Feature Issue of Applied Optics

Applications of Lasers for Sensing and Free Space Communications 2022

Submission Opens: 1 January 2023

Submission Deadline: 27 March 2023

Applied Optics and the Laser Systems Technical Group welcome submissions to a feature issue on "Applications of Lasers for Sensing and Free Space Communications" in conjunction with the Applications of Lasers for Sensing and Free Space Communications (LS&C) 2022 topical meeting being held 11 - 15 December 2022 in Barcelona, Spain. Whereas meeting participants are particularly encouraged to submit their work, the feature issue is open to all contributions in related areas.

This feature issue will highlight the latest developments in laser-based sensing and free space communications. Sophisticated laser systems are increasingly being used in a wide variety of applications including remote imaging and object characterization, sensing for autonomous vehicles, probing of the atmosphere, and high-bandwidth free-space optical (FSO) communications. These applications spread across a variety of basing platforms, including ground, air, water, and space platforms, and encompass a range of laser-system implementations. Both direct detection measurements and coherent detection systems can find application in probing of the earth and atmosphere, as well as in FSO communications. This feature issue will report on multiple applications of lasers for sensing and FSO communications, the sophisticated systems that operate in these applications, and the enabling components and processing techniques used within.

This feature issue is endorsed by the Laser Systems Technical Group, which encompasses novel laser system development for a broad range of scientific, industrial, medical, remote sensing and other directed-energy applications. The group addresses technical issues concerning sources that cover the full spectral range, including ultraviolet, visible, infrared, terahertz, and microwave, and has strong overlap with other technical groups (like the Fundamental Laser Sciences Technical Group) that study and develop laser techniques and technologies. This feature issue is an extension of the group’s efforts to bring together researchers and engineers to produce novel laser systems with unique performance.

Articles published in the feature issue will be appropriately celebrated in webinars and in-person events, as well as in list-serve emails and social-media posts by the Laser System Technical Group.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  1. Component technologies for sensing and communications
    1. Lasers
    2. Sensors
    3. Wavefront control
  2. Remote sensing
    1. Non-imaging
      1. Vibrometry (Doppler, micro-Doppler)
      2. Atmospheric sensing (turbulence, wind, aerosols, molecules, and other chemical/biological sensing)
    2. Imaging
      1. Hardware (LiDAR, time of flight and single photon cameras)
      2. Processing and exploitation of 3D data
    3. Applications
      1. Mapping
      2. LiDAR for autonomous applications
  3. Sensing for high energy laser (HEL) applications
  4. FSO communications
    1. Space
    2. Atmospheric
    3. Underwater
  5. Advanced laser-based topics
    1. Quantum protocols for sensing & communications
    2. Non-line-of-sight and degraded-environment imaging
    3. Digital-holographic detection and direct-detection phase retrieval
    4. Computational and compressed imaging and sensing

All submissions need to present original, previously unpublished work and will be subject to the normal standards and peer review processes of the journal. The standard Applied Optics Article Publication Charges will apply to all published articles. To be eligible for publication, an expanded conference paper needs to add value to the original conference proceedings and the conference paper number must be included in the cover letter at submission. Please see Optica Publishing Group's guidelines on expanded conference papers for details.

Please prepare manuscripts according to the author instructions for submission to Applied Optics and submit through our electronic submission system, specifying from the drop-down menu that the manuscript is for the feature issue on Applications of Lasers for Sensing and Free Space Communications.

Feature Editors

Mark Spencer, Air Force Research Laboratory, USA (Lead Editor)

Santasri Bose-Pillai, Air Force Institute of Technology, USA

Alex Fuerbach, Macquarie University, Australia

Miranda van Iersel, University of Dayton, USA

Nicolas Riviere, Office Natl d'Etudes Rech Aerospatiales, France

Italo Toselli, Fraunhofer IOSB, Germany

Edward Watson, Vista Applied Optics, LLC, USA