text:
# Rayleigh Laser Guide Star Systems: Application to UnISIS

## 1 INTRODUCTION

UnISIS (University of Illinois Seeing Improvement System) is a laser guided adaptive optics system operating at the Coude focus of the 2.5-m telescope at Mt. Wilson Observatory. It is the first astronomical system to employ a Rayleigh laser guide star at 351 nm. While several descriptions of UnISIS have been published during system development and construction (Thompson, 1994; Thompson and Xiong, 1995; Thompson et al., 1998), this paper provides a complete over-view of the laser guide star system with detailed information on its design and its ”as-built” configuration. The lessons learned in the UnISIS development effort will be of interest to those who are planning current generation laser guide star systems. To keep this paper to a reasonable length but still describe key experimental issues in depth, only the UnISIS laser guide star system is discussed here. Subsequent papers will describe the UnISIS adaptive optics system and its closed-loop performance characteristics including the cone effect (i.e., focal anisoplanatism) caused by the laser guide star’s location in the near field when compared to astronomical objects.

Soon after the publication of the seminal paper describing the laser guide star concept by Foy and Labeyrie (1985), Thompson and Gardner (1987) reported on experimental work with laser guide stars and began detailed engineering design studies for laser guided adaptive optics systems (Gardner et al. (1990) and references therein). A key outcome of this early work was the realization that sodium laser guide stars, while conceptually attractive, would remain difficult to implement in the near-term especially if the goal is to successfully operate an adaptive optics system for scientific observations at wavelengths less than 2.2 microns. Sodium wavelength lasers with sufficient power to adequately excite the sodium resonance line at 589.3 nm were not available at that time, and fifteen years later, these lasers are still difficult to obtain. To date, the only operational sodium laser guide star system is that at Lick Observatory (Max et al., 1997) where a 15 W sodium laser is used on a regular basis. The Lick Observatory laser – and its “sister” laser at the Keck Observatory – are one-of-a-kind systems built by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that will probably never be duplicated again.

Rayleigh laser guide star techniques at 351 nm were discussed from the earliest times (Thompson and Gardner (1989); Sandler et al. (1994)) because commercial-quality excimer lasers capable of producing significant levels of pulsed power at 351 nm were already in production at that time. This led to the experimental work of Thompson and Castle (1992) who reported on the creation and initial calibration of the return flux from a 351 nm laser guide star to altitudes up to $``$33 km. After the Thompson and Castle experimental work had begun, the U.S. Air Force declassified information on the laser guided adaptive optics system at Starfire Optical Range (Fugate et al., 1991). The Starfire group had independently chosen to develop a Rayleigh laser guide star system that used the backscattered light from a copper-vapor laser (at 511 nm and 578 nm). The Starfire system design (Fugate et al., 1994) – even though independently devised – closely matched the published design work by Gardner et al. (1990). Subsequent visits to Starfire Optical Range provided information that improved the conceptual design of UnISIS. Every laser guided adaptive optics system employs a unique set of tools to multiplex the optical system, to project the laser beacon into the sky, to reject scattered light, etc. Our purpose here is not to present a comprehensive review of these methods. Those interested in examples of other systems can refer to Greenwood and Primmerman (1992), Fugate et al. (1994), and Sandler et al. (1994), and references therein.

Determining the ideal laser for Rayleigh scattered laser guide stars is the subject of another paper (Thompson and Teare, 2002), but it is worth noting here that short wavelength Rayleigh laser guide star systems are a viable alternative for astronomical purposes and that market forces continue to drive technological improvements for short wavelength commercial lasers. UnISIS relies in a 30-Watt excimer laser originally built by Questek Incorporated. This laser is no longer in production, its basic structure having morphed into the laser systems now used by VISX for LASIK eye surgery. About two years ago Lambda Physik placed in production an excimer laser system more powerful ($``$150 Watts) and better suited for astronomical use called Lambda Steel (developed for the manufacture of flat panel displays). It is also worth noting that diode pumped and frequency tripled Nd:YAG and YLF lasers, which operate at 355nm and 349 nm, respectively, are also available commercially, and both are viable systems for short wavelength Rayleigh laser guide star systems.

This paper contains a diverse collection of both design information and practical experience obtained during the development of UnISIS. It will provide assistance to those who are beginning the process of designing and implementing a laser guide star system. The field of laser guided adaptive optics is still in an early phase of development, and there are many new ideas to discover and to exploit. In this paper, the most notable achievements are the ”Stealth” characteristic of the UnISIS laser guide star system (Sec. 5) and the successful acquisition of the laser wavefront return signal from the Rayleigh laser guide star (Sec. 8).

## 2 UnISIS CONFIGURATION AT MT. WILSON OBSERVATORY

The UnISIS deformable mirror and adaptive optics system sit on a fixed optics bench at the Coude focus of the Mt. Wilson 2.5-m telescope, and the excimer laser is housed in a special air conditioned room on the observatory ground floor 9.5 m below the Coude room. Figure 1 shows a schematic drawing of this arrangement. The Coude system at the 2.5-m telescope is the simplest possible consisting of only three mirrors: the primary, secondary, and tertiary, with the tertiary located at the intersection of the right ascension and declination axes of the telescope mount. Because the UnISIS adaptive optics system sits at Coude, there is essentially no flexure nor misalignment among the adaptive optics components themselves as the telescope tracks an object across the sky. This design also provides ample space for an open and flexible optical design in contrast to the alternate design of placing the adaptive optics system at the Cassegrain focus.

The input beam from an equatorially mounted telescope rotates at the sidereal rate when the beam is sent onto a fixed optics table at the Coude focus, so the telescope pupil image – with the shadow of the secondary mirror support struts – rotates on the fixed UnISIS deformable mirror. Indeed, the telescope beam rotates on all fixed elements along the UnISIS beam line, and the final science focal plane would also rotate if countermeasures were not taken. While it is possible to remove this beam rotation at the interface between the telescope and the Coude optics bench (with a reflective ”dove prism” rotator), this option was not adopted, and corrective action is taken only at the final science focal plane. The visual wavelength science CCD is on a mechanical rotation stage, and images collected at the near-IR science detector are image post-processed to remove field rotation.

### 2.1 Subsystem Drift and Alignment Criteria

UnISIS consists of three subsystems: the laser itself with its projection optics, the adaptive optics bench, and the 2.5-m telescope system. These three subsystems have to be co-aligned to high precision. Four degrees of freedom are required to co-align one optical system relative to another; these represent a fixed x, y position of the optical axis and the two direction cosines of the beam. The tip-tilt controls on a pair of mirrors will suffice to link one subsystem to another. Figure 2 shows a side-view of the two-mirror beam transfer system that carries the telescope Coude optical axis onto the UnISIS optics bench. As the figure shows, these two mirrors are relatively close to the Coude focus. A similar two-mirror interface links the laser projector to the system optical axis.

The three main subsystems of UnISIS drift in time with respect to one another with amplitudes that are large enough to affect system performance. When UnISIS is prepared for operation, the main optics table is taken as the primary reference, and the other two sub-systems are brought into co-alignment with this reference. At the image scale of the f/30 Coude focus (2.75 arcsec/mm), x, y position alignment to 0.25 arcsec requires a precision of 90 microns, a specification that is not difficult to achieve. The angular co- alignment specification between subsystems is set by the strict acceptance angle criterion of the high-speed shutter that sits in front of the laser guide star wavefront camera; this vector co-alignment must be better than one part in $`10^5`$ $``$2 arcsec. During initial UnISIS tests, and before the alignment procedure became standard, the return laser guide star signal would appear and disappear depending on whether this angular alignment was within the $``$2 arcsec range or not. This is no longer an issue.

Current alignment procedures are routine and take approximately 20 to 30 minutes at the beginning of an observing session. Realignment is generally required on a daily basis, but if day-to-day temperature changes inside the telescope dome are small, the system alignment will hold. As we best understand, the subsystem drifts are caused by the following effects. First, the ground floor laser room is on a solid foundation and is unlikely to shift. However, the UnISIS Coude optics table rests on a metal framework bolted to the cement shell that forms the enclosure for the original Coude spectrograph. This 10-m high cement shell slowly rises, falls and twists with changes in the temperature. No doubt, a similar differential motion of the telescope optical axis occurs when the telescope’s two steel piers expand and contract with ambient temperature changes. These changes occur on $``$12 hour timescales and have little impact on the performance of UnISIS during a single night.

## 3 RAYLEIGH LASER GUIDE STAR SYSTEM DESIGN

### 3.1 Basic Considerations

The return flux from a Rayleigh laser guide star depends on atmospheric molecular and aerosol backscatter coefficients as well as on the absorption coefficient for the wavelength of interest. The integrated atmospheric absorption (from the ground to the altitude of the laser guide star and which includes low altitude Rayleigh scatter) enters the relationship as a square because it acts in both the up-link and down-link laser paths. These radiative transfer details will be described elsewhere (Thompson and Teare, 2002), and here it is sufficient to say that photons at 351 nm are ideal for creating laser guide stars because the Rayleigh scattering coefficient is high due to the $`\lambda ^4`$ wavelength dependence, and the absorption coefficient is relatively low at 351 nm. Ozone becomes a strong absorber only at wavelengths shorter than 345 nm.

For Rayleigh beacon systems, the laser must be pulsed to allow range gating, which also provides a ”heart-beat” to coordinate the system timing. Immediately following the laser pulse, strong Rayleigh backscattered light from low and intermediate altitudes must be rejected by a high-speed electronic shutter system capable of opening during the precise interval when the backscattered return signal arrives from the high altitude. Continuous lasers can be used for Rayleigh laser guide stars but only if they are mechanically chopped.

The optical system used to transmit laser light to altitude can be one of two types: (1) a small collimator that transmits a uniformly narrow column up through the atmosphere, or (2) a large focusing element that transmits a converging beam focused to a specific altitude (see Foy and Labeyrie (1985), Gardner et al. (1990), Hardy (1998), and references therein). While this choice is normally made based on the laser beam quality – a poor laser beam quality requiring a large focusing element – to make a laser transmitter “Stealth qualified” a high quality laser beam could be transmitted with a large focusing element. Note that UnISIS employs the second of these two options with the 2.5-m primary mirror acting as the focusing element because the laser beam quality is poor. The UnISIS laser beacon is focused $``$18 km above the telescope. Because Mt. Wilson Observatory is located 1.8 km above sea level, the laser guide star return signal comes from an atmospheric layer $``$20 km above mean sea level. A schematic representation of the laser beacon projection is shown in Figure 3.

### 3.2 Integrated Laser Guide Star Depth

The light from the outgoing laser beam fills the conical volume shown in Figure 3. The base of the cone is at the primary mirror of the 2.5-m telescope and its tip sits at a distance of 18 km. Once the laser light reaches the tip of the cone, it passes through a beam waist and fills an inverted conical volume that starts at 18 km. The usable laser guide star return signal comes from the double conical volume limited by the lines labeled $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`z_t`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`z_b`$ in Figure 3. The total length $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$z for optimal return is derived in Thompson and Gardner (1989) to be

$$\mathrm{\Delta }z=(\mathrm{\Delta }z_t+\mathrm{\Delta }z_b)=4.88\lambda z_o^2/(D_pr_o),$$

where all symbols in this equation are defined in Fig. 3 except $`\lambda `$ which is the wavelength of the laser transmission and $`r_o`$, the Fried seeing cell size for the laser projection wavelength. This criterion for $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$z assumes that the limit for the lateral dimension of the time-gated laser return signal (as viewed from a distance $`z_o`$) equals the atmospheric seeing size for the laser wavelength. Note the inverse dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$z on $`D_p`$ so that a smaller laser beam footprint on the telescope primary mirror allows a deeper illuminated volume to contribute to a seeing-limited laser guide star image. The Thompson and Gardner relationship was devised for a telescope with no central obscuration, so a point of diminishing returns will occur with UnISIS if (to gather more return flux) $`D_p`$ is decreased to the point where it begins to approach the diameter of the Cassegrain secondary mirror. For UnISIS

$$\lambda =351nm,z_o=18km,D_p1.8m,r_o=14.2cm,$$

where the value for $`r_o`$ is scaled to the laser wavelength but is otherwise taken from the 500 nm median value of $`r_o`$ as reported by Walters and Bradford (1997) for Mt. Wilson and implies that the median Mt. Wilson seeing is between 0.7 and 0.8 arcsec at visual wavelengths. In these conditions, the predicted depth for the integrated laser volume is $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$z = 2.2 km. The value used above for $`D_p`$ is discussed below. Additional information on the astronomical seeing at Mount Wilson is provided in Teare et al. (2000); Teare and Thompson (2002) that show that there are long-term trends in the seeing profile.

### 3.3 Questek Excimer Laser

Figure 4 shows the Questek 2580v$`\beta `$ excimer laser system used to produce the UnISIS laser guide star. This laser operates in a pulsed mode with pulse length $``$20 ns, repetition rates programmable up to 500 Hz, and an average power of approximately 30 Watts. \[Each laser pulse is $``$90 mJ, and since the laser power scales directly with the repetition rate, 30 Watts is the nominal laser power for the 333Hz UnISIS mode of operation.\] The output beam quality is poor compared to other laser systems, but beam quality can be corrected with appropriate optical components as described below. The Questek 2580v$`\beta `$ was purchased in 1990 and was used in both the Thompson and Castle (1992) Rayleigh guide star experiments and the laser guide star work of Neyman (2002) before being moved to Mt. Wilson.

When plane-parallel laser mirrors are mounted at both ends of the laser chamber, the natural divergence of the excimer laser beam is $``$3 milliradians, approximately $`10^3`$ larger than required for creating a laser guide star close to the seeing limit. Better performance is obtained in two steps. First, the planar laser mirrors are replaced with a pair of curved windows which form a miniature Cassegrain telescope. The rear laser mirror acts like a primary and the front laser mirror acts like a Cassegrain secondary mirror. In this configuration the laser is said to have an unstable resonator cavity. Fig. 5 shows the cavity and the photon amplification paths. This laser amplification proceeds as follows. Seed photons in the core of the laser beam that happen to be traveling in the forward direction hit the convex front laser mirror and travel in the backwards direction through the laser chamber. These backwards traveling photons are amplified and expand to fill the rear laser mirror. The rear laser mirror is concave and is designed to collimate photons reflected off the front laser mirror. In the final forward pass through the lasing chamber, these amplified seed photons sweep a large fraction of the energy from the lasing medium and emerge from the front laser window as the output pulse. In the process of beam expansion within the laser chamber by the Cassegrain optical system, the laser beam divergence is reduced from 3 milliradians to approximately 300 microradians (Caudle, 1999). If this beam were transmitted into the upper atmosphere without further modification, the laser would produce a small focused spot approximately 62 arcsec across. This beam divergence is still too large by a factor of 100 to create a useful laser guide star.

### 3.4 Full-Aperture Laser Projection

The output beam from the Questek laser is approximately 9 mm x 22 mm, and it is this beam that has a nominal divergence of 300 microradians. If a small divergent beam of diameter d is expanded to fill a collimator of diameter D, the divergence in the final beam is reduced by the factor D / d. For UnISIS the focusing element is the telescope’s primary and secondary mirror. If we adopt d = 24mm for the circle that encloses the raw laser beam and D = 2.5 m for the largest focusing element, the divergence is 2.9 microradians (0.6 arcsec) after it is beam-expanded and projected into the sky off the 2.5-m primary mirror.

This logic sets the design strategy for projecting the UnISIS laser beacon into the sky. The true situation is somewhat more complex for the following reasons: (1) the laser beam is masked and only part of the 9 mm x 22 mm makes it to the telescope pupil, (2) the remaining laser beam is expanded to fill only a central 1.8 m portion of the primary mirror (see below) and (3) the unstable resonator optics in the Questek 2580v$`\beta `$ do not produce a perfectly collimated output beam. Instead, the laser beam has an empirically measured beam divergence of 620 microradians which consists of the quadrature sum of the random divergence (300 microradians) and a ”mechanical” or ”optical” divergence (540 microradians). The imperfect optical divergence of the laser is easily corrected with the laser projection optics (described in section 4.3 below).

Experimental tests of laser projection from Mt. Wilson confirm that laser guide stars as small as $``$0.8 arcsec FWHM can be produced under good seeing conditions as long as the integrated depth of the laser guide star $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$z is kept below 2.2 km as calculated above. Although Mount Wilson Observatory is not longer a dark site (Teare, 2000), the U band sky brightness does not degrade the laser return signal because the laser guide star sits significantly above the sky background light equivalent to a 9th or 10th magnitude star.

## 4 BEAM-SHARING AND SYSTEM TIMING

After the 351 nm beam exits the laser on the observatory ground floor and passes into the Coude room, it is converted into an f/30 to f/40 diverging beam so that it can join the telescope optical axis and be projected into the sky. The major design complication is how to allow the laser projection system to beam-share the optical axis with the incoming astronomy light. In the laser guided adaptive optics system at Starfire Optical Range, the beam-sharing element was a solid cube beam splitter (Fugate et al., 1994) that had the unfortunate property of fluorescing because of the very high flux of laser light that passed through it. This fluorescence produced a relatively continuous flux of background light that prevented the detection of low surface brightness astronomical objects.

### 4.1 Rotating Glass Disk

To avoid fluorescence, the UnISIS beam-sharing scheme consists of a rotating disk with small reflective spots deposited on its front surface. The laser light is directed towards the rotating glass disk (at an angle of incidence of $``$22 degrees), and at the exact moment when the reflective spot is sitting on the telescope optical axis, the laser is fired. Once the laser fires, the outgoing laser pulse hits the small reflective spot and is sent into the sky along the telescope’s optical axis. As quickly as the light travels up to $``$18 km and back, the small reflective spot moves off the optical axis and the laser guide star light traces a reversed path, passes through a clear area on the rotating disk, and proceeds into the UnISIS adaptive optics system.

Astronomy light from the sky passes through the rotating disk at all times and into the adaptive optics system. The fraction of lost astronomy light (reflected from the spots) is at most $``$5.5% (the area obscured by the spots). Because these spots are multi-layer dielectric coatings, they appear nearly transparent at visible wavelengths, so the amount of light lost to the science cameras is likely to be less than 2%. Figure 6 shows a picture of the rotating disk assembly sitting on a table after being removed from the optical system. The disk itself is 0.25-inch thick UV-grade fused silica with excellent surface flatness and an outer diameter of 5 inches. Multi-layer dielectric reflective spots (R = 99.9% at 351 nm) are deposited in sets of three (the three-spot configuration is explained in Thompson and Xiong 1995) at radii of 41.6, 45.6, and 49.6 mm. These spots are hardened to withstand laser powers as high as 4 to 6 J $`cm^2`$.

Glass disks of diameter 5 inches have sufficient strength to withstand the rotational stress of 10,000 RPM, and the disk shown in Figure 6 rotates at this rate. The rectangular reflective spots are 3.4 mm in the radial direction and either 4.2 mm (for the inner spot) or 4.7 mm (for the two outer spots) in the azimuth direction. The reflective spot size is set by the requirement that they must rotate out of position fast enough to allow the return light from altitude not to be obscured when it returns from $``$18 km altitude. For the UnISIS disk specifications, this requirement is met for Rayleigh backscatter altitudes 14.5 km and higher, a range that corresponds to the low edge of the laser guide star range gate ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`z_b`$ in Fig. 3).

If just one reflective spot were deposited on the disk, at 10,000 RPM it would appear on the optical axis 167 times per second, and this would set the frequency or ”heart-beat” of the wavefront sensing in UnISIS. Because closed-loop performance of an adaptive optics system might suffer if it were run at this rate, pairs if spots are deposited on the disk at 180 degree separations which allows 333 Hz adaptive optics operation. For redundancy sake, four sets of spots are deposited on the disk (at 90 degree spacing) as a fall-back should any of the spots be damaged by the high laser energy density (which indeed has happened).

Because the laser light reflects off the front surface of the rotating disk, a tight specification had to be set for the extent to which the motor shaft is perpendicular to the front surface of the disk. Otherwise, in 333 Hz operation, the angle of incidence for the reflected beam would be different for every other spot, and the laser guide star at altitude would move from side to side every other pulse. The mechanical specification for the disk relative to its shaft was set at less than 3 arcsec. The acquisition of the UV grade fused silica disk was relatively simple, but getting the glass disk attached to the motor shaft to the required level of precision was more difficult.

### 4.2 UnISIS System Timing

UnISIS requires the synchronization of three subsystems to complete one cycle of operation. First, the spots on the rotating disk must be synchronized with the arrival of the outgoing laser energy so that the 351nm light is directed out the telescope. Second, the Pockel’s cell must be opened at the appropriate time to receive the return signal. Third, the wavefront sensing camera must be triggered to receive the return pulse from the 18km focus.

The master clock for this system is the rotating disc controller, a stand-alone embedded microprocessor system, which reads a motor encoder on the rotating disc and maintains its rotation speed at 10kHz. This same encoder information also provides an indicator giving the position of reflective spots. When the spots are in the correct orientation, it sends a TTL pulse to the laser system. In order to trigger the laser precisely (to within 10 ns accuracy) the laser is left in its fully charged configuration, waiting for a pulse from the rotating disc controller. The rotating disc controller has external dipswitches used to manually enter a phase delay between the rotating disc spot positions and the laser trigger pulse. The rotating disk is viewed in a stroboscopic mode in order to set the phase delay and get the laser to fire when a reflective spot is exactly on the optical axis.

Immediately after the laser fires, an optical fiber photovoltaic converter (placed at the edge of the outgoing laser beam) senses the outgoing laser pulse and generates a TTL pulse. This TTL pulse is sent to a digital delay / pulse generator (Stanford Research Systems Model DG535) which is connected by BNC cables to the high voltage drivers for the Pockel’s cell switch and to an external ”strobe” line into the camera electronics of the laser guide star wavefront sensor. By dialing appropriate time delays into the digital delay generator, the Pockel’s cell shutter is opened and closed at the appropriate times (i.e. the speed of light travel time to $`z_o`$ \- $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`z_b`$ and $`z_o`$ \+ $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`z_t`$) and for triggering the exposure of the wavefront sensor CCD. The CCD camera then passes a data frame to the wavefront reconstructor, a separate standalone computer with 8 internal digital signal processors connected in parallel. The reconstructor calculates the wavefront corrections to be passed to the 177 actuator Xinetics deformable mirror electronics and a single cycle of wavefront correction ends. UnISIS is currently run at three repetition rates: 17 Hz for testing and system set-up, 167 Hz operation mode to match nights when atmospheric wavefront timescales are slow, and the 333 Hz mode to match nights when atmospheric timescales are fast.

### 4.3 f/30 Laser Projection Optics

As mentioned above, the laser reflective spot must rotate off the optical axis rapidly enough to allow the return Rayleigh light to pass through a clear area on the rotating disk. This requirement, and the fact that glass disks will not withstand arbitrarily high rotation rates, means that the reflective spot must be small and that the laser beam must be reduced to a small dimension before it encounters the disk. This adds just a few complications to the system design: the beam from the laser must be reshaped anyway from its very gentle 540 microradian divergence to match the $``$f/30 Coude beam. This reshaping is done in the Coude room in the vicinity of the 18 km conjugate point, a point that is located 328 mm beyond the Coude infinity focus. The details of this beam reshaping were first discussed by Thompson and Xiong (1995).

In quick summary, the laser light passes along the following path. The beam emerges from the front laser port in the basement laser room, hits three flat beam-directing mirrors (used for sub-system co-alignment) and travels vertically for $``$11 m where it encounters an adjustable razor blade pupil stop. At this point the laser beam has expanded to 14 mm x 28 mm, but the razors are used to reduce the beam to 14 mm x 24 mm to avoid spillover onto the rotating disk beyond the reflective spot. The clipped beam then passes through an air-spaced doublet that forms a relatively fast converging beam as shown in Figure 7. Just before this beam reaches focus, it enters a small diverging lens that converts the clipped laser beam into the expanding $``$f/30 beam that hits the rotating disk and travels up the telescope south polar axis. The beam then hits the tertiary, secondary, and primary mirrors and is transmitted to the 18 km focus. Figure 8 shows two images of the laser beam, one in its full rectangular form and the other clipped and on its way to up the telescope’s south polar axis.

The three-element UV-grade fused silica optical system is designed to create a virtual image of the laser guide star 70 mm behind the back surface of the small diverging lens. By placing these three optical elements in a position such that the virtual image of the laser guide star sits at the conjugate focus of the 18 km layer (namely 328 mm beyond the infinity focus), the combined optical system that includes the telescope primary mirror creates a concentrated region of laser energy some 18 km above the primary mirror with a waist $``$52 mm in diameter (2.9 milliradians as seen from the primary mirror) with additional smearing caused by atmospheric blurring. The Zemax optical design for this laser projection system (including the 2.5-m telescope optics) is given in Table 1.

The air-spaced doublet in the 3 element optical system is mounted in a cell that can be moved along the optical axis while the diverging lens remains fixed. As the doublet moves, the output f/ratio and the location of the virtual image conjugate point change simultaneously. By watching the laser return signal with a test camera focused on the 18 km layer (see Sec. 7 below), the position of the air-spaced doublet can be optimized for the best focus at 18 km. In the most recent experimental tests, the optimal laser guide star focus occurred at a somewhat slower output beam than expected ($``$f/39) and hence the laser pupil does not completely fill the primary mirror. This has the effect of slightly increasing the focal spot size at 18 km from the ideal 52 mm value given above, but this does not degrade the performance significantly because the limiting angular size of the laser guide star is dominated by atmospheric blurring in the roundtrip up-link and down-link paths. The fact that the beam is being transmitted at $``$f/39 means that the laser beam footprint on the primary mirror is somewhat less than the full 2.5-m aperture and hence the value given above for $`D_p`$ $``$1.8 m.

The alignment and positioning of the three-element laser projection optical system is very critical to good performance of UnISIS. The better focused the laser guide star is, the more accurately the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor can determine the wavefront error. The process of focusing the laser guide star is somewhat dangerous because the energy density in the converging beam – at the point just before it enters the small diverging lens – becomes quite large. Slight misadjustments in the positions of the three projection lenses can cause the energy density to rise above the damage thresholds of the optical coatings. Coatings on these lenses (and on the multiplayer dielectric spots on the rotating disk) were applied by Acton Research Corporation (Acton, MA) and have damage thresholds of 4 - 6 J cm<sup>-2</sup>. One accident did occur where the converging beam was allowed to shrink too much, and it exceeded damage threshold given above. Figure 9 shows the results. Newer diverging lenses have now been installed in UnISIS with dielectric coatings applied by Alpine Research Optics (Boulder, CO). These have a damage threshold if 17.5 J cm<sup>-2</sup>.

## 5 FAA AND LASER SAFETY ISSUES

When compared to other laser guide star systems, UnISIS has a clear advantage in being generally benign to both aircraft and satellite interference. In this regard, UnISIS might be called ”Stealth qualified”. Because this characteristic affords great convenience in the nighttime operation of at Mt. Wilson, it is appropriate to describe how this was achieved. The situation begins with the fact that 351 nm light is invisible to the eye, and it is further aided by the need to for full-aperture laser projection as explained in sections 3.3 and 3.4 above. Full-aperture laser projection significantly dilutes the laser beam intensity at all altitudes except in the focused beam waist at $``$18 km. Laser guide star projection systems that project at visible wavelengths and those that use a relatively small collimators are required by the FAA to implement safety procedures that include airplane spotters located outside the telescope dome.

The surface energy density of the UnISIS laser beam as it leaves the telescope primary mirror is very dilute. A person who might accidentally stand in the beam at a point immediately outside the telescope dome would receive a continuous UV flux approximately equal to the UV flux one would receive from the Sun in the same 350 nm region of the spectrum. 351 nm light – from the Sun or from a laser – is of sufficiently low energy that it does not damage proteins in the body so it will not lead to the formation of cancer, but it can penetrate the aqueous humor of the eye and cause cataracts, so laser-safe glasses are used by the UnISIS team and the telescope operators who are in the dome on nights when the laser is being transmitted. Laser-safe eyeglasses or goggles are required in the laser room and in the Coude room where the laser beam is hot and the scattered UV photon flux is substantial.

When the telescope is pointed to the zenith, the UnISIS laser beam comes to a waist at 20 km above mean sea level, which corresponds to 66,000 ft. Because seeing degrades as a function of zenith distance and because differential refraction (between the UV laser guide star and the near-IR wavelengths of the science cameras) increases as a function of zenith angle, there are no plans to use UnISIS further than 40 degrees from the zenith. Therefore, the minimum altitude for the laser guide star beam waist is 15.3 km (50,0000 ft.), so commercial aircraft are not likely to enter the focused region of the laser guide star. However, at the altitudes of air traffic the energy flux (in J cm<sup>-2</sup> per pulse) in the laser beam will be greater than that immediately in front of the primary mirror, but to counter this point we note that photons at 351 nm are absorbed by the glass and the plastics that are used in aircraft windows.

In a white paper sent to the FAA in 1997, the UnISIS laser was called a ”single pulse laser” from the perspective of an airplane pilot or passenger. The maximum operating pulse rate of the UnISIS laser is 333 Hz. If we assume an airplane window is 30 cm across, an airplane would have to be flying slower than 30 m/s (67 mph) for two pulses to enter the window. This is much slower than the speed of an average airplane. ANSI standards list specifications for single pulse lasers in terms of the power per pulse at a given wavelength, and the dilute beam of the UnISIS laser – in the altitude range where commercial planes fly – places the UnISIS laser with Class I systems (eye safe), even if the laser photons were able to pass through glass or plastic windows. One of the main worries of the FAA is the distractive nature of a laser beam in the sense that a pilot notices the emission. Since 351 nm light is invisible to the eye, this is not an issue either.

After initial telephone contact with the Western-Pacific Region of the Federal Aviation Administration in Los Angeles, CA, and after explaining the circumstances described above, the FAA requested a written report restating the case. Approximately 4 months after the FAA received the UnISIS report, they issued a letter which stated:

”Propagation of Class I lasers into navigable airspace pose no hazard to aviation and we have no objection to the operation described in your correspondence. Please advise our office of any proposed changes or alteration to your proposed scientific research laser installation in order that an aeronautical study may be accomplished to determine the effect of the changes on the safe and efficient use of navigable airspace by aircraft.”

## 6 OPTICAL ALIGNMENT AND FOCUS METHODS

### 6.1 Sub-System Co-Alignment

As described above (sec. 2.1), there are relative drifts over $``$12 hour periods between the three UnISIS subsystems. This persistent problem made it necessary to understand and carefully control the UnISIS optical alignment. This exercise came to a successful end after a few hard rules were imposed. These included (1) to define with great precision a single vector on the UnISIS adaptive optics bench as the primary system reference, (2) to align each subsystem separately and only then pull them together as a whole, and (3) master the chromatic problems associated with the alignment of refractive optics that work at 351 nm but must be aligned – at least initially – at the more convenient 635 nm laser diode wavelength. These issued are discussed in turn.

The single reference vector on the UnISIS adaptive optics bench is defined with two mechanical reference points. One of these is a small (but removable) pinhole that sits in the center of the primary telescope focal plane (at the f/30 infinity focus). The second reference point is a removable point-like target located 1.5 meters beyond the infinity focus. A small but very bright diffraction-limited laser diode beam is forced through these two mechanical points no matter where the UnISIS optics bench happens to sit as it ”floats” on its underlying support structure. This reference beam is used to co-align the individual components in the adaptive optics section of UnISIS and then the same is done for all components in the laser guide star projection subsystem. Except for chromatic effects discussed below, this procedure works well. Then a second reverse-traveling 635 nm diode laser reference beam is co-aligned with the first, and this second beam is propagated up through the Coude optical train of the telescope. Using the tip-tilt action of the two mirrors shown schematically in Fig. 2, the telescope sub-system is finally brought into co-alignment with the other sub-systems. As noted above, the procedure defined in this paragraph takes approximately 20 to 30 minutes to complete.

The chromatic alignment problems in the refractive sections of UnISIS were the most difficult to understand and defeat. There are two refractive systems within UnISIS: (1) the laser guide star projection system (described in Sec. 4.3 above) and (2) the UV wavefront sensor optics that include the Pockel’s cell shutters and the EEV wavefront sensor camera (described in Thompson, Teare , Crawford and Leach 2002). One very convenient procedure for aligning a lens-based system is to send a narrow pencil-beam laser through the optical train and search for faint retroreflected and focused ghost images that are formed by each curved (lens) surface. These focused ghost images sit at 1/2 x the radius of curvature of each optical surface. By identifying the positions of both ghost images (one on the front side and one on the back side of a standard double convex lens), the tip-tilt and the x,y centroid for a single lens can be set, one lens at a time. While this is a straightforward procedure, even the slightest angular misalignment between the 635 nm reference beam and the true 351 nm entrance vector can produce significant errors in the alignment, especially if there are multiple lenses in the system because the position of the 635 nm alignment vector gets displaced, one lens after the next, relative to the 351 nm vector by refractive effects within each lens. The only way to remove these ambiguities is the use 351 nm light as the final check on the alignment. While 351 nm photons are difficult and inconvenient to use in alignment exercises (because they are not visible to the human eye), 351 nm photons are indirectly detectable because they produce a blue fluorescence on a high-cotton-content paper target. Careful cross checks of the 635 nm alignment with 351 nm laser light made it possible to eliminate the chromatic effects in the refractive sections of UnISIS.

### 6.2 Laser Guide Star Focus and Alignment

The laser guided adaptive optics system built at Starfire Optical Range (Fugate et al., 1994) introduced the important concept of calibrating the laser guide star wavefront signal during closed-loop operation on a natural star. As described in another paper (Thompson and Teare, 2003), UnISIS incorporates this design concept from Fugate et al. Although it requires simultaneous operation of two wavefront cameras – one for a natural star and the other for the laser guide star – this technique unambiguously removes the non-common path aberrations that inevitably exist between the laser guide star wavefront optical path and the natural star optical path. In UnISIS the natural star wavefront sensor – used for this calibration – is situated immediately before the final science camera focal plane. By running UnISIS in closed-loop on a natural star and (in open-loop) recording a Shack-Hartmann wavefront reference frame for the laser guide star, this calibration technique delivers to the wavefront computer system what we call the “laser wavefront Shack-Hartmann reference frame”. Only after recording this calibration frame is UnISIS run in closed-loop with the laser guide star. The wavefront computer is instructed to drive the deformable mirror not to the mechanical null of the laser guide star Shack-Hartmann sensor but to the null of the“laser wavefront Shack-Hartmann reference frame”. Even if there are uncalibrated optical offsets in the laser guide star optical system (e.g. problems of focus or astigmatism), the natural star calibration method circumvents these problems and the adaptive optics system drives to a null representing the diffraction limited performance of the natural star calibration. In this way we avoid the need to establish the absolute true focus and alignment of the laser guide star wavefront system.

## 7 TIME-GATED IMAGE TUBE CAMERA

During the UnISIS system development, a time-gated image intensifier camera was used repeatedly to identify and diagnose problems with the laser guide star system alignment and focus. There was simply no other convenient means available to detect the faint high altitude laser guide star return signal in the presence of the low altitude and very bright foreground Rayleigh scattered light. When the CCD wavefront sensor was used without its Pockel’s cell shutter, it was quickly driven into saturation by the high-intensity but low-altitude Rayleigh scattered light.

The time-gated Reticon camera functions essentially the same as the primary UV wavefront sensor system, with the following modifications. Instead of sending the TTL output of the digital delay generator to the Pockel’s cell switches, this signal is sent to the high voltage gated input line of the image intensifier. When the intensifier is off, the Reticon sensor is blind (to the low altitude Rayleigh flash). For laser guide star tests, the intensifier is turned on only for the short time interval (13 $`\mu `$s to 17 $`\mu `$s long) when the backscattered photons are returning from high altitude. Even though the image intensifier is non-linear and must be handled cautiously in the presence of the bright outgoing laser pulse, a tool of this kind is invaluable to those who contemplate developing a Rayleigh laser guide star system.

## 8 SHACK-HARTMANN WAVEFRONT TESTS

The UnISIS UV wavefront sensor is designed to work in coordination with the UnISIS Rayleigh laser guide star system to produce Shack-Hartmann signals to drive the UnISIS deformable mirror. Prior to the laser guide star tests described below, operation of the wavefront sensor was validated in the following two ways:

(1) An artificial laser guide star was sent through the UnISIS optical system by mounting a UV transmitting fiber optic on an x-y-z mechanical stage and positioning the fiber at the 18 km conjugate point on the UnISIS optics bench. The input end of this fiber was fed 351 nm light from the Questek laser in such a way that the output end of the fiber optic produced a uniformly illuminated f/30 output beam. With the dome closed and with the Questek laser placed in full operation, an external pulse generator was used to trigger the laser, the Pockel’s cell shutter and the CCD camera to produce test wavefront images.

(2) On an excellent photometric night, the star Sirius was acquired at the normal infinity f/30 Coude focus of the telescope. A focus screen was then installed at the 18 km conjugate focus (328 mm beyond the infinity focal plane), and the telescope secondary mirror was adjusted to bring the starlight into focus at the 18 km conjugate. After removing the focus screen, the light from Sirius was passed through the adaptive optics system and onto wavefront sensor camera. In this case, the CCD camera and the Pockel’s cell shutters were run with an external pulse generator, and the CCD exposure time was set to 100 $`\mu `$s (the maximum exposure available with the camera drive electronics). A 10 nm wide interference filter centered at 350 nm was placed in the collimated beam immediately before the wavefront camera. Test exposures from the wavefront sensor were then taken of Sirius.

The wavefront camera system worked as designed for both tests, and then UnISIS was prepared for the Rayleigh laser guide star tests. Nights selected for these tests were of reasonable photometric quality so a return flux comparison could be made with Sirius.. Only nights of excellent seeing were used for these tests because the individual pixels in the UnISIS UV wavefront sensor have dimensions of 1x1 arcsec. The aim of the test was to focus the laser guide star light on single pixels on the wavefront sensor camera in order to estimate the FWHM of the laser guide star and to measure the strength of the return laser guide star signal. For these tests the telescope was parked within 1 or 2 degrees of the zenith.

Normally, the lenslet array in a Shack-Hartmann sensor is positioned for maximum wavefront sensitivity so that Hartmann subimages fall in the center of (at the central intersection of) a 2x2 pixel ”quadcell”. For the test shown here, the 13x13 lenslet array was offset from this nominal position in two regards. First, the lenslet array was moved significantly to the lower left (as seen in the two test images reproduced in Figure 10) to pass light to the sensor without going through the lenslet array. Second, the lenslet array was positioned so that light from single lenses in the lenslet array were centered on a single pixel in the wavefront sensor. This alignment was set immediately before the observing run began, and based on previous experience, we know that the alignment will remain stable for many hours.

Wavefront data shown in Figure 10 were taken on the night of 5 Nov. 2001 (UT). On this night the laser guide star system was operated in the standard test mode with a repetition rate of 17 Hz. The UnISIS reconstructor computer has the ability to direct to a special storage buffer (on external command) 45 consecutive wavefront data frames. For this test, the time gate on the Pockel’s cell shutter was adjusted in real time to optimize the focus and the brightness of the lenslet images as viewed through a continuous video output from the UnISIS wavefront reconstructor computer. Note that the laser guide star projection optics were placed at a particular mechanical point set by inspecting the return laser guide star image on the time gated Reticon camera; and no effort was made to iterate between the best appearing Pockel’s cell setting and this mechanical focus. The Pockel’s cells are driven by a TTL pulse (from the Stanford delay generator) and have an 8$`\mu `$s rise-time after the trigger signal is applied to their high voltage power supplies. The two time gates given below are for the time interval at half-maximum transmission and the time interval for 100% Pockel’s cell transmission:

$`t_b`$ = 109 $`\mu `$s, $`t_t`$ = 134 $`\mu `$s, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$z = 3.75 km, (50% Pockel’s cell transmission)

$`t_b`$ = 113 $`\mu `$s, $`t_t`$ = 130 $`\mu `$s, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$z = 2.55 km, (100% Pockel’s cell transmission)

Figure 10 (left) shows the wavefront image from a single pulse of the laser guide star. Notice that several individual pixels are brightly illuminated whereas others are much fainter. This is the expected behavior for a Shack-Hartmann sensor running in open-loop, i.e. wavefront gradients from the turbulent atmosphere momentarily displace individual subimages from their nominal position, in this case centered on single pixels. The three brightest pixels in Figure 10 (left) have 27$`e^{}`$, 25$`e^{}`$, and 25$`e^{}`$ whereas the pixels immediately adjacent to the three brightest pixels contain an average of 4$`e^{}`$. This shows that the Rayleigh laser guide star had a FWHM less than or equal to 1 arcsec (a limit set by the dimensions of a single pixel) on the night of 5 Nov. 2001. Figure 10 (right) shows an integrated sum of 45 consecutive wavefront images. The action of the turbulent atmosphere in this case is to blur the subimages, but their centroids, on average, remain centered on the individual CCD pixels. The total detected signal from the individual bright pixels plus the flux in the 4 adjacent pixels (top, bottom, left, right) is 23$`e^{}`$.

The UnISIS wavefront sensor used in these tests is a Marconi EEV-039a with a quantum efficiency of 48% and a system read noise of 4.8 $`e^{}`$ rms. A new Marconi EEV- 039a sensor was recently obtained with 68.2% quantum efficiency, and it is expected to have a comparable, or perhaps even lower, read noise. The new sensor returns a signal that is higher by a factor of 1.42. At the time the exposure in Figure 9 was taken, the excimer laser had been running several hours and the power per pulse was 75 mJ, whereas under normal conditions the laser runs at 90 mJ per pulse. Therefore, the UnISIS wavefront camera under normal operating conditions with the new sensor will be detecting $``$40$`e^{}`$ per subaperture at an rms read noise $``$4.8$`e^{}`$ (or better). This performance is perfectly satisfactory for closed loop laser guide star operation of UnISIS.

## 9 CONCLUSION

The UnISIS Rayleigh laser guide star system has been commissioned and operated in open loop with satisfactory return signal for a 13 x 13 set of subapertures across the pupil of the Mt. Wilson 2.5-m telescope. A tightly focused laser guide star return signal with a FWHM $``$1 arcsec was received from a $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$z = 2.5 km range gate centered at 18.2 km above the telescope ($``$20 km above mean sea level). This successful demonstration of the UnISIS laser guide star system sets the stage for closed loop operation with the full UnISIS adaptive optics system. The 351 nm Rayleigh laser guide star technique with full- aperture broadcast provides a reasonable method to monitor wavefront perturbations in the Earth’s atmosphere, and it is especially attractive because of its ”Stealth” characteristics. Rayleigh laser guide stars are likely to be the basis for many other laser guided adaptive optics applications in the future.

A number of people have contributed to the work reported here. This includes Richard Castle, Dr. E. Harvey Richardson, Samuel Crawford, Dr. Xiong Yao-Heng, Dr. Chris Neyman, and Bill Knight and his machine shop crew. At Mt. Wilson Observatory we acknowledge support provided by Mt. Wilson Institute Director Dr. Robert Jastrow and technical assistance by Robert Cadman, Sean Hoss, Chris Hodge, Joe Russell, Victor Castillo and Thomas Schneider of Schneider Engineering. Telescope operator support at the 2.5-m telescope was provided by Kirk Palmer, Michael Bradford, and Jim Strogen. Information and assistance with the Questek laser system was provided by Dr. George Caudle and Geoffry Bramhall. EEV wavefront camera electronics support was provided by Dr. Robert Leach, Jamie Erickson, and Scott Striet. Assistance with the rotating disk assembly was provided by Geoff Gretton. Advice was also provided by the UnISIS / NSF Advisory Panel that included Drs. Robert Fugate, Doug Simons, Matthew Mountain, David Sandler, Byron Welsh, Ray Weymann, G. Wayne van Citters, and Ben Snavely. This Rayleigh laser guide star research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation: AST-8918878, AST-9220504, AST-0096741 and by funds from both the University of Illinois and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. All support is very gratefully acknowledged.


format: text

text:
# Optical control of photon tunneling through an array of nanometer scale cylindrical channels

\[

## Abstract

We report first observation of photon tunneling gated by light at a different wavelength in an artificially created array of nanometer scale cylindrical channels in a thick gold film. Polarization properties of gated light provide strong proof of the enhanced nonlinear optical mixing in nanometric channels involved in the process. This suggests the possibility of building a new class of ”gated” photon tunneling devices for massive parallel all-optical signal and image processing.

PACS no.: 78.67.-n, 42.50.-p, 42.65.-k

\]

In our recent work  some of the unusual properties of naturally occurring extremely small pinholes in thick gold films covered with highly optically nonlinear polydiacetylene layers have been studied. Measurements of photon tunneling through individual nanometer scale pinholes has provided strong indication of ”photon blockade” effect similar to Coulomb blockade phenomena observed in single-electron tunneling experiments . We have also reported observation of photon tunneling being gated by light at a different wavelength in similar but somewhat larger pinholes . These observations suggest possibility of building a new class of ”gated” photon tunneling devices for all-optical signal and image processing in classical and quantum communications and computing. A big step forward would be to artificially fabricate such devices in controllable and reproducible manner. Moreover, massive parallel all-optical signal processing can be achieved if large arrays of such pinholes with enhanced nonlinear properties can be created. However, transition from individual pinholes to a periodic array of them leads to new physics involved in the nonlinear optical processes.

Linear optical properties of metallic films perforated with an array of periodic subwavelength holes and exhibiting the so-called extraordinary enhanced optical transmission have been intensively studied recently (see  and Refs. therein). Although the exact nature of the enhanced transmission in two-dimensional case (which is significantly different from a better understood one-dimensional case of subwavelength slits) is still not fully established, the role of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in this process is commonly accepted. SPP Bloch waves can be excited by incident light on the interfaces of a periodically nanostructured film, which may be treated as a surface polaritonic crystal . Resonant light tunneling via states of surface polariton Bloch waves is one of the mechanisms involved in the enhanced transmission.

A fundamental difference between conventional photonic crystals and surface polaritonic crystals is a different electromagnetic field distribution close to the surface. Surface polariton is an intrinsically two-dimensional excitation whose electromagnetic field is concentrated at a metal interface. Thus, in contrast to photonic crystals, strong electromagnetic field enhancement takes place at a SPP crystal interface related to the surface polariton field localization . Such enhancement effects are absent in photonic crystals. Field enhancement results in much stronger nonlinear response achieved with surface polaritonic crystals as it is related to the local field strength. This can significantly facilitate nonlinear optical mixing in such structures.

As a logical step forward, we can ask what would happen if a periodically nanostructured metal film would be embedded in a nonlinear optical material. In this Letter we report first experimental studies of nonlinear optical properties of arrays of artificial nanometer-scale cylindrical pinholes in free standing thick gold films, which exhibit strong nonlinear optical mixing due to the presence of nonlinear material inside the pinholes and on the interfaces of the film. In addition to the SPP effects on the film interfaces, due to pronounced cylindricality of the holes, the shape-resonances (cylindrical surface plasmons) can be excited in the holes . At a given transmitted optical power, for a small cylinder diameters optical field of a cylindrical surface plasmon grows inversely proportional to the diameter. Thus, sufficiently thin cylindrical pinholes filled with nonlinear optical material should start to exhibit enhanced nonlinear optical mixing.

In our experiments rectangular arrays of nanometric cylindrical holes have been patterned into a freestanding 400 nm thick gold membrane using focused gallium ion beam (FIB) milling. To avoid stress in the gold membrane, the gold film is supported by 50 nm thick $`Si_3N_4`$ membrane with 5 nm intermediate Cr layer. Since there is no glass/metal interface, milling artifacts such as redeposited material can be avoided leading to a better-defined structure geometry. We have been successful in patterning relatively large areas (500 $`\mu `$m x 500 $`\mu `$m) of the gold membranes, creating nanosized holes with dimensions down to 20 nm. The diameter of the hole can be controlled by using a controlled endpoint termination technique. In this technique a Faraday cup is placed underneath the membrane and the transmitted ion current is measured in-situ during FIB milling. The milling can then be terminated, by blanking the ion beam, once a defined ion current is passing through the emerging hole in the membrane. The images of the cylindrical pinhole arrays fabricated in a 400 nm thick free standing gold film are shown in Fig. 1. Similar to the sample preparation described in , a drop of poly-3-butoxy-carbonyl-methyl-urethane (3BCMU) polydiacetylene solution in chloroform was deposited onto the gold film surface. After solvent evaporation films of polydiacetylene were left on both the top and the bottom surfaces of the perforated gold film. Such 3BCMU polydiacetylene films hold the current record for the largest fast nonresonant optical $`\chi ^{(3)}`$ nonlinearity .

Our experimental setup is shown in Fig.2. A bent optical fiber tip similar to the bent tips often used in near-field optical microscopes  was used to collect the transmitted light. The fiber tip was positioned above the individual pinhole array in contact with the thick polymer coating using a far-field optical microscope and the shear-force distance control system commonly used in near-field optical setups.  Since pinhole arrays were typically separated by at least 10 $`\mu `$m distances, properties of individual arrays were studied in the absence of any background scattered light. Under far-field microscope control, $`30\times 30\mu m^2`$ area of the sample containing the pinhole array of interest has been illuminated with 488 nm light of a CW argon ion laser and the 633 nm light of a CW He-Ne laser. The latter was used as signal light and the former was used as control light in the optical gating experiments. The samples were illuminated at the angle of incidence of approximately 45o so that the projection of the illuminating light wavevector onto the surface is in the direction approximately corresponding to the direction along the hole rows ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }X`$ direction of the Brillouin zone).

First we have studied how transmission of the arrays at the signal light wavelength ($`\lambda `$ = 633 nm) is affected by simultaneous illumination with control light ($`\lambda `$ = 488 nm). In order to observe light controlled tunneling directly, we modulated the incident 488 nm light with a chopper at a frequency of 1.2 kHz. Light transmitted through the pinhole array was collected with the fiber and detected with a photomultiplier (PMT) through an optical filter which completely cuts off the blue light. Modulation of the transmission of the array with 20 nm holes at the 633 nm wavelength induced by modulation of P-polarized control light illuminating the same area was observed using a lock-in amplifier , which was synchronized with the chopper (Fig. 2). Thus, the intensity variations of the signal light tunneling through the pinhole array induced by 488 nm light have been measured directly (Fig. 3). The time behavior of the observed switching is determined by the time constant of the lock-in-amplifier ($``$ 3 s) needed for the signal integration. At the same time, for the arrays with larger holes ($``$ 100 nm diameter) no significant variations of the transmission was observed for the given wavelengths and intensities of signal and control light.

Polarization properties of the signal light passing through the array of smallest pinholes are strikingly different from the polarization properties of the transmitted red light measured in the absence of blue light illumination. These polarization properties provide a very strong proof of nonlinear optical mixing in the polydiacetylene-filled pinholes. In the absence of modulating blue light, transmission of P-polarized red light is higher than the transmission of S-polarized red light by approximately a factor of 3. This observation is consistent with the theoretical model of the enhanced transmission of subwavelength pinhole arrays relying on the excitation of surface polaritons on both film interfaces, since at the oblique incidence the light of different polarizations interacts with different SPP resonances. This ratio of P- to S-polarized light transmission has been observed to be rather insensitive to the pinhole diameter in a studied range of the pinhole sizes as is expected since the spectrum of the SPP excitations depends mainly on the periodicity of the structure.

However, under the modulation with P-polarized blue light, the P to S ratio in the modulated red light transmission jumps to approximately a factor of 20. Polarization measurements offer the best distinction between nonlinear optical mixing effects of interest and possible thermal effects such as thermal expansion of the pinholes, heating of the filling material etc. which could interfere with the nonlinear optical effects. Thermal modulation of subwavelength aperture transmission has been observed previously under intense aperture illumination . We were able to observe similar effects in the pinhole arrays transmission at much larger than usual illumination intensities achieved by much tighter focusing (to within a-few-micrometers spots) of the modulating blue light. However, polarization dependence of the modulated red light obtained under such conditions is very weak (Fig.4(c)): the P to S ratio in the thermally modulated red light transmission falls to approximately a factor of 1.5.

Extremely strong polarization dependence of the modulated transmission of the signal light can be explained taking into account the properties of surface polariton Bloch waves on the periodically perforated gold surfaces, the properties of surface plasmons in cylindrical channels, and the properties of a $`\chi ^{(3)}`$ nonlinear susceptibility tensor of 3BCMU polydiacetylene.

To understand the observed transmission behavior, let us consider the spectrum of electromagnetic excitations in our system. At certain combinations of incidence angles and wavelengths, the electromagnetic wave incident on the periodic structure excites the surface polariton Bloch waves. Diffraction of light on a periodic structure provides the wave vector conservation needed for the coupling to SPP :

$$𝐤_{SP}=\frac{\omega }{c}sin\theta 𝐮_{xy}\delta _{sp}\pm p\frac{2\pi }{D}𝐮_x\pm q\frac{2\pi }{D}𝐮_y,$$
(1)
where $`\delta _{sp}`$ = 1 for P-polarized incident light (defined with respect to the film interface) and 0 for S-polarized light, $`𝐤_{SP}`$ is the surface polariton wave vector on a periodic interface, $`𝐮_{xy}`$ is the unit vector in the direction of the in-plane component of the incident light wave vector, $`𝐮_x`$ and $`𝐮_y`$ are the unit reciprocal lattice vectors of a periodic structure, D is its periodicity (assumed to be the same in both x- and y-directions), and p and q are the integer numbers corresponding to the different propagation directions of the excited SPP modes. Since SPP is in general a longitudinal excitation, the electric field of the excitation light should have an electric field component perpendicular to the surface or parallel to the SPP propagation direction. Therefore, according to Eq.(1) surface polaritons excited with S-polarised light correspond to the Bloch waves at the edge of the even Brillouin zones (standing modes), while for P-polarized excitation they are propagating Bloch waves.

In our case, the metal film is sufficiently thick to neglect the interaction between surface polaritons excited on different interfaces, therefore two independent sets of resonances can be considered . Since one side of the metal film is covered with a polymer ($`ϵ`$ 1.7) while another is in contact with Cr/Si3N4 ($`ϵ`$ 2.0), the SPP resonant conditions will be slightly different on different interfaces of the film. (The dispersion of surface polaritons on a smooth surface is given by $`k_{SP}=\omega /c(ϵϵ_m/(ϵ+ϵ_m))^{1/2}`$, where $`ϵ_m`$ and $`ϵ`$ are the dielectric functions of metal and adjacent medium, respectively.) Since the filling factor of the structures under consideration is small enough ($`f=(d/D)^2`$) the modifications of the SPP dispersion on a smooth interface is expected to be also small, and it can be used to estimate the resonant frequencies of the SPP Bloch waves excitation. Considering $`\mathrm{\Gamma }X`$ direction of the Brillouin zone ($`p=\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{};q=0`$), for P-polarised incident light and the angle of incidence of 45o used in the experiment, the SPP Bloch waves corresponding to 3rd and 4th Brillouin zone are excited at the wavelengths close to $`\lambda `$ = 633 nm on the polymer-metal interface. The SPP states related to the illuminated (Si3N4) interface will be red-shifted with respect to this frequency. At the same time for S-polarised light, the resonant SPP frequencies on the metal-polymer interface are far away from the signal light frequency while SPP Bloch waves from the 4th Brillouin zone of the illuminated interface are relatively close to it. This SPP is about twice weaker than the SPP on a pure gold surface due to presence of a Cr layer which has strong losses at this wavelength ($`Imϵ`$ 30). Analogous picture can be constructed in the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }M`$ direction of the SPP Brillouin zone, but the related resonant frequencies $`(p,q)=(\pm 1,\pm 1)`$ will lie between the frequencies determined by $`(p,q)=(\pm 1,0)`$ and $`(p,q)=(\pm 2,0)`$, and therefore, far from the signal wavelength. However, these resonances can become important for other angles of incidence.

To complete the picture, the resonances associated with cylindrical channels in a metal film should be considered . For thick films with well defined cylindricality of the channels ($`d<<h`$), the spectrum of surface electromagnetic excitations in channels has a rather complicated structure with both radiative and nonradiative modes present. Individual cylindrical channels will have a discrete spectrum of resonances asymptotically approaching surface plasmon frequency ($`ϵ_m=ϵ`$) from the high frequency side. For polymer-filled channels these modes overlap the frequency of the control blue light for large quantum numbers $`s>>1`$. The interaction between channels in an array can additionally broaden these resonances leading to minibands . Thus, quasi-continuous spectrum of the states related to the cylindrical surface plasmons can be expected in the spectral range of the control light. For infinitely long cylindrical channels the spectrum of wave vectors along the cylinder axis $`h_z`$ is continuous. Physically one can imagine these excitations as surface modes of a spiral trajectory on a cylinder channel surface. Real (nonradiative) surface modes can not be excited directly by light, but at the frequency corresponding to the control light the very long wave vector SPP can be excited on the periodically perforated polymer-metal interface, which then can be coupled to cylindrical surface plasmons.

In the absence of control light, the transmission of red light takes place via resonant tunneling through the states of SPP Bloch waves on the polymer-metal interface. The changes of the incident light polarization result in the shift of the SPP resonances and, hence, variation of the transmission. Being confined to the polymer-coated interface, the SPP modes responsible for this transmission are very sensitive to the dielectric constant of the polymer, since changes of the dielectric constant modify the SPP resonant conditions and the transmission coefficient. Control (blue) light coupled into cylindrical surface plasmons either via their radiative part or via surface polaritons results in the local changes of the dielectric constant of the polymer due to third-order Kerr nonlinearity. Local electromagnetic field is strongly enhanced in and around the channel due to cylindrical surface plasmons excitation because of small volume of these surface modes ($`E_L1/d`$).

The polarization properties of the polymer molecules themselves may play significant role in the observed increase of the P to S ratio in the modulated transmission of red light. The third-order nonlinearity of 3BCMU polydiacetylene is contributed mainly by the $`\pi `$-electrons in the backbone of the polymer . Each straight segment of polymer backbone could be treated as identical one-dimensional rod-like chromophore. At the microscopic level the $`\chi ^{(3)}`$ tensor of 3BCMU is dominated by only one component: $`\chi _{ssss}^{(3)}`$, where $`s`$ is the direction of the polymer chain. This fact has been verified in measurements of different components of the macroscopic $`\chi ^{(3)}`$ tensor of spin-coated thin polymer 3BCMU films, where polymer backbones have random in-plane orientations, determined by a flat substrate. In our case, the preferential direction for the long polymer backbones inside narrow cylindrical channels ought to be the direction along the channel. The nonlinear optical mixing of interest is determined by the components $`D_l(\omega _2)`$ of the optical field inside the channels at $`\lambda _2`$ = 633 nm:

$$D_l(\omega _2)=\chi _{ijkl}^{(3)}E_i(\omega _1)E_j(\omega _1)E_k(\omega _2),$$
(2)
where $`\omega _1`$ and $`\omega _2`$ are the frequencies of blue and red light, respectively. If the zzzz-components (along the channel direction) of $`\chi _{ijkl}^{(3)}`$ dominate the third-order susceptibility, the modulated red light must be strongly P-polarized. At the same time, at the frequency of the blue light $`\omega _1`$ the electromagnetic field in the cylindrical channels is dominated by the plasmon modes with large wave vectors along the channel, for which optical field oscillations have significant longitudinal component, which is along the channel direction. Thus, one should expect the enhanced nonlinear optical mixing to occur while electromagnetic field is traveling through small cylindrical holes.

In conclusion, we have reported first observation of photon tunneling gated by light at a different wavelength in an artificially created array of nanometer scale cylindrical channels in a thick gold film. Polarization properties of gated light provide strong proof of the enhanced nonlinear optical mixing in nanometric channels involved in the process.