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The diffractive nature of light has limited optics and photonics to operate at scales much larger than the wavelength of light. The major challenge in scaling-down integrated photonics is how to mold the light flow below diffraction-limit…
The Abbe diffraction limit, tied to the fundamental spatial bandwidth constraint imposed by any physical aperture, remains the primary barrier to achieving ultimate far-field optical resolution and precise light-matter interactions.…
Optical supercontinuum radiation, a special kind of white light, has found numerous applications in scientific research and technology. This bright, broadband radiation can be generated from nearly monochromatic light through the…
Optical tweezers have become essential tools to manipulate atoms or molecules at a single particle level. However, using standard diffracted-limited optical systems, the transverse size of the trap is lower bounded by the optical…
In a previous article we suggested a method to overcome the diffraction limit behind a telescope. We refer to theory and recent numerical simulations, and test whether it is indeed possible to use photon amplification to enhance the angular…
The presence of a scattering medium in the imaging path between an object and an observer is known to severely limit the visual acuity of the imaging system. We present an approach to circumvent the deleterious effects of scattering, by…
We experimentally demonstrate that a new nanolens of designed plasmonic subwavelength aperture can focus light to a single-line with its width beyond the diffraction limit that sets the smallest achievable line width at half the wavelength.…
The major cornerstone of future ground-based astronomy is imaging and spectroscopy at the diffraction limit using adaptive optics. To exploit the potential of current AO systems, we have begun a survey around bright stars to study…
High-quality optical resonant cavities require low optical loss, typically on the scale of parts per million. However, unintended micron-scale contaminants on the resonator mirrors that absorb the light circulating in the cavity can deform…
The resolution of optical imaging devices is ultimately limited by the diffraction of light. To circumvent this limit, modern super-resolution microscopy techniques employ active interaction with the object by exploiting its optical…
When subjected to monochromatic incident light a nanoparticle will emit light which then interferes with the incident beam. With sufficient contrast and sufficiently close to the particle this interference pattern may be recorded with a…
There has been significant interest in imaging and focusing schemes that use evanescent waves to beat the diffraction limit, such as those employing negative refractive index materials or hyperbolic metamaterials. The fundamental issue with…
Surface topography dictates the deterministic functionality of diffraction by a surface. In order to maximize the efficiency with which a diffractive optical component, such as a grating or a diffractive lens, directs light into a chosen…
It is a fundamental fact of waves that they spread as they evolve freely, regardless of their nature. Previous research to overcome diffraction spreading has led to idealized waves that, in real settings, exhibit quasi-non-diffraction and…
Optical tweezers enable non-contact trapping of micro-scale objects using light. Despite their widespread use, it is currently not known how tightly it is possible to three-dimensionally trap micro-particles with a given photon budget.…
Silicon sensors are the most diffuse position sensitive device in particle physics 8 experiments and in countless applications in science and technology. They had a spectacular progress in performance over almost 40 years since their first…
We show how energy flow lines answer the question about diffraction phenomena presented in 1818 by the French Academy: "deduce by mathematical induction, the movements of the rays during their crossing near the bodies". This provides a…
Adaptive optics (AO) has revolutionized imaging in {fields} from astronomy to microscopy by correcting optical aberrations. In label-free microscopes, however, conventional AO faces limitations due to the absence of guidestar and the need…
We report a simple, novel sub-diffraction method, i.e. diffraction interference induced super-focusing in second-harmonic (SH) Talbot effect, to achieve focusing size of less than {\lambda}_pump/8 without involving evanescent waves or…
A new far-field optical microscopy technique capable of reaching nanometer-scale resolution has been developed recently using the in-plane image magnification by surface plasmon polaritons. This microscopy is based on the optical properties…