High Amplification Laser Pressure Optic

The High Amplification Laser pressure Optic (HALO) was developed by NIST to measure kilo-watts of laser power with best-in-class accuracy. Here, optical power is determined by measuring the force a laser beam exerts when it is reflected by the HALO’s central mirror. Thirteen smaller mirrors redirect the beam towards the central mirror, multiplying the force and reducing the measurement uncertainty. This image was captured with a green HeNe laser, traced out with a white card to show the beam path. [Second Place OPN 2020 Photo Contest]

—Aly Artusio-Glimpse, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, USA

01 Dec 2020

Light Illumination

A set of 5 X-cubes, illuminated by the white light from a phone torch. Whilst typically used for splitting collimated light into RGB components, combining multiple cubes and a diverging source results in a spectrum of colors. [Third Place (Tie) OPN 2020 Photo Contest]

—Kevin J. Mitchell, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

01 Dec 2020

Freeform Hologram

The image shows a freeform hologram directly 3D printed onto the tip of a single-mode optical fiber (Optica 7, 1279 (2020)). The freeform hologram displays the logo ‘OSA The Optical Society,’ independent of distance into the far field. The illumination wavelength is 520 nm. [Third Place (Tie) OPN 2020 Photo Contest]

—Claudia Imiolczyk, Moritz Floess, Simon Thiele and Harald Giessen, University of Stuttgart, Germany

01 Dec 2020

Bright Speckles

Bright speckles intercepted on a piece of white paper after an azimuthally polarized femtosecond laser beam is focused into a glass slide, and captured by an iPhone 6. The demonstration shows the existence of laser-induced breakdown in glass. [Honorable Mention OPN 2020 Photo Contest] 

—Zhijun Xu, College of Science, Zhejiang University of Technology, Zhejiang, China

01 Dec 2020

Conformally Coated Brochosomes

Scanning electron microscopy image of brochosomes conformally coated with 10 nm of iridium by atomic layer deposition. Brochosomes are formed by insects to protect their wings from dirt and dust. These structures are only about 500 nm in diameter, very uniform, and complex. [Honorable Mention OPN 2020 Photo Contest] 

—Paul Schmitt, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Institute of Applied Physics IAP, Jena, Germany

01 Dec 2020

Nonlinear Optics Beauty

This false-color image of a blue lace agate mineral sample, taken on a multiphoton microscope, highlights how beautiful nonlinear optics can be. The red color is from second-harmonic generation in the quartz mixed into this sample. The green color is from third-harmonic generation, which highlights the banded regions that give agate its characteristic appearance. [Honorable Mention OPN 2020 Photo Contest] 

—Benjamin M. Cromey, Ball Aerospace, Boulder, CO, USA

01 Dec 2020

Floating Water Bridge

When a high voltage is applied between two beakers filled with deionized water, a stable water thread known as a ‘floating water bridge’ can form between them. In this photograph, we activate the water bridge as an optical fiber by launching 770-nm laser light through the tapered fiber coupler on the right and collecting the light on the other side with a fiber lens coupler. The scattering is caused by capillary vibrations of the fiber. [Honorable Mention OPN 2020 Photo Contest] 

—Mark Douvidzon, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

01 Dec 2020

Butterfly Wings

Butterfly wings—a single snapshot taken with a gigapixel microscope. [OPN 2020 Photo Contest Editors’ Choice] 

—Ramona Optics, USA

01 Dec 2020

Spherical Reflection

Reflection imaging from spherical ball mirrors at San Francisco International airport. The complete E13 gate hall can be viewed. If you zoom the image, you can find me taking the image.

—Ignacio Moren, Universidad Miguel Hernandez de Elche, Spain

01 Dec 2020