Related papers: Why optics needs thickness
Similar to algorithms, which consume time and memory to run, hardware requires resources to function. For devices processing physical waves, implementing operations needs sufficient "space," as dictated by wave physics. How much space is…
Metasurfaces provide a compact, flexible, and reliable solution for controlling the wavefront of light. In imaging systems, micro-lens arrays are integrated with pixel matrices to reduce optical crosstalk, enhance photon collection…
Diffraction is a fundamental property of light propagation. Owing to this phenomenon,light diffracts out in all directions when it passes through a subwavelength slit.This imposes a fundamental limit on the transverse size of a light beam…
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…
Optical imaging relies on the ability to illuminate an object, collect and analyze the light it scatters or transmits. Propagation through complex media such as biological tissues was so far believed to degrade the attainable depth as well…
Two approaches (micro- and macro- investigations) are used to determine the dimension dependences of the optical parameters of the nanometer-scale layers of materials. It is shown that both an index of refraction and coefficient of…
Optical metamaterials have the potential to control the flow of light at will which may lead to spectacular applications as the perfect lens or the cloaking device. Both of these optical elements require invariant effective material…
In electromagnetics and photonics, "nonlocality" refers to the phenomenon by which the response/output of a material or system at a certain point in space depends on the input field across an extended region of space. While nonlocal effects…
Metamaterials are beginning to transform optics and microwave technology thanks to their versatile properties that, in many cases, can be tailored according to practical needs and desires. Although metamaterials are surely not the answer to…
We propose an approach to far-field optical imaging beyond the diffraction limit. The proposed system allows image magnification, is robust with respect to material losses and can be fabricated by adapting existing metamaterial technologies…
Pixel size in cameras and other refractive imaging devices is typically limited by the free-space diffraction. However, a vast majority of semiconductor-based detectors are based on materials with substantially high refractive index. We…
Diffraction limits the behaviour of light in optical systems and sets the smallest achievable line width at half the wavelength. With a novel subwavelength plasmonic lens to reduce the diffraction via an asymmetry and to generate and…
Based on diffraction theory and the propagation of the light, Fourier optics is a powerful tool allowing the estimation of a visible-range imaging system to transfer the spatial frequency components of an object. The analyses of the imaging…
For more than a century and a half it has been widely-believed (but was never rigorously shown) that the physics of diffraction imposes certain fundamental limits on the resolution of an optical system. However our understanding of what…
The human eye appears to be using a low number of sensors for image capturing. Furthermore, regarding the physical dimensions of cones-photoreceptors responsible for the sharp central vision-, we may realize that these sensors are of a…
The integration of nanoscale electronics with conventional optical devices is restricted by the diffraction limit of light. Metals can confine light at the subwavelength scales needed, but they are lossy, while dielectric materials do not…
Our visual perception of our surroundings is ultimately limited by the diffraction limit, which stipulates that optical information smaller than roughly half the illumination wavelength is not retrievable. Over the past decades, many…
Flat optics have been proposed as an attractive approach for the implementation of new imaging and sensing modalities to replace and augment refractive optics. However, chromatic aberrations impose fundamental limitations on diffractive…
Perfect lensing using negative refractive index materials and radiationless electromagnetic interference both provide extreme subwavelength focusing by "amplifying" evanescent wave components that are usually lost. This paper provides a…
The optical responses of solids are typically understood to be local in space. Whether locality holds for the optical response of a macroscopic quantum system has, however, been largely unexplored. Here, we use multidimensional coherent…