Related papers: Fluidic Shaping of Freeform Optical Components
Current methods for fabricating lenses rely on mechanical processing of the lens or mold, such as grinding, machining, and polishing. The complexity of these fabrication processes and the required specialized equipment prohibit rapid…
Fluidic Shaping is a novel method for fabrication of optical components based on the equilibrium state of liquid volumes in neutral buoyancy, subjected to geometrical constraints. The underlying physics of this method is described by a…
As an important optical component, lens is widely used in scientific inquiry and production. At present, lens manufacturing mainly relies on grinding, polishing and other methods. However, these methods often require expensive equipment and…
Freeform optics aims to expand the toolkit of optical elements by allowing for more complex phase geometries beyond rotational symmetry. Complex, asymmetric curvatures are employed to enhance the performance of optical components while…
Limited access to corrective eyewear remains a significant medical, societal, and economic challenge, even in the 21st century. More than 1 billion people suffer from uncorrected vision impairment, with the vast majority residing in…
Hybrid photonic integration exploits complementary strengths of different material platforms, thereby offering superior performance and design flexibility in comparison to monolithic approaches. This applies in particular to multi-chip…
In-space manufacturing technologies are vital for enabling advanced space missions and addressing logistical limitations of space exploration. While additive manufacturing has progressed rapidly, it still falls short of delivering the…
The conventional manufacturing of ophthalmic lenses is an inefficient subtractive process where up to 97% of the material is discarded through grinding, polishing, and edging. Fluidic Shaping has emerged as a powerful alternative, utilizing…
Reflective imaging systems form an important part of photonic devices such as spectrometers, telescopes, augmented and virtual reality headsets or lithography platforms. Reflective optics provide unparalleled spectral performance and can be…
Large-scale microfluidic microsystems with complex three-dimensional (3D) configurations are highly in demand by both fundamental research and industrial application, holding the potentials for fostering a wide range of innovative…
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.…
Fourier optics, the principle of using Fourier Transformation to understand the functionalities of optical elements, lies at the heart of modern optics, and has been widely applied to optical information processing, imaging, holography etc.…
Manipulating the shape of a liquid droplet is essential for a wide range of applications in medicine and industry. However, existing methods are typically limited to generating simple shapes, such as ellipses, or rely on predefined…
Prototype optical microscopes, built to pursue developments in advanced imaging techniques, need specific optomechanical constructions: preferably with high flexibility in the elements arrangement, easy access to the optical paths,…
Optofluidic devices have revolutionized the manipulation and transportation of fluid at smaller length scales ranging from micrometers to millimeters. We describe a dedicated optical setup for studying laser-induced cavitation inside a…
Fiber-integrated micro-optical elements promise a scalable approach to photon collection and beam shaping for quantum information processing. Here, we demonstrate single-step fabrication of micro-spherical, micro-spiral, and micro-axicon…
Droplets at the air-liquid interface of immiscible liquids usually form partially-submerged lens shapes (e.g. water on oil). In addition to this structure, we showed that droplets released from critical heights above the target liquid can…
Curved and conformal optics offer significant advantages by unlocking additional geometric degrees of freedom for optical design. These capabilities enable enhanced optical performance and are essential for meeting non-optical constraints,…
There has been substantial interest in miniaturizing optical systems by flat optics. However, one essential optical component, free space, fundamentally cannot be substituted with conventional local flat optics with space-dependent transfer…
Illumination is the deliberate utilization of light to realize practical or aesthetic effects. The designers combine with the environmental considerations, energy-saving goals, and technology advances with fundamental physics to develop…