Laser retina imaging technology enables creation of a clear picture in any retina area. It is focus-free, i.e. irrelevant of refractive disorder. So in many cases of low vision, one can see the picture by one's own eyesight. In this article we describe possible applications of this emerging technology, including 1. Development of eyesight-aid for low vision, an HMD (headmounted display) on which this technology is implemented, 2. Creating a vision sensitive area map of retina, a novel notion, precisely. Especially this may innovate perimetry technologies in ophthalmology important in finding disorders in vision. We list up requirements for the eyesight-aid, including a compensation of partial visual field loss. Finally we indicate that part of our requirements is feasible by presenting our preliminary experiments. Indeed, we show that it is possible to detect a pictogram (“Exit”) and pedestrian boundaries on the road-side both in the view by existing pattern recognition programs (SURF method).

This paper reviews the recent progress of quantum-dot semiconductor optical amplifiers developed as ultrawideband polarization-insensitive high-power amplifiers, high-speed signal regenerators, and wideband wavelength converters. A semiconductor optical amplifier having a gain of > 25 dB, noise figure of20 dBm, over the record widest bandwidth of 90 nm among all kinds of optical amplifiers, and also having a penalty-free output power of 23 dBm, the record highest among all the semiconductor optical amplifiers, was realized by using quantum dots. By utilizing isotropically shaped quantum dots, the TM gain, which is absent in the standard Stranski-Krastanow QDs, has been drastically enhanced, and nearly polarization-insensitive SOAs have been realized for the first time. With an ultrafast gain response unique to quantum dots, an optical regenerator having receiver-sensitivity improving capability of 4 dB at a BER of 10-9and operating speed of > 40 Gb/s has been successfully realized with an SOA chip. This performance achieved together with simplicity of structure suggests a potential for low-cost realization of regenerative transmission systems.