Image of the Week
Striking images of optics and photonics, contributed by OPN readers
Butterfly Wings
Butterfly wings: In a dark room with no external source of light, a beam of light through a pinhole creates the illusion of a butterfly. Using multicolored LEDs results in a beautiful shape.[OPN 2024 Photo Contest]
—Sritam Kumar Sethy, M.pharma Student, Balasore, Odisha, India
28 Mar 2025
TV Digital Noise
Digital television noise caused by heavy fog and rain interfering with over-the-air transmission produces a colorful mosaic.
—Robert Schalck, Senior Member (Emeritus), North Bend, OR, USA
21 Mar 2025
Light Through a Lens
Light refracting at slightly different angles through a lens separates white light into its component colors, creating a rainbow effect on a pair of glasses.
—Edgar Guevara, CONAHCYT-UASLP, San Luis Potosi, Mexico
14 Mar 2025
Spectral Flame
A CD has the effect of a diffraction grating on candlelight, separating its constituent colors.
—Adriana Pedrosa Biscaia Tufaile, Soft Matter Lab, EACH, University of São Paulo City, São Paulo, Brazil
07 Mar 2025
Jets of Light
Multiple transmitted and reflected rays with different wavelengths are observed from a polycarbonate plate with selective semiconductor deposition under white light illumination.
—Emiliano Hernández Figueroa and Argelia Balbuena Ortega, Lab. ÓpERA, Instituto de Energías Renovables de la UNAM, Temixco, Mexico
28 Feb 2025
Random Caustics
Random caustics produced by grazing sunlight illuminating dew drops lying on a balcony railing, as seen through the frosted glass of a window.
— Andrea Aiello, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen, Germany
21 Feb 2025
Salt Crystal Fluorescence
Fluorescence from potassium chloride and magnesium chloride crystals as Alexa 488 dye dries on a coverslip, shown in pseudocolor. [OPN 2024 Photo Contest Honorable Mention]
—Siddharth Rawat, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, Australia
14 Feb 2025
Golden Projection
A forgotten glass of ginger juice solves a geometrical problem. Ginger sediment has dried and cracked; illuminated from the bottom, the crack pattern is projected on the curved glass walls, forming swirly motifs.[OPN 2024 Photo Contest Honorable Mention]
—Sofia Magkiriadou, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
07 Feb 2025
Pseudo Schwarzschild-Radius
Two superimposed images of a randomly oscillating color-illuminated string, which were then subjected to rotations and polar coordinate transformations.[OPN 2024 Photo Contest Winner]
—Dan Curticapean, Offenburg University, Offenburg, Germany
31 Jan 2025
Scatterguiding
Light can propagate as a true waveguiding mode through diffusive materials, such as fog, tissue and resin (pictured). This is analogous to optical fibers, except the mechanism is diffusion using a contrast of scattering parameters to create localization. [OPN 2024 Photo Contest Third Place Tie]
—Kevin J. Mitchell, University of Glasgow, UK
24 Jan 2025
