<p>Cryptography has begun its journey into the field of quantum information theory. Classical cryptography has shown weaknesses, which may be exploited in the future, either by development in mathematics, or by quantum computers. Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a promising path for cryptography to enable secure communication in the future. Although the theory of QKD promises absolute security, the reality is that current quantum crypto systems have flaws in them, as perfect devices have proven impossible to build. However, this can be taken into account in security proofs to ensure security, even with flaws. Security loopholes in QKD systems are being discovered as development progresses. Nevertheless, the system being built at NTNU is intended to address them all, creating a totally secure system. During this thesis, work was continued assembling the interferometer which is the basis for encoding qubits. It was fully connected on an optical table, and interference was obtained. Concerning theoretical work, calculations for a photon source specific parameter was carried out. It consisted of expanding previous framework and applying the results in both an established security proof, and a recent generalization of this proof. Two source effects were in focus, the lasers random phase and its fluctuating pulse intensity. Where analytical derivation was no longer possible, Matlab was used for numerical calculations. Under the conditions of the framework and proofs this thesis lies on, randomized phase turned out to have a negligible improvement over the case of non-random phase. Fluctuating amplitude showed a larger effect, reducing system performance. The input parameters were extreme, thus in a realistic situation it should not affect system performance significantly. However, these fluctuations must be taken into account when proving system security.</p>

<p>Modelling of multimode and layer structure by transfermatrices</p>

<p>Støyreduksjon har blitt utført på hyperspektrale bilder i både spektral retning og romlige retninger. Algoritmene som har blitt benyttet for å oppnå støyreduksjon er Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Maximum Noise Fraction (MNF) og wavelet-transform. MNF-algoritmen har blitt kjørt med mange forskjellige støyestimatorer for å bestemme hvilke av disse som gir høye signal-støy-forhold. Å utføre støyestimatet i fourierrommet har også blitt undersøkt. Dette ga gode resultater når man benyttet fasedifferansen med nærliggende piksler som estimator for hyperspektrale bilder tatt under hvitt lys. Ble derimot kilden endret til en 355nm laserkilde fikk man langt dårligere resultater. Det er bare Haar-transformen som har blitt brukt til wavelet-transformasjon. Haar-transformen ga dårlig støydempning i både spektral retning og romlige retninger. Algoritmene PCA og MNF fungerer bra til støyreduksjon. I spektral retning er det liten forskjell mellom PCA og de ulike støyestimatene som er brukt under MNF. Ser man derimot på det romlige planet finner en større forskjeller mellom dem. Dette gjelder spesielt for spektralbånd med lav intensitet og mye støy. Her gir PCA bedre støydempning enn MNF. Støyreduksjonen ved PCA og MNF kommer som en direkte følge av å begrense antallet prinsipalkomponenter under tilbaketransformasjonen. Hvor grensen bør settes for hvilke prinsipalkomponenter som skal bevares, ble også vurdert. Når lyskildeforholdene for de hyperspektrale bildene blir sammenlignet er grensen valgt slik at 99,25% av det opprinnelige signalet blir bevart. Spekteret til hyperspektrale bilder tatt under hvitt lys har høy intensitet for lange bølgelengder, og lav intensitet ved korte bølgelengder. Endres derimot lyskilden til en 355nm laserkilde får man lav intensitet for lange bølgelengder og høy intensitet for korte.</p>

<p>Optical spectroscopy is a common method used in the determination of quality parameters in groceries. An optical characterization of smoked Atlantic salmon was carried out in this thesis. The optical penetration depth in salmon was found at 531 nm and 632 nm from measurements with lasers as light sources, and from 550 nm to 880 nm with a tungsten halogen lamp as light source. The spectrum of the halogen lamp combined with the absorption spectrum of the salmon made it difficult to obtain results for wavelengths below 550 nm with the halogen lamp. Two variations in the measurements on smoked salmon were performed; measuring on needle insertion versus needle extraction and measuring across several layers of muscle tissue versus measuring along one layer of muscle tissue in salmon. The absorption coefficient and the reduced scattering coefficient of smoked Atlantic salmon was calculated. Significant differences were found dependent on needle insertion or needle extraction, and whether the measurements were made along one layer or across several layers. The penetration depths were found to be 6.79±0.33 mm across several layers and 10.76±1.03 mm along one layer in the measurements with the He-Ne laser. The diffusion approximation was found to be a good approximation for wavelengths from 600 nm to 700 nm. With further development, it may be possible to determine the astaxanthin content of salmon with the method used in this thesis.</p>

<p>Abstract In this thesis the focus has been on laser speckle. It is done in collaboration with poLight. They are developing a projector, where laser light is the source of illumination. In such projectors, laser speckle degrades the image quality. The aim of this project is to construct a speckle reduction device to be used in the laser projector. The theory covers a description of laser speckle, how to reduce the speckle contrast, and five methods to so. We explain why speckle arises and which parameters we can manipulate to reduce the speckle contrast. The five speckle reduction methods included in this thesis are; vibrating diffuser, slowly moving diffuser, Hadamard matrices, scattering tube, and vibrating mirror. Large vibrational motions are unwanted, considering the size of the device, generation of noise, and problems with alignment of the optical components in the projector that this would lead to. The quality of the laser beam is prominent in order to produce a sharp image, thus the use of diffusers with large scattering angles is not a good solution. The scattering tubes, designed by poLight, are tubes filled with micro pearls in a polymer gel. The size of the pearls decides the nature of the scattering. Larger pearls will give less back scattering and more light transmitted in the forward direction. If the tubes are rotated in a well balanced device we can avoid generating vibrations. The Hadamard matrices is the only one of the five methods which is not based on a motion. The challenge is to find a SLM to implement the matrices. It requires a low response time in order to present enough matrices during the exposure time of the eye. The laboratory setup we use to measure the speckle contrast is an improved version of the setup constructed in the specialisation project. A screen was removed from the old setup, and the speckle is now imaged directly from the speckle reduction device. The measured speckle reduction is thus due to the device alone, and not affected by the screen. The results were reproducible and in agreement with what we expected. We implemented a vibrating diffuser, both the single and the slowly moving. A piece cut from a plastic bag and some Scotch Magic tape were used as diffusers. The tape is the strongest diffuser and gives the lowest speckle contrast, however, it also has the largest scattering angle. The single tape diffuser reduced the speckle contrast to $C = 0.112$. With two tape difusers in series the intensity in the images becomes too low to exploit the dynamic range of the CCD sensor. The result is a higher calcualted speckle contrast with two diffusers, $C=0.131$, even though it ought to be smaller. We tested five prototypes of the scattering tube with different concentrations. The tube with the highest concentration has the highest speckle reduction abilities. It also has the strongest scattering effect. The scattering is less than with the tape diffuser, and so is the speckle reduction. The speckle contrast is reduced to $C=0.320$ when the tube is rotated, and to $C=0.389$ when it is vibrated. The tubes was also tested in series with a ground glass. The ground glass acted as a second diffuser. In this setting, vibration and rotation of the tubes reduced the speckle contrast equally, $C approx 0.283$ From the measured speckle contrast of the diffusers and tubes in stationary conditions, a polarization analysis should show a depolarization of the laser beam. This were the case only for the plastic diffuser. It is assumed that the error lays with the polarization analysis. There should be a depolarization in the tape and a partial depolarization in the tubes. A calculation of the speckle size was performed as well. Based on the theory we expected the size of the speckle grains to be $sigma_s = 37.77~mu m$. From the Fourier analysis of a speckle image from the setup we calculated the speckle size to be $sigma_s = 5.35$~mm, which is approximately 140 times bigger. The expected speckle size is too small, because we did not take into account a small magnification in the setup. The Fourier analysis of discrete and limited sets of data points is probably the main explanation of the difference, but a more thorough study is needed.</p>

<p>This study will focus on strain induced by thermal history and thickness on antiferromagnetic epitaxial LaFeO3(110) thin films grown on Nb:SrTiO3(001) substrates. Lattice mismatching between film and substrate induce strain in the film lattice during growth of the film. This strain can be relaxed by thermal treatment after growth and may show tendencies in the domain size, shape and distribution related to strain. Thin films are grown in different thicknesses by rf magnetron sputtering and selected films are relaxed by thermal anneal treatment. The samples are investigated in room temperature and in heating experiments to obtain images of antiferromagnetic domain contrast along the L2 and L3 absorbtion egde of Fe by XMLD spectromicroscopy. Size of domains areas and contrast level are measured and related to the strain in the thin films. Averaged spectra of L2 absorbtion edge antiferromagnetic contrast showed a clearly observable domain contrast with consistently shaped energy spectrums. No difference in antiferromagnetic contrast due to lattice strain caused by lattice mismatching was observed. All as-grown samples showed comparable size, distribution and shape of antiferromagnetic domains on both polished and etched substrates. Relaxation of prepared samples in 1000±C for 12 hours in a 1 atm atmosphere of oxygen gave a distinct increase in size for the domains. Area calculation show a increase from typically 0.2 ¹m2 for as-grown films to 2 ¹m2 for relaxed films. Heating experiments estimate a Néel temperature of 625oK for as-grown films and 740oK for relaxed samples. The thermal anneal thus has a significant effect on LaFeO3 thin films as the domains increase in size and the Néel temperature in which the film is no longer antiferromagnetic increases to the Neel temperature of bulk LaFeO3. This preparation approach may be useful for further investigations of the exchange-bias effect.</p>

<p>This project was worked on during the autumn 2005 at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications. The assignment was to write a new LabVIEW programme that is to run the measurement procedure of a laser probe setup. The setup is used in characterization of surface acoustic waves(SAW). A programme was written that contained the necessary functionality and proved to operate satisfactorily. Several measurements were made on a SAW transducer, accurately picturing the wave. Fourier analysis were performed on the collected data in order to separate the propagation directions. An absolute amplitude measurement was made on a heterodyne interferometer, and the result was compared to a similar scan made using the laser probe. The work shows that the setup is ready for calibration against the heterodyne interferometer, in order to enable the laser probe to measure absolute amplitude by itself.</p>

<p>Study of the Polarization Dependent Loss caused by the combined effect of orthogonality degradation and dynamic power fluctuations in a hybrid network, which combines circuit switching with packet switching to transmit applications with very different quality requirements on the same wavelength channel.</p>

<p>In this assignment the theoretical background for the nature of speckle is presented and practical work was done to reduce the speckle effect in a display system based on a laser source. This was done without any picture modulators, or any kind of line scan or flying spot scanning. Work was done to find the right setup to be able to as easy as possible characterize the statistics of the speckle in an image. A still image of an expanded laser spot worked as an image. A series of test sets were carried out to address the different factors which could make a difference on the speckle contrast and their role in such systems.</p>

<p>Polarization Effects in Wavelength Converters based on Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers</p>