Relative intensity noise (RIN), describes the instability in the power level of a laser. The noise term is important to describe lasers used in fiber-optic communication and LIDAR remote sensing.
Relative intensity noise can be generated from cavity vibration, fluctuations in the laser gain medium or simply from transferred intensity noise from a pump source. Since intensity noise typically is proportional to the intensity, the relative intensity noise is typically independent of laser power. Hence, when the signal to noise ratio (SNR) is limited by RIN, it does not depend on laser power. In contrast, when SNR is limited by shot noise, it improves with increasing laser power. RIN typically peaks at the relaxation oscillation frequency of the laser then falls off at higher frequencies until it converges to the shot noise level. The roll off frequency sets what is specified as the RIN bandwidth. RIN is sometimes referred to as a kind of 1/f noise otherwise known as pink noise.
Relative intensity noise is measured by sampling the output current of a photodetector over time and transforming this data set into frequency with a fast Fourier transform. Alternatively, it can be measured by analyzing the spectrum of the photodetected signal using an electrical spectrum analyzer. Noise observed in the electrical domain is proportional to electric current squared and hence to optical power squared. Therefore, RIN is usually presented as relative fluctuation in the square of the optical power in decibels per hertz over the RIN bandwidth and at one or several optical intensities. It may also be specified as a percentage, a value that represents the relative fluctuations per Hz multiplied by the RIN bandwidth.
The decibel is a relative unit of measurement equal to one tenth of a bel (B). It expresses the ratio of two values of a power or root-power quantity on a logarithmic scale. Two signals whose levels differ by one decibel have a power ratio of 101/10 or root-power ratio of 101/20.
Noise figure (NF) and noise factor (F) are figures of merit that indicate degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that is caused by components in a signal chain. These figures of merit are used to evaluate the performance of an amplifier or a radio receiver, with lower values indicating better performance.
Shot noise or Poisson noise is a type of noise which can be modeled by a Poisson process.
Signal-to-noise ratio is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. SNR is defined as the ratio of signal power to noise power, often expressed in decibels. A ratio higher than 1:1 indicates more signal than noise.
Fourier-transform spectroscopy is a measurement technique whereby spectra are collected based on measurements of the coherence of a radiative source, using time-domain or space-domain measurements of the radiation, electromagnetic or not. It can be applied to a variety of types of spectroscopy including optical spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI), mass spectrometry and electron spin resonance spectroscopy.
Mode locking is a technique in optics by which a laser can be made to produce pulses of light of extremely short duration, on the order of picoseconds (10−12 s) or femtoseconds (10−15 s). A laser operated in this way is sometimes referred to as a femtosecond laser, for example, in modern refractive surgery. The basis of the technique is to induce a fixed phase relationship between the longitudinal modes of the laser's resonant cavity. Constructive interference between these modes can cause the laser light to be produced as a train of pulses. The laser is then said to be "phase-locked" or "mode-locked".
Coherence expresses the potential for two waves to interfere. Two monochromatic beams from a single source always interfere. Wave sources are not strictly monochromatic: they may be partly coherent. Beams from different sources are mutually incoherent.
A spectrum analyzer measures the magnitude of an input signal versus frequency within the full frequency range of the instrument. The primary use is to measure the power of the spectrum of known and unknown signals. The input signal that most common spectrum analyzers measure is electrical; however, spectral compositions of other signals, such as acoustic pressure waves and optical light waves, can be considered through the use of an appropriate transducer. Spectrum analyzers for other types of signals also exist, such as optical spectrum analyzers which use direct optical techniques such as a monochromator to make measurements.
In physics, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) is a spectroscopic technique in which the properties of matter are probed with short pulses of terahertz radiation. The generation and detection scheme is sensitive to the sample's effect on both the amplitude and the phase of the terahertz radiation.
In electronics, noise is an unwanted disturbance in an electrical signal.
Flicker noise is a type of electronic noise with a 1/f power spectral density. It is therefore often referred to as 1/f noise or pink noise, though these terms have wider definitions. It occurs in almost all electronic devices and can show up with a variety of other effects, such as impurities in a conductive channel, generation and recombination noise in a transistor due to base current, and so on.
Fellgett's advantage or the multiplex advantage is an improvement in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that is gained when taking multiplexed measurements rather than direct measurements. The name is derived from P. B. Fellgett, who first made the observation as part of his PhD. When measuring a signal whose noise is dominated by detector noise, a multiplexed measurement such as the signal generated by a Fourier transform spectrometer can produce a relative improvement in SNR, compared to an equivalent scanning monochromator, of the order of the square root of m, where m is the number of sample points comprising the spectrum.
A laser beam profiler captures, displays, and records the spatial intensity profile of a laser beam at a particular plane transverse to the beam propagation path. Since there are many types of lasers—ultraviolet, visible, infrared, continuous wave, pulsed, high-power, low-power—there is an assortment of instrumentation for measuring laser beam profiles. No single laser beam profiler can handle every power level, pulse duration, repetition rate, wavelength, and beam size.
Optical heterodyne detection is a method of extracting information encoded as modulation of the phase, frequency or both of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength band of visible or infrared light. The light signal is compared with standard or reference light from a "local oscillator" (LO) that would have a fixed offset in frequency and phase from the signal if the latter carried null information. "Heterodyne" signifies more than one frequency, in contrast to the single frequency employed in homodyne detection.
Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is used in imaging to characterize image quality. The sensitivity of a imaging system is typically described in the terms of the signal level that yields a threshold level of SNR.
The time-stretch analog-to-digital converter (TS-ADC), also known as the time-stretch enhanced recorder (TiSER), is an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) system that has the capability of digitizing very high bandwidth signals that cannot be captured by conventional electronic ADCs. Alternatively, it is also known as the photonic time-stretch (PTS) digitizer, since it uses an optical frontend. It relies on the process of time-stretch, which effectively slows down the analog signal in time before it can be digitized by a standard electronic ADC.
A superluminescent diode is an edge-emitting semiconductor light source based on superluminescence. It combines the high power and brightness of laser diodes with the low coherence of conventional light-emitting diodes. Its emission optical bandwidth, also described as full-width at half maximum, can range from 5 up to 750 nm.
In signal processing, noise is a general term for unwanted modifications that a signal may suffer during capture, storage, transmission, processing, or conversion.
Stationary-wave integrated Fourier-transform spectrometry (SWIFTS), or standing-wave integrated Fourier-transform spectrometry, is an analytical technique used for measuring the distribution of light across an optical spectrum. SWIFTS technology is based on a near-field Lippmann architecture. An optical signal is injected into a waveguide and ended by a mirror. The input signal interferes with the reflected signal, creating a standing, or stationary, wave.
An anamorphic stretch transform (AST) also referred to as warped stretch transform is a physics-inspired signal transform that emerged from time stretch dispersive Fourier transform. The transform can be applied to analog temporal signals such as communication signals, or to digital spatial data such as images. The transform reshapes the data in such a way that its output has properties conducive for data compression and analytics. The reshaping consists of warped stretching in the Fourier domain. The name "Anamorphic" is used because of the metaphoric analogy between the warped stretch operation and warping of images in anamorphosis and surrealist artworks.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
