Gallium arsenide is an outstanding nonlinear optical material, thanks to its high second-order nonlinear coefficient, wide transparency in the infrared, and possibility of integration with sources. However, phase matching for nonlinear frequency conversion is difficult to achieve in this isotropic, highly dispersive semiconductor. Although quasimatching by domain reversal was recently demonstra...

We report on a new and simple method for measuring the wavelength dependence of phase modal birefringence in a polarizationmaintaining fiber. The method is based on application of a lateral pointlike force on the fiber that causes strong coupling between polarization modes and utilizes their interference resolved as the channeled spectrum. The change of the phase retrieved from two recorded cha...

Utilizing the measured corneal birefringence from a data set of 150 eyes of 75 human subjects, an algorithm and related computer program, based on Müller-Stokes matrix calculus, were developed in MATLAB for assessing the influence of corneal birefringence on retinal birefringence scanning (RBS) and for converging upon an optical/mechanical design using wave plates ("wave-plate-enhanced RBS") th...

Quantum electrodynamical (QED) birefringence in a thermal relativistic pair plasma with the presence of the strong crossed field: E0 ⊥ B0, is proposed and investigated. We clarify the coupling relationship and competition between the QED effect and the plasma collective effect and find the critical condition that makes the birefringence vanish. In a relative weak electromagnetic field, the bire...

Even scientific grade optical glasses show birefringence when small external forces are applied to the sample. Stress-induced birefringence can be particularly detrimental to the state of polarization of light when a laser beam is transmitted through the glass. This is especially the case for glass windows of a vacuum chamber. Since compensation of spatially inhomogeneous birefringence is extre...