applied optical fields. The interest in periodic structures has been stimulated by the fast development of semiconductor technology that now allows the fabrication of artificial structures, whose period is comparable with the wavelength of light in the visible and infrared ranges.

Micrometre-scale silicon electro-optic modulator

Abstract: Metal interconnections are expected to become the limiting factor for the performance of electronic systems as transistors continue to shrink in size. Replacing them by optical interconnections, at different levels ranging from rack-to-rack down to chip-to-chip and intra-chip interconnections, could provide the low power dissipation, low latencies and high bandwidths that are needed. The implementation of optical interconnections relies on the development of micro-optical devices that are integrated with the microelectronics on chips. Recent demonstrations of silicon low-loss waveguides, light emitters, amplifiers and lasers approach this goal, but a small silicon electro-optic modulator with a size small enough for chip-scale integration has not yet been demonstrated. Here we experimentally demonstrate a high-speed electro-optical modulator in compact silicon structures. The modulator is based on a resonant light-confining structure that enhances the sensitivity of light to small changes in refractive index of the silicon and also enables high-speed operation. The modulator is 12 micrometres in diameter, three orders of magnitude smaller than previously demonstrated. Electro-optic modulators are one of the most critical components in optoelectronic integration, and decreasing their size may enable novel chip architectures.

Silicon optical modulators

Abstract: Optical technology is poised to revolutionize short-reach interconnects. The leading candidate technology is silicon photonics, and the workhorse of such an interconnect is the optical modulator. Modulators have been improved dramatically in recent years, with a notable increase in bandwidth from the megahertz to the multigigahertz regime in just over half a decade. However, the demands of optical interconnects are significant, and many questions remain unanswered as to whether silicon can meet the required performance metrics. Minimizing metrics such as the device footprint and energy requirement per bit, while also maximizing bandwidth and modulation depth, is non-trivial. All of this must be achieved within an acceptable thermal tolerance and optical spectral width using CMOS-compatible fabrication processes. This Review discusses the techniques that have been (and will continue to be) used to implement silicon optical modulators, as well as providing an outlook for these devices and the candidate solutions of the future.

A high-speed silicon optical modulator based on a metal–oxide–semiconductor capacitor

Abstract: Silicon has long been the optimal material for electronics, but it is only relatively recently that it has been considered as a material option for photonics1. One of the key limitations for using silicon as a photonic material has been the relatively low speed of silicon optical modulators compared to those fabricated from III–V semiconductor compounds2,3,4,5,6 and/or electro-optic materials such as lithium niobate7,8,9. To date, the fastest silicon-waveguide-based optical modulator that has been demonstrated experimentally has a modulation frequency of only ∼20 MHz (refs 10, 11), although it has been predicted theoretically that a ∼1-GHz modulation frequency might be achievable in some device structures12,13. Here we describe an approach based on a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) capacitor structure embedded in a silicon waveguide that can produce high-speed optical phase modulation: we demonstrate an all-silicon optical modulator with a modulation bandwidth exceeding 1 GHz. As this technology is compatible with conventional complementary MOS (CMOS) processing, monolithic integration of the silicon modulator with advanced electronics on a single silicon substrate becomes possible.