The degree of sophistication and customization available in optical components has been driven by advances in lens design and fabrication. The optical testing of these components remains a challenge. In particular, the precision measurement of the properties of transmissive optics such as transmitted wavefront, surface figure, and index of refraction continues to require new methodology tools.A method of surface figure measurement is described based on the transmitted wavefront of an optical element obtained from a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Given known values for the refractive index and center thickness, along with the sample's transmitted wavefront, the unknown surface profile is reconstructed in a deterministic way. The technique relies on knowledge of one of the surfaces of the element, such as an easy to measure plano or spherical surface, and is well-suited for testing aspheric surfaces. Additionally, this method has the advantage of making measurements on multiplexed surfaces, such as a lenslet array.Since the index of refraction of materials varies with wavelength, the test sample undergoes chromatic effects with wavelength. Chromatic aberration is an important concern whenever optics are designed for use in the visible spectrum. A method has been presented for obtaining the longitudinal chromatic aberration of a test part from the transmitted wavefronts at 5 different wavelengths. The longitudinal chromatic aberration measurements on a plano-convex lens and an achromat are presented.Injection molding is becoming a popular manufacturing method for optical plastic elements because of low cost and mass production. During injection molding, the plastic lenses undergo large pressure and temperature changes so that the resulting lens has a spatially-varying index. Since the index is assumed to be a single number in the design stage, except for index-gradient lenses, an inhomogeneous index of the sample can cause a decrease in optical performance. The surface reconstruction algorithm can be modified to find two dimensional index values over the test aperture. In this case, both surfaces are measured by an external interferometer and one unknown parameter is the index value.

Several contemporary research topics on the subject of light-matter coupling are addressed. Through a variety of experimental methods, the emissive and carrier correlation properties of both quantum dots (QD) and quantum wells (QW) are explored.The radiative decay properties of self-assembled indium arsenide (InAs) quantum dots grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) are discussed. The measurement of radiative lifetime is used to determine dipole moment. In addition, evidence is presented of radiative lifetime reduction for quasi-resonant and strictly resonant time-resolved measurements. This lessening is attributed to carrier correlations which exist during resonant excitation but that are not present during above-band pumping. The data do not support the assertion that the shorter radiative lifetime is caused by a superradiant effect.MBE-grown Fibonacci sequence QWs exhibiting novel polaritonic properties are also introduced. These quasiperiodic structures stand apart from periodic structures in that they possess nonperiodic long-range order. Subsequent investigation of nonlinear reflectivity in the quasiperiodic structure showed excellent agreement with theoretical predictions. Of particular interest is the narrow deep dip close to the heavy hole resonance as well as the valley between the heavy hole and light hole resonance positions.

This dissertation investigates design, modeling and testing methods of optical surfaces in illumination optics.The main focus of this dissertation is to investigate the faceted non-imaging specular light reflector that is often used to generate a uniform, incoherent illuminance distribution. General design methodologies of faceted light reflectors are overviewed. Several design examples of faceted light reflectors including a novel LED flashlight, a novel microscope illuminator and a 20-m segmented paraboloidal solar collector are discussed and analyzed.An accurate source model is important for illumination system design. In this dissertation, an analytic short-arc source modeling method is developed and integrated in the illumination design software ZEMAX.In addition to the design and modeling work, this dissertation explores a flexible, low-cost and robust Software Configurable Optical Test System (SCOTS) for testing specular free-form surfaces that are often used in illumination systems. The application of this testing system in measuring a 3-m segmented paraboloidal solar reflector is investigated. Preliminary SCOTS test results for an F/0.2 concave automotive headlight reflector are introduced. In addition to testing the surfaces of illumination optics using SCOTS, the applications of SCOTS in the measurement of large, high precision optics are also explored and briefly discussed.

In this dissertation, the spectroscopic properties of thulium doped tellurite and thulium doped germanate glass are characterized. Absorption and emission spectra, lifetime, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and thermo-gravimetric analysis are utilized to characterize the thulium doped tellurite bulk glass samples. Judd-Oflet theory, Fuchtbauer-ladenburg theory, Kushida's model, Burshtein's hopping model, Miyakawa's non-resonant energy transfer model are employed in ab-initio calculation of cross relaxation energy transfer. The fundamental mechanism of cross relaxation energy transfer is examined through ab-initio calculation and self-calibrating spectroscopy.Thulium doped tellurite glass microspheres are fabricated by spin casting technique. Single mode 2-mm laser is demonstrated from tellurite microsphere with high thulium doping concentration. General laser condition for self-terminating transition is discussed and concluded. Demonstration of 1.5-mm laser is achieved from a self-terminating transition of thulium doped in tellurite microsphere through a cooperative lasing technique.Highly efficient 1.9 micron fiber laser is demonstrated in thulium doped germanate fiber laser. The slope efficiency of the fiber laser is 58%, which indicates a quantum efficiency of 1.79. Single frequency laser operation at 1.9 micron has been successfully accomplished. A fiber based Fabry-Perot interferometer is utilized as a scanning filter to examine the single frequency operation. 4 W laser output has been achieved from a 40 cm long Tm-doped germanate double cladding fiber laser.

The use of aspheric surfaces in optical designs can allow for improved performance with fewer optical elements. Their use has become common place due to advancements in optical manufacturing technologies. Standard interferometric testing of aspheric surfaces makes use of part specific null optics in order to match the test wavefront to the aspheric surface under test. Non-null interferometric testing offers the possibility to test a range of aspheric surfaces with a single interferometer design without the need for part specific null optics. However, non-null tests can generate interferograms with very high fringe frequencies that must be resolved and unwrapped, wavefronts with large slopes that must be imaged without vignetting, and induced aberrations which must be separated from the surface errors of the part. The main goal of this project was the construction of a non-null interferometer capable of testing the aspheric tooling used in the manufacturing of soft contact lenses. Sub-Nyquist interferometry was used to allow for large wavefront departures which generate high fringe frequency interferograms to be both captured and unwrapped. The sparse array sensor at the heart of the Sub-Nyquist technique sets limits on both the range of the parts to be tested and the design of the interferometer. Characterization of the interferometer was achieved through the reverse optimization and reverse ray tracing of a model of the interferometer and was aided by multiple measurements of the test part at shifted positions. The system was found to be capable of measuring parts with aspheric departure of over 60λ from the best fit sphere, which with introduced part shifts, generated over 300λ of OPD at the detector. The OPD introduced by the parts was measured to an accuracy of at least 0.76λ peak to valley and 0.12λ rms.

This dissertation addresses the design, development, calibration and performance evaluation of a pre-clinical imaging system called AdaptiSPECT. Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) systems are powerful tools for multiple applications in small-animal research, ranging from drug discovery to fundamental biology. Traditionally, pinhole SPECT systems are designed with fixed imaging characteristics in terms of sensitivity, resolution and size of the field of view, that are dictated by the hardware configuration of the system. The SPECT system described in this dissertation can change its hardware configuration in response to the subject data it is acquiring in order to improve the imaging performance. We employed 16 modular gamma-ray detectors, each of which consists of a NaI:Tl scintillation crystal, a fused silica lightguide, and an array of 9 PMTs. The camera is designed to work with maximum-likelihood position estimation methods. These detectors are arranged into 2 rings of 8 detectors around an adjustable pinhole aperture. The aperture itself comprises three cylinders of different diameters, each with pinholes of different diameters. The three aperture cylinders are stacked together along the imager axis, and selection of the appropriate ring of pinholes is carried out by translating the entire aperture assembly. In addition, some sections of the aperture are fitted with shutters to open or close additional pinholes that increase sensitivity. We reviewed the method used to calibrate AdaptiSPECT, and proposed a new interpolation scheme specific to adaptive SPECT imaging systems where the detectors can move to multiple locations, that yields system matrices for any configuration employed during adaptive imaging. We evaluated the performances of AdaptiSPECT for various configurations. The magnification of the system ranges from 1.2 to 11.1. The corresponding resolution ranges from 3.2 mm to 0.6 mm, and the corresponding transaxial field-of-view ranges from 84 mm to 10 mm. The sensitivity of the system varies from 220 cps/MBq to 340 cps/MBq for various configurations. Imaging of a mouse injected with a bone radiotracer revealed the finer structures that can be acquired at higher magnifications, and illustrated the ability to conveniently image with a variety of magnifications during the same study. In summary, we have brought the concept of an adaptive SPECT imaging system as it was originally described by Barrett et al. in 2008 to life. We have engineered a system that can switch configurations with speed, precision, and repeatability suitable to carry out adaptive imaging studies on small animals, thus opening the door to a new research and medical imaging paradigm in which the imager hardware is adjusted on the fly to maximize task-performance for a specific patient, not, as currently, an ensemble of patients.

Diffusers are devices that are designed to spread or scatter light. Many different types of diffusers are readily available in the commercial and scientific industries, but most are designed with a specific application in mind. Thus, when attempting to use a diffuser in an unconventional way, it is important to understand how it will behave in the system it will be used in. One example is a diffuser in a coherently illuminated, wide field of view system such as a laser spot tracker. For some diffusers, coherent illumination and/or off-axis illumination can have a major impact on their diffusing properties, which may or may not be acceptable to system performance. This project evaluates the pros and cons of several types of diffusers in order to identify the most effective solution based on the parameters of a system, using a laser spot tracker as an example. First, three diffusers are down selected from the list based on their refractive and diffractive properties. Next, the candidates are evaluated analytically and/or experimentally to characterize their behavior when illuminated by a collimated laser over a wide range of incident angles. Results suggest that a computer generated diffractive diffuser is the most flexible design option for the described laser spot tracker, but some drawbacks such as diffraction efficiency and maximum diffusion angle do need to be considered. This selection method can be extended to serve as a guide for making the proper diffuser choice in many different applications.

The presence of quantized vortices and a high level of control over trap geometries and other system parameters make dilute-gas Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) a natural environment for studies of vortex dynamics and quantum turbulence in superfluids, primary interests of the BEC group at the University of Arizona. Such research may lead to deeper understanding of the nature of quantum fluid dynamics and far-from-equilbrium phenomena.Despite the importance of quantized vortex dynamics in the fields of superfluidity, superconductivity and quantum turbulence, direct imaging of vortices in trapped BECs remains a significant technical challenge. This is primarily due to the small size of the vortex core in a trapped gas, which is typically a few hundred nanometers in diameter. In this dissertation I present the design and construction of a new ^87Rb BEC apparatus with the goal of studying vortex dynamics in trapped BECs. The heart of the apparatus is a compact vacuum chamber with a custom, all-glass science cell designed to accommodate the use of commercial high-numerical-aperture microscope objectives for in situ imaging of vortices.The designs for the new system are, in part, based on prior work in our group on in situ imaging of vortices. Here I review aspects of our prior work and discuss some of the successes and limitations that are relevant to the new apparatus. The bulk of the thesis is used to described the major subsystems of the new apparatus which include the vacuum chamber, the laser systems, the magnetic transfer system and the final magnetic trap for the atoms. Finally, I demonstrate the creation of a BEC of ~2x10^6 ^87Rb atoms in our new system and show that the BEC can be transferred into a weak, spherical, magnetic trap with a well defined magnetic field axis that may be useful for future vortex imaging studies.

This dissertation investigates the optical design and characterization for two distinct remote sensing applications. The first application is focused on the high precision optical phase correction for the photonic Local Oscillator (LO) designed for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). The phase instability in the original fiber optics design scheme is characterized and a novel, singlemode fiber-based interferometric approach to measure and actively zero out the unwanted Photonic LO phase drift is introduced. The proposed technique is implemented and characterized by using a 16 km baseline with a two element array. In the second application, the first iteration of the quasioptics design used in the ATOMMS instrument is characterized. (ATOMMS-Active Temperature, Ozone and Moisture Microwave Spectrometer-is the pathfinding implementation of an Earth and Space Atmosphere Global Remote Sensing Instrument).The diffraction problems in this design which were limiting the instrument performance were analyzed. Then different design concepts to mitigate these limitations and optimize system performance are presented.

The design of a custom VUV microscope is studied. The microscope is designed around a custom high brightness, spectrally narrow VUV source operating at the Hydrogen-Lyman-α (HLA) transition characterized by the emission wavelength of 121.6 nm. The incentive for microscopy at 121.6nm is a transparent window in the air absorption spectrum coinciding with 121.6nm light. This allows for the sample to be in air while the microscope is in an enclosed vacuum or nitrogen environment. A microscope is built consisting of the VUV source, a low noise, x-ray camera, a custom 120 magnification, 0.3 numerical aperture objective lens, and an assortment of vacuum flanges, nipples, and crosses. The camera is verified to detect the HLA output from the source. The objective lens is capable of achieving an intrinsic resolution of 247 nm with a wavelength of 121.6 nm if the proposed alignment procedure is followed and the fabricated mechanical tolerances are within the specified range. The objective lens mirrors and the primary mirror cell are fabricated out of specification. Therefore, the best expected optical performance is 0.3 Strehl ratio. In order to improve the optical performance, a few design changes are discussed, including increasing the primary mirror thickness to improve surface figure error and increasing the back thickness of the primary mirror cell in order to reduce the force on the primary mirror from radial adjustment screws.