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This version of WaveSuite is a landmark for metrology and Adaptive Optics software, bringing huge benefits to our clients and users and synchronizing the version numbering of the three softwares:
– Waveview 4.3, the bench mark in wavefront metrology
– Wavetune 4.3, for perfect loop control
– Wavekit 4.3, a versatile and comprehensive SDK in C, LabVIEW and Python.

The first benefit is the end of the 4 GB RAM limit, allowing virtually unlimited image buffers and/or up to 4x phase point measurement at full speed. All applications’ performance will benefit from this breakthrough, especially those involving high-frequency/high-resolution sampling.

The second major benefit is to processing speed, with computing speed up 3x allowing for quicker calculations of wavefronts, intensity, PSF, MTF, and most importantly the LIFT algorithms that power our new HASO LIFT series with 272 x 200 and 680 x 500 phase point sampling.

Last but not least, the M2 function returns, thanks to these memory and speed improvements with better than laser beam simulations.

WaveSuite4.3 is the version currently being delivered with new wavefront sensors, optical metrology systems and deformable mirrors. It will soon be available as an upgrade for compatible hardware. If you would like more information, please get in touch with us at sales@imagine-optic.com.

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The post Hard-XRay wavefront sensing now standard appeared first on Imagine Optic.

The use of adaptive optics (AO) for IR wavefront control is essential to optimize the phase-matching conditions and therefore enhance the signal of the HHG. Furthermore, the vortex IR driver results in up-converted EUV with a wide range of orbital angular momentum orders, as reported by Laboratoire de Physique des Gaz et des Plasmas .

Wavefront sensing is critical in AO since its performance drives the correction efficiency or the correct application of a desired wavefront to the IR driver. Moreover, sensing EUV wavefront correctly gives insight into the plasma process as well as facilitates the alignment of the focal spot on the target. AO improves the performance of optical systems by reducing the effect of wavefront distortions with the goal of delivering the desired focal beam profile to the gas or solid media for the HHG process.

Hartmann wavefront sensing in the EUV range was first introduced by Imagine Optic more than 10 years ago, providing real-time, single-shot, achromatic EUV wavefront characterization with a an accuracy typically better than lambda/50. Imagine Optic provides all the AO components necessary to boost your HHG setup, on both sides of the plasma, including wavefront sensors in the IR and EUV range, deformable mirrors and AO software.

Examples of how our AO products have been used in HHG experiments are available in the new application note and the publication list.

If you’re interested in finding out more about our X-EUV line of Wavefront Sensors and Adaptive Optics hardware and software, you can reach us at sales@imagine-optic.com or through the contact form (red enveloppe on the side).

The post Maximize EUV-XUV photons through adaptive optics for HHG appeared first on Imagine Optic.

The first results of the XPulse project promise great advances in X-Ray technology and imaging, in particular regarding new generation X-ray sources and high-sensitivity phase contrast X-Ray imaging

Even though X-ray imaging allows for powerful visualization, identification & diagnosis capabilities in various fields such as non-destructive testing or medical imaging, it is currently mainly based on absorption, which limits performance when highest sensitivity is required. This typically is the case in medical imaging for soft tissue such as breast, but also in various industrial fields including non-destructive testing of concrete or polymers, in-line food testing, security.

The XPulse project gathers experts in the fields of lasers, light-matter interaction, optical imaging, to develop new X-Ray source & imaging modality for X-Ray phase contrast tomography mainly applied to medical imaging.

Imagine Optic is proud to be part of such a consortium, and is currently developing a novel X-Ray phase imaging device. The technology will be derived from EUV and X-Ray high-resolution Hartmann wavefront sensing. Imagine Optic is a pioneer and leader in these approaches, in particular for use in the metrology, alignement and optimization of beamlines in Synchrotrons, FELs and more recently HHG.

X-Pulse is funded by the Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine & FEDER.

If you’re interested in finding out more about our X-EUV line of wavefront sensors, you can reach us at sales@imagine-optic.com or through the contact form (red enveloppe on the side).

The post XPulse project : extracting more information from X-Ray imaging appeared first on Imagine Optic.

Very nice results obtained at FERMI, demonstrating optimal focusing of FEL pulses using the KAOS active optics system using X-EUV wavefront sensor or HASO EUV from Imagine Optic. This sensor is used to align both mirrors of a custom, active Kirkpatrick-Baez focusing system, as well as to drive actuators through a feedback loop down to minimal wavefront residual error. Optimal focus spot down to 1,8 x 2,4 µm at 4,14nm – very close to the limits of the optical system – is demonstrated, and it is proved experimentally that the WF measurement from HASO EUV is able to predict the focus spot profile with very good agreement with the 2D distribution from an ablation sheet.

Check out details in the very good paper from L. Raimondi et al. J. Synchrotron Rad. (2019). 26

The post Kirkpatrick–Baez active optics system at FERMI appeared first on Imagine Optic.

EU-funded VOXEL project develop an innovative way to create three-dimensional imaging without the high doses of X-ray radiation by adapting a technique called plenoptic imaging.

Doctors have used computed tomography scans, or CT scans, to greatly improve the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. But a major problem limits their use: they deliver high doses of radiation that can harm patients nearly as much as their ailment.

Enter the EU-funded VOXEL project which set out to develop an innovative way to create three-dimensional imaging. The result is special cameras that can deliver 3D images but without the high doses of radiation.

‘Reports show that in Germany in 2013, although CT scans only represented 7 % of all X-rays performed, they conveyed 60 % of the radiation that patients received,’ says Marta Fajardo, project coordinator and assistant professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal. ‘We built several prototype cameras. As an alternative to CT, they enable 3D X-ray imagines in very few exposures, meaning less radiation for the patient.’

A new perspective on 3D imaging

CT scans make images by taking thousands of flat, two-dimensional photos in order to reconstruct a 3D image. The problem is that each photo injects ionising radiation into the patient. As photos multiply, radiation levels rise.

To counter this, VOXEL’s breakthrough idea was to adapt a technique called plenoptic imaging to X-ray radiation. Plenoptic cameras capture information about the direction that light rays, including X-rays, are travelling in space, as opposed to a normal camera that captures only light intensity.

Because researchers can use the information about light direction captured by plenoptic cameras to reconstruct 3D images, there is no need to take thousands of 2D photos. Images of important structures like blood vessels can be made from a single exposure, lowering the average radiation dose significantly.

A major part of the work was using the right algorithms to manipulate the captured information. ‘First, we demonstrated that plenoptic imagining is mathematically equivalent to a limited-angle tomography problem,’ Fajardo says. ‘Then we could simply reformat plenoptic imaging as tomography data and apply image reconstruction algorithms to obtain much better images.’

But the biggest challenge remained engineering the cameras. ‘The higher the photon energy, the harder it is to manufacture the optics for a plenoptic camera,’ she says. ‘You need X-rays of different energies for different tasks.’ The solution was to develop one camera prototype that used lower-energy X-rays for tiny structures like cells. Then, another that used higher-energy X-rays for larger objects, such as small animals or human organs.

Less radiation, healthier patients

‘The low-energy X-ray camera belongs to a niche market,’ she explains. ‘But the high-energy X-ray prototype has huge medical potential, although it still requires some development.’

Results from the project, which was awarded a Future Emerging Technologies grant, will soon be submitted for publication in the international science journal Nature Photonics.>>

Source : http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?artid=50350

The post A success story in three-dimensional plenoptic imaging. appeared first on Imagine Optic.

Imagine Optic’s HASO EUV wavefront sensor is a key instrument to understand the amplitude and phase transfer parameters from a femtosecond (fs) laser beam to high-order harmonic generation and also Wavefront analysis. It delivers a single-shot EUV wavefront measurements of HHG.

In addition, thanks to adaptive optics control of the fs beam, researchers at Lund University and LOA demonstrated drastic improvement of harmonic wavefront, energy and beam profile. 

Designed and built in collaboration with our customers and with their needs as the top priority, the HASO EUV incorporates our patented rotated square technology to offer high spatial sampling and wide dynamic range. It is the ideal choice for HHG, EUV lithography, synchrotron and EUV-FEL beam analysis. When used for adaptive optics, the EUV becomes a powerful tool for that provides you with micro and nano-beam focusing, a high Strehl ratio and precise control of the focal spot shape.

So a paper was published by H. DACASA, et al  Optics Express 27(3) 2656

Single-shot extreme-ultraviolet wavefront measurements of high-order harmonics

<<  First of all, we perform wavefront measurements of high-order harmonics. Above all, we use an extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) Hartmann sensor. And we also study how their spatial properties vary with different generation parameters, such as pressure in the nonlinear medium, fundamental pulse energy and duration as well as beam size. In some conditions, excellent wavefront quality (up to ?/11λ/11) was obtained.

In addition the high throughput of the intense XUV beamline at the Lund Laser Centre allows us to perform single-shot measurements of both the full harmonic beam. As a result, It is generated in argon and individual harmonics selected by multilayer mirrors. In conclusion, we theoretically analyze the relationship between the spatial properties of the fundamental and those of the generated high-order harmonics.

Thus gaining insight into the fundamental mechanisms involved in high-order harmonic generation (HHG).>>

If you’re interested in finding out more about our X-EUV line of wavefront sensors, you can reach us at sales@imagine-optic.com or through the contact form (red enveloppe on the side).

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