Physics Associate Professor Michael Chini is part of the UCF team that created the world’s first optical oscilloscope.

UCF Develops the World’s First Optical Oscilloscope

By: Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala on

A team from UCF has developed the world’s first optical oscilloscope, an instrument that is able to measure the electric field of light. The device converts light oscillations into electrical signals, much like hospital monitors convert a patient’s heartbeat into electrical oscillation.

Until now, reading the electric field of light has been a challenge because of the high speeds at which light waves oscillates. The most advanced techniques, which power our phone and internet communications, can currently clock electric fields at up to gigahertz frequencies — covering the radio frequency and microwave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Light waves oscillate at much higher rates, allowing a higher density of information to be transmitted. However, the current tools for measuring light fields could resolve only an average signal associated with a ‘pulse’ of light, and not the peaks and valleys within the pulse. Measuring those peaks and valleys within a single pulse is important because it is in that space that information can be packed and delivered.

“Fiber optic communications have taken advantage of light to make things faster, but we are still functionally limited by the speed of the oscilloscope,” says Physics Associate Professor Michael Chini, who worked on the research at UCF. “Our optical oscilloscope may be able to increase that speed by a factor of about 10,000.”

The team’s findings are published in this week’s Nature Photonics journal.

The team developed the device and demonstrated its capability for real-time measurement of the electric fields of individual laser pulses in Chini’s lab at UCF. The next step for the team is to see how far they can push the speed limits of the technique.

The lead author of the paper is UCF postdoctoral scholar Yangyang Liu. Other authors include physics alums Jonathan Nesper ’19 ’21MS, who earned his bachelor’s in math and master’s in physics;  Shima Gholam-Mirzaei ’18MS ’20PhD; and John E. Beetar ’15 ’17MS ’20PhD.

Gholam-Mirzaei is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Joint Attosecond Science Laboratory at the National Research Council of Canada and University of Ottawa and Beetar is completing a postdoc at the University of California at Berkeley.

Chini had the idea for the single-shot waveform measurement scheme and oversaw the research team. Liu led the experimental effort and performed most of the measurements and simulations. Beetar assisted with the measurements of the carrier-envelope phase dependence. Nesper and Gholam-Mirzaei assisted with the construction of the experimental setup and with the data collection. All authors contributed to the data analysis and wrote the journal article.

Share This Article

Featured Content image

Explore UCF’s Top Graduate Programs at the Annual Grad Fair

Pursuing graduate study is one of the most significant decisions a person will make in shaping their life. Whether you want to become an expert in your field, advance further...

Read More

Featured Content image

New DOD-funded Project Will Develop Morphing Hypersonic Engine

A new Naval Research Laboratory-funded project led by a UCF researcher will work to create a morphing hypersonic engine for ultra-fast travel, building on UCF’s already leading-edge developing hypersonic propulsion....

Read More

Featured Content image

UCF’s 3 NSF CAREER Awardees Lead Advancements in Heart Health, Solar Energy and Wireless Communication

UCF College of Engineering and Computer Science assistant professors Kenle Chen, Zhaomiao (Walter) Guo, and Luigi Perotti have been named 2023 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award winners. The combined award total...

Read More

Featured Content image

UCF Sea Turtle Research Highlighted for 50th Anniversary of the Endangered Species Act

UCF sea turtle research was recently highlighted for the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) with a visit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and National...

Read More