An absolute cryogenic radiometer (ACR) with a detachable optical window was designed and built for high accuracy optical radiant power measurement and photodetector spectral responsivity calibration. The ACR receiver is an electroplated pure copper cavity with a 50-μm-thick wall and inner surface coated with a specular black polymer material mixed with highly dispersible carbon nanotubes. The absorptivity of the cavity receivers was evaluated to be ≥0.9999 in the 250 nm–16 μm wavelength range and ≥0.99995 in 500 nm–16 μm. The cavity receiver works at the temperature of ～5.2 K with nanowatt-level noise-equivalent power. The relative standard uncertainty is 0.041% for the measurement of ～100 μW optical radiant power (250 nm–16 μm) and 0.015% for ～1 mW (500 nm–16 μm).

We report a method for simultaneously and directly measuring all six-degrees-of-freedom (six-DOF) motion errors of a rotary axis. Such a method combines the principles of laser interferometry and laser collimation measurement. One reference rotary axis and two retro-reflectors are used to achieve simultaneous sensitivity to all six errors in a full-circle measuring range. As no separation models are required, our method is capable of dynamically measuring these errors in real time and conveniently determining the origin of the errors. An automatic measuring device is built. The effectiveness of our method is experimentally demonstrated.

We propose a passive compensation fiber-optic radio frequency (RF) transfer scheme with a nonsynchronized RF stable source during a round-trip time, which can avoid high-precision phase-locking and efficiently suppress the effect of backscattering only using two wavelengths at the same time. A stable frequency signal is directly reproduced by frequency mixing at the remote site. The proposed scheme is validated by the experiment over a 40 km single mode fiber spool using nonsynchronized common commercial RF sources. The influence of the stability of nonsynchronized RF sources on the frequency transfer is investigated over different length fiber links.

We demonstrate a new synchronization method for the White Rabbit system. Signals are transmitted in a single mode fiber in both directions with the same light wavelength. Without the complex calibration process of the fiber asymmetry parameter, the new method reduces the effect of chromatic dispersion and improves the synchronization accuracy. The experiment achieves timing synchronization accuracy below 200 ps over 50 km fiber constructed by different companies’ fiber spools. The proposed method would make White Rabbit technology immune to the chromatic dispersion of fiber links and can be applied to long distance synchronization.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a universal and blind polarization-state tracking scheme for M-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signals based on a decision-free radius-directed linear Kalman filter (RD-LKF). The polarization tracking performance is investigated through simulation and experiments for both quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) and 16-QAM signals. The influence of the filter parameters on the static polarization demultiplexing performance and dynamic tracking capability are discussed via simulation. The optimization strategy of the filter parameters in modulation-format-independent scenarios is proposed and simulations are carried out to evaluate the polarization demultiplexing penalty for QPSK, 16QAM, and hybrid QPSK/16QAM signals. Finally, the proposed decision-free RD-LKF is experimentally compared to the respective algorithms of constant modulus algorithm and multimodulus algorithm for QPSK and 16-QAM and the advantage of ultrafast polarization tracking ability is confirmed.

We introduce a novel calibration optical path of the cryogenic radiometer, which can avoid the repeated dismounting measurement and eliminate the negative influence of Brewster window effect on calibration result. The novel calibration optical path is used to calibrate the absolute spectral responsivity of the standard transfer detector at 633 nm, the results of which are compared with the ones of the previous structure. It is shown that comparing the previous results to the structure optimization, the measurement uncertainty of laser power reduces by a factor of 2, the measurement uncertainty on the absolute spectral responsivity of the transfer detector decreases by 15%, and the consistence of the calibration on absolute spectral responsivity is 4.0×10 3. The experiment result proves that the novel calibration optical path of cryogenic radiometer can effectively reduce the calibration uncertainty against standard detector and improve the accuracy of calibration.

We demonstrate a new fiber-based radio frequency (RF) dissemination scheme suitable for a star-shaped branching network. Without any phase controls on the RF signals or the use of active feedback-locking components, the highly stable reference frequency signal can be delivered to several remote sites simultaneously and independently. The relative frequency stabilities of 6×10 15/s and 7×10 17/104 s are obtained for a 10 km dissemination. This low cost and scalable method can be applied to a large-scale frequency synchronization network.

A symmetrical heterodyne grating interferometer with both a short period and high signal-to-noise ratio is proposed. It possesses good immunity to environmental disturbances and can simultaneously achieve high resolution and stability. The experimental results show that the standard deviation of 24.67 nm can be realized for the long range of 10 mm. The measurement resolution of better than 2 nm is achieved with the theoretical resolution of 12 pm. Additionally, system stability at less than ±1.5 nm is obtained in just over 10 min. The measurement errors, including cosine error, nonlinear error and non-common path error, are discussed as well.