Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of St Andrews, November 2009. / Restricted until 5th November 2011.

A recurring theme in my research is that mathematical matrix methods may be used in a wide variety of physics and engineering applications. Transfer matrix techniques are conceptually and mathematically simple, and they encourage a systems approach. Once one is familiar with one transfer matrix method, it is straightforward to learn another, even if it is from a completely different branch of science. Thus it is useful to overview these methods, and this has been done here. Of special interest are the applications of these methods to laser optics, and matrix theorems concerning multipass optical systems and periodic optical systems have been generalized here to include, for example, the effect of misalignment on the performance of an optical system. In addition, a transfer matrix technique known as generalized beam method has been derived to treat misalignment effects in complex optical systems. Previous theories used numerical or ad hoc analytical solutions to a complicated diffraction integral. The generalized beam matrix formalism was also extended to higher-order beam modes of lasers and used to study mode discrimination in lasers with misaligned complex optical elements.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. / Summers, Christopher, Committee Chair ; Chang, Gee-Kung, Committee Member ; Carter, Brent, Committee Member ; Wang, Zhong Lin, Committee Member ; Meindl, James, Committee Member ; Li, Mo, Committee Member.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:23:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T13:57:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 00975.pdf: 8447772 bytes, checksum: 57efc3cd214a3c9ef96ce7216cb7dd50 (MD5) / Tese (Doutoramento) / IEA/T / Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Sao Paulo - FM/USP

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In 1987 a NASA panel recommended the creation of the Mission to Planet Earth. This mission was intended to apply to remote sensing experience of the space community to earth remote sensing to enhance the understanding of the climatalogical processes of our planet and to determine if, and to what extent, the hydrological cycle of Earth is being affected by human activity. One of the systems required for the mission was a wide scanning, high gain reflector antenna system for use in radiometric remote sensing from geostationary orbit. This work describes research conducted at Virginia Tech into techniques for beam scanning offset Cassegrain reflector antennas by subreflector translation and rotation. Background material relevant to beam scanning antenna systems and offset Cassegrain reflector antenna system is presented. A test case is developed based on the background material. The test case is beam scanned using two geometrical optics methods of determining the optimum subreflector position for the desired scanned beam direction. Physical optics far-field results are given for the beam scanned systems. The test case system is found to be capable of beam scanning over a range of 35 half-power beamwidths while maintaining a 90% beam efficiency or 50 half-power beamwidths while maintaining less than 1 dB of gain loss during scanning. / Master of Science

A short history of acousto-optics research is presented along with a general description of how light and sound interact. The Multiple Scattering model is derived and used with a Gaussian light beam to observe the distortion in light beam profile within the sound field. Numerical results are presented for comparison to previous studies using thick holograms and two orders of light. The results from using two light orders are compared to four light order results. A Hamming sound amplitude distribution is introduced as a possible way to reduce the amount of light beam profile distortion. / Master of Science

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