Related papers: Advanced Optics with Laser Pointer and Metersticks
Sensitive measurements of the linearly polarized spectra of stars can be used to deduce geometric properties of their otherwise unresolved circumstellar environments. This paper describes some of the evidence for optical pumping and…
Adaptive Optics is a prime example of how progress in observational astronomy can be driven by technological developments. At many observatories it is now considered to be part of a standard instrumentation suite, enabling ground-based…
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…
Nuclear instruments that require precise characterization and calibration of their optical components need well-characterized optical light sources with the desired wavelength, intensity, and directivity. This paper presents a novel…
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…
Motivated by the recognition that variation in the optical transmission of the atmosphere is probably the main limitation to the precision of ground-based CCD measurements of celestial fluxes, we review the physical processes that attenuate…
Modern optical spectrographs and optical interferometers push the limits in the spectral and spatial regime, providing important new tools for the exploration of the universe. In this contribution I outline the complementary nature of…
Commonly used wavefront sensors, the Shack Hartmann wavefront sensor and the pyramid wavefront sensor, for example, have large dynamic range or high sensitivity, trading one regime for the other. A new type of wavefront sensor is being…
We designed and built a new astronomical photo-polarimeter that can measure linear polarization simultaneously in three spectral bands. It has a Calcite beamdisplacement prism as the analyzer. The ordinary and extra-ordinary emerging beams…
Laser guide stars with adaptive optics allow astronomical image correction in the absence of a natural guide star. Single guide star systems with a star created in the earth's sodium layer can be used to correct the wavefront in the near…
Optical tweezers have been widely used for optical manipulation of various particles. At present, there are different type of optical tweezers. Among them, holographic optical tweezers have attracted growing attention as a powerful tools…
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…
Many areas of optical science require an accurate measurement of optical spectra. Devices based on laser speckle promise compact wavelength measurement, with attometer-level sensitivity demonstrated for single wavelength laser fields. The…
Delivering light to an object is one of the key steps in any imaging exercise. Tools such as LEDs and lasers are available to achieve this. These components are integrated into systems such as microscopy, medical imaging, remote sensing,…
Laser writing of materials is normally performed by the sequential scanning of a single focused beam across a sample. This process is time-consuming and it can severely limit the throughput of laser systems in key applications such as…
In this technical review we give an introduction to optical spectroscopy for layered materials as a powerful, non-invasive tool to access details of the electronic band structure and crystal quality. Potential applications in photonics and…
We present methods and results of the testing of an inexpensive home-made diffraction limited lens system, the design of which was proposed in a recent paper and which has since been used (with slight alterations) by several research…
Polarized light microscopy provides unique opportunities for analyzing the molecular order in man-made and natural materials, including biological structures inside living cells, tissues, and whole organisms. 20 years ago, the LC-PolScope…
Adaptive optics is a strategy to compensate for sample-induced aberrations in microscopy applications. Generally, it requires the presence of "guide stars" in the sample to serve as localized reference targets. We describe an implementation…
We introduce some new experiments where light diffraction is demonstrated with simple elements: white light diffraction with a coin, construction of a diffractive lens by holography, diffraction properties in digital discs and an…