Abstract: This invention relates to a continuously wavelength tunable monomode laser source with external cavity comprising a resonant cavity having a reflecting plane face, means for extracting a portion of the luminous flux and a retroreflecting dispersive device, an amplifier wave guide located inside the resonant cavity, means for controlling the retroreflecting dispersive device providing continuous tunability.

Abstract: Laser source comprising a first active arm extending from a first end reflector up to a dispersing system grid and containing an amplifier medium that produces a first luminous beam. A second passive arm extends from the grid to a second end reflector, the grid generating a second beam by diffraction of the first beam, wherein the second end reflector closes the second passive arm and is partially reflecting to enable extraction of a luminous flux. An optical component produces, from the second beam, a third beam translated and antiparallel, to return to the grid which, by diffraction, forms a fourth beam translated and antiparallel to the first beam.

Abstract: A partially reflecting optical component (11) generating, from an incident beam (12), two secondary beams, one of them being reflected (13), the other one being transmitted (14). According to the invention, it comprises a first wholly reflecting planar face (15) and a second partially reflecting planar face (16), the second face being perpendicular to the first one, a third wholly reflecting planar face (17), the first and third faces being in the same plane, this component providing the unidimensional auto-alignment of the reflected beam (13) with the incident beam (12), the respectively transmitted and reflected beams being each formed with two half-beams having matching wave fronts. The invention also relates to an external cavity laser source comprising such a component as a unidimensional auto-aligned reflector.

Abstract: Multiwavelength laser source transmitting a luminous flux including as many amplifier wave-guides as potential transmission wavelengths, a collimation optic system for collimating the beams transmitted by the wave-guides, a network and a retroreflector making up the network, a dispersive retroreflecting device that defines with each wave-guide, an external resonating cavity, whereas each wave-guide has an inner face and an outer face with respect to its associated cavity. A Fabry-Perot interferometer with reduced fine adjustment is placed in the cavity between the collimation optic system and the network, whereby the interferometer is tilted with respect to the axis of the cavity and forms a little selective filter, whose variation law of the wavelength transmitted in relation to the angle of incidence is identical with that of the dispersive retroreflecting device.

Abstract: The invention relates to an external cavity, continuously tunable monomode laser source, comprising, in a resonant cavity, resonating at the emission wavelength &lgr;e, a retroreflecting wavelength dispersing device, arranged to produce a selectivity curve with a peak 80 s. According to the invention, additional fine-control means, enable, from the approximate continuous tunability position, to monitor the deviation &lgr;e-&lgr;s during the variation of the emission wavelength ke while preventing this deviation from reaching one of the limits causing mode hopping. Such a configuration enables to avoid imperfections usually associated with mechanical adjustment and to guarantee continuity of the wavelength variation and to compensate for the latter as long as its fluctuations remain smaller than approx. &Dgr;&lgr;e/2 where &Dgr;&lgr;e is the distance between two successive resonance modes of the cavity.

Abstract: This invention relates to a singlemode laser source tunable in wavelength with a self-aligned external cavity, comprising: a resonant cavity having an output face that is partially reflecting (331) and a retroreflecting dispersive device (31, 39), defining a main collimating axis (351) and a secondary collimating axis (381), an amplifier wave guide (33) placed in position inside the resonant cavity. The retroreflecting dispersive device comprises a plane diffraction grating (31) having dispersion planes and an orthogonal reflecting dihedral (39) whose line of intersection (391) is parallel to the dispersion plane of the diffraction grating containing the collimating axes (351, 352).

Abstract: This invention relates to a singlemode laser source tunable in wavelength with a self-aligned external cavity, comprising: a resonant cavity having an output face that is partially reflecting (331) and a retroreflecting dispersive device (31, 39), defining a main collimating axis (351) and a secondary collimating axis (381), an amplifier wave guide (33) placed in position inside the resonant cavity. The retroreflecting dispersive device comprises a plane diffraction grating (31) having dispersion planes and an orthogonal reflecting dihedral (39) whose line of intersection (391)is parallel to the dispersion plane of the diffraction grating containing the collimating axes (351, 352).

Abstract: An apparatus for controlling methane fermentation of organic materials including a main fermentor, sensors associated with the main fermentor for measuring physical-chemical measurements of organic material in the main fermentor, a computer for processing the measurements by using a fermentation model. An additional computer transforms the data of fermentation model into data which affects the operation of the main fermentor. A device is also provided to enable small-scale experimentation in order to adjust the characteristic parameters of the fermentation model incorporated in the computer. The installation allows to maintain the fermentor in optimum biological conditions with a minimum of measurements.

Abstract: A measuring device comprises a light source with a wide spectrum feeding an optical sensor through an optical fiber. The sensor comprises an interferometer adjusted to a dull tint and an optical component sensitive to a measured parameter, which may be either a pressure, a measured displacement or an index of refraction of a fluid, a readout device includes the photodetector, a processing unit and an optical wedge for producing fringes, whose lateral positions, in contrast, are representative of the spectrum of the flux leaving the interferometer and analyzed by the photodetector. The processing unit measures the lateral position of the fringe and converts it into a value of the parameter P.

Abstract: A method of positioning an object relative to a plane, and apparatus therefor. According to the method, the plane is swept by the axis of a light-beam between a source assembly and a detection assembly, and the object is translated approximately perpendicularly to the plane, the detection assembly emitting a signal representative of the light received and therefore, the position of the object relative to the plane. The signal emitted by the detection assembly is measured as a function of time, the translation of the object being halted when the signal has a particular form. The particular form of the signal corresponds to the position of the object in which the shoulder masks a predetermined fixed part of the light-beam during part of its sweep.

Abstract: A measuring method and device are provided based on the analysis of a channelled light spectrum, particularly for measuring a low amplitude movement of a mobile surface, possibly representative of the variation of a physical magnitude convertible into such a movement.

Abstract: The discriminating device comprises an optical coupler (4) having at least three ends (5 to 8) to which are connected a semiconductor source of light (1) whose intensity is modulated, a semiconductor photoconductor (2) and an optical probe constituted by a multi-mode optical fibre (3) whose end has a pointed shape. This discriminating device is in particular applicable in a device for measuring the voluminal fraction of at least one fluid of a current of non-mixible fluids.

Abstract: A method of coiling an optical fiber gyroscope and an optical fiber coil thus obtained, which method consists in coiling, on a cylindrical support comprising a central channel, a first layer for forming a helical optical fiber winding with constant pitch, passing the optical fiber through the central channel in the form of a single turn and coiling additional layers, in the same direction as the first layer, using the interturn spaces of the underlying layers.

Abstract: The device for measuring a nonreciprocal phase shift involves phase modulation of countercirculating waves in a closed-loop interferometer by means of a reciprocal-effect phase modulator. The modulating signal is a periodic signal having a period 2t.sub.o, where t.sub.o is the transit time of an electromagnetic wave in the closed loop. A digital phase ramp generated in the form of a stair-step signal is combined with the phase-modulating signals and applied as feedback. In an additional embodiment, control circuits are provided for correcting the modulation scale factor.

Abstract: The invention relates to the interferometric detection of reciprocal and non-reciprocal effects affecting the propagation of optical radiation in a two-armed interferometer. The invention relates to a two-armed interferometer terminating by a photorefractive medium used as an interactive reflector according to the four-wave interferometer principle.The invention particularly applies to the measurement of physical quantities such as displacement, linear velocity, angular velocity, magnetic field, pressure and temperature.

Abstract: The invention provides a process for forming a fiber keeping a circular polarization and a device for implementing this process.This process consists, during drawing and twisting of the fiber from a formable material source, in remelting on the surface a part of the volume of said fiber in a zone where it is subjected to twisting stresses.

Abstract: A heating device including a carbon dioxide laser beam directed towards a spherical mirror and then directed from an ellipsoidal mirror so as to concentrate the energy of said laser on a surface ring of a threadlike object.

Abstract: The invention relates to electro-optical media which make it possible to record holograms in real time. It consists in using a lamina of a selected material such as bismuth-silicon oxide, this lamina being subjected to a transverse electric field perpendicular to the fringes of the hologram to be inscribed, and in illuminating this lamina with a light beam which is not coherent with the two object and reference beams which interfere within this lamina.

Abstract: The invention relates to a monomodal optical fibre hydrophone operating by elastooptical effect, which has an interferometer structure comprising a measuring arm, in which is arranged a very long monomodal optical fibre immersed in the interaction medium in which propagates the soundwave. A phase displacement is induced by an elastooptical effect on the soundwave propagating in the fibre, by a soundwave producing an acoustic pressure field in said medium. A reference arm establishes a reference optical path and the phase displacement, linked with the sound wave, is detected by interferometry between the two optical waves coming from these two arms. This two-armed interferometer is terminated by a photorefractive medium used as an interactive reflector in accordance with the four-wave interferometry principle.

Abstract: The invention relates to a process making it possible to produce a drawn object having a chiralic structure. This production process consists of subjecting the object to torsion during its drawing and simultaneously to hardening making it possible to fix part of the thus obtained torsional stresses in the structure.