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  • Spotlight Summary by Jane M. Simmons

    • Machine Learning for Network Automation: Overview, Architecture, and Applications [Invited Tutorial]
    • This tutorial is an excellent introduction to the major concepts and applications of machine learning (ML) in optical networks. It presents an overview of the three main ML approaches (supervised learning, unsupervised...
    • J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 10(10) D126-D143 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Information Acquisition, Processing, and Display

  • Spotlight Summary by Orges Furxhi

    • Joint digital-optical design of complex lenses using a surrogate image quality criterion adapted to commercial optical design software
    • Researchers at the Laboratoire Charles Fabry of the Institut d’Optique Graduate School and Thales demonstrate a joint digital-optical design of complex lenses for an imaging system with digital post-processing....
    • Appl. Opt. 57(30) 9005-9015 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Daniel Diaz and David W. Hahn

    • Single-shot nanosecond-resolution multiframe passive imaging by multiplexed structured image capture
    • High-speed optical imaging is an essential technology in many scientific, medical, and industrial fields. Particularly, laser-induced plasmas are transient phenomena of microseconds duration and inherent complexity that...
    • Opt. Express 26(22) 28441-28452 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Robert Magnusson

    • Optical spectrometer based on continuously-chirped guided mode resonance filter
    • By cleverly applying the guided-mode resonance (GMR) effect, Hung and colleagues demonstrate a compact spectrometer with excellent attributes. Using first a chirped resonant grating on a waveguide film with a fixed...
    • Opt. Express 26(21) 27515-27527 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by S. Mark Ammons

    • Determination of the optical turbulence parameters from the adaptive optics telemetry: critical analysis and on-sky validation
    • A long-standing challenge with astronomical Adaptive Optics systems is interpreting images that have been convolved with a time- and spatially-variant Point Spread Function (PSF), particularly for extragalactic...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(27) 7837-7856 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Angus Macleod

    • Finite aperture correction for spectral cameras with integrated thin-film Fabry–Perot filters
    • That filters dependent on interference effects show shifts with angle of incidence of the illumination has long been known and was even usefully employed more than a century ago by Pérot and Fabry. Later, in the 1950s...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(26) 7539-7549 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Achuta Kadambi

    • Eavesdropping of display devices by measurement of polarized reflected light
    • Imagine you could eavesdrop on someone's cell phone by looking at subtle reflections off a nearby wall. This creative paper from the University of Arizona shows how one can form non-line-of-sight reconstructions of...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(19) 5483-5491 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Iacopo Masi

    • Pixel-level alignment of facial images for high accuracy recognition using ensemble of patches
    • Face alignment is an essential task in computer vision and is of vital importance in face recognition. In this work, face registration makes a leap by transitioning from a simple eye-based alignment method to a dense,...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 35(7) 1149-1159 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Daniel Mittleman

    • Modeling of an active terahertz imaging system in brownout conditions
    • Brownout is the term used to describe the particulate cloud which can envelop a helicopter when it is landing in sandy terrain. Brownouts can create near-zero visibility during the last meters of descent. Typical radar...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(21) 6017-6026 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by James Churnside

    • Concept for maritime near-surface surveillance using water Raman scattering
    • This paper is based on the premise that an object in water can be detected using a lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) that images the absence of water within a volume. The lidar does this by detecting the Raman...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(17) 4858-4864 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by David Paganin

    • Constrained phase retrieval: when alternating projection meets regularization
    • Alternating-projection methods for phase retrieval take another step forward in this new paper by Shi and colleagues. This advance is achieved via a blending of the alternating-projection method for phase retrieval with...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 35(6) 1271-1281 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Ilya Shadrivov

    • Single-frequency 3D synthetic aperture imaging with dynamic metasurface antennas
    • One metamaterial emitter and one detector can replace 100 conventional antennas. Authors of this work have demonstrated that working at a single frequency and using specially designed metamaterial elements, they can...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(15) 4123-4134 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Bert A. Pasquale

    • Three-mirror anastigmat for cosmic microwave background observations
    • What happens when a microwave telescope meets modern optical design? The enabling of high-resolution wide-field radio astronomy surveys! A proposal has been put forth by Stephen Padin of the University of Chicago for a...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(9) 2314-2326 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Alain Simonin

    • Telescope-based cavity for negative ion beam neutralization in future fusion reactors
    • Beyond the ITER machine, the European fusion program aims at demonstrating the technological and commercial viability of a nuclear fusion reactor to produce clean electrical power safely (with high safety and...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(7) B122-B134 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Shakil Rehman

    • Surface plasmon microscopy by spatial light switching for label-free imaging with enhanced resolution
    • Improving resolution in a label-free imaging method is desirable in various fields. Surface plasmons have been used in the field of microscopy to visualize and characterize the underlying physical properties of cells...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(4) 959-962 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Nathan R. Gemmell

    • High-resolution depth profiling using a range-gated CMOS SPAD quanta image sensor
    • High-resolution, millimeter-precise depth imaging is in increasing demand, particularly for applications such as face and gesture recognition. Many recent breakthroughs in single-photon-based three-dimensional profiling...
    • Opt. Express 26(5) 5541-5557 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Filippo Miatto

    • Secure communications using nonlinear silicon photonic keys
    • One-Time-Pads are the absolute best way of doing encryption, at the expense of requiring a key exactly as long as the message. This makes it impossible to send the key securely, because we would have to go back to...
    • Opt. Express 26(4) 4710-4722 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Bernhard Schmauß

    • Large-volume, low-cost, high-precision FMCW tomography using stitched DFBs
    • Three-dimensional imaging is a topic in the field of optical sensing with ever-increasing interest and with enormous achievements during the past years. Most of the techniques are based on the measurement of distances...
    • Opt. Express 26(3) 2891-2904 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Ramzi Idoughi and Wolfgang Heidrich

    • Simultaneous imaging of flow and sound using high-speed parallel phase-shifting interferometry
    • The parallel phase-shifting interferometry (PPSI) technique has been employed as a powerful tool for measuring several dynamic phenomena. Particularly, this technique was used in aeroacoustics to measure either the flow...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(5) 991-994 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Jean-Baptiste Masson

    • Terahertz ptychography
    • Terahertz (THz) imaging is a challenging field, and in this paper Valzania et al. show that a popular method for X-ray crystallography, namely ptychography, can be an efficient imaging tool using THz radiation....
    • Opt. Lett. 43(3) 543-546 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Pavel Pořízka and David W. Hahn

    • Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for three-dimensional elemental mapping of composite materials synthesized by additive technologies
    • 3D multielemental mapping benefits from the full potential of the laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) technique. Obtained elemental maps provide alternative insight into the structure and composition of layered...
    • Appl. Opt. 56(35) 9698-9705 (2017) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Light–Matter Interactions

  • Spotlight Summary by David Powell

    • Strong magnetochiral dichroism in chiral/magnetic layered heterostructures
    • Faraday rotation and optical activity are two distinct phenomena which lead to different propagation velocities for the two circular polarizations of light. Faraday rotation is a non-reciprocal effect, dependent on the...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(23) 5741-5744 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Johann Toudert

    • Spectrally interleaved topologies using geometric phase metasurfaces
    • Two-dimensional assemblies of subwavelength nano-antennas, also called metasurfaces, enable an advanced manipulation of visible light on ultra-compact material platforms, as required for next-generation optical devices....
    • Opt. Express 26(23) 31031-31038 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Filippo Miatto

    • Informationally symmetrical Bell state preparation and measurement
    • Measuring photonic Bell states is a fundamental building block of many quantum communication and metrology protocols, as it certifies the presence of entanglement and it unleashes its power. However, Bell state...
    • Opt. Express 26(22) 29539-29549 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Julien Réhault

    • Waveguide-enhanced Raman spectroscopy of trace chemical warfare agent simulants
    • Tyndall et al. demonstrate low-level detection of chemical agents using waveguide-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (WERS). By using the TM00 mode of a thin silicon nitride waveguide, they decreased significantly...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(19) 4803-4806 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by James R. Taylor

    • Normal-dispersion fiber optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification
    • Ultrafast fiber lasers are increasingly finding wide application, particularly in industry. In order to overcome pulse energy limitations, because of nonlinearity, all-fiber chirped pulse amplification schemes have been...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(21) 5331-5334 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Johann Toudert

    • Toward a theoretically limited SPP propagation length above two hundred microns on an ultra-smooth silver surface [Invited]
    • Growing atomically smooth, single-crystalline silver thin films is of utmost importance to meet the high optical performance requirements of several applications. In particular, this is required to reduce undesired...
    • Opt. Mater. Express 8(11) 3254-3261 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Christos Grivas

    • Room temperature continuous-wave nanolaser diode utilized by ultrahigh-Q few-cell photonic crystal nanocavities
    • The demonstration of electrically-driven continuous wave (CW) laser operation at room temperature and at wavelengths lying in the third telecommunication band in few-cell point photonic crystal nanocavities may lead to...
    • Opt. Express 26(20) 26598-26617 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Brynmor Davis

    • Controlling optical field collapse by elliptical symmetry hybrid polarization structure
    • This article demonstrates how to control the behavior of one of the more interesting phenomena in high-power nonlinear optics. Optical filamentation is the collapse of a relatively large optical beam into thin tendrils...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 35(10) 2373-2381 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Daniel C. Cole

    • Raman self-frequency-shift of soliton crystal in a high index doped silica micro-ring resonator [Invited]
    • Unraveling the complexities of nonlinear dynamics in optical microresonators is an important step towards bringing the revolutionary frequency metrology and synthesis capabilities of optical frequency combs to the chip...
    • Opt. Mater. Express 8(9) 2662-2669 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Simone Lolli

    • Spectrally resolved thermal emission of atmospheric gases measured by laser heterodyne spectrometry
    • The matter constituting the universe continuously interacts with electromagnetic radiation; each molecule in thermal equilibrium with its environment emits a spectrum of electromagnetic radiation (the so-called...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(16) 3810-3813 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Roarke Horstmeyer

    • Field of view in monocentric multiscale cameras
    • Long before the age of the cell phone selfie, most images were recorded on film. And during these simpler times, the goal of the camera lens was straightforward—the lens had to form as perfect an image as possible...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(24) 6999-7005 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Dejan B. Milošević

    • Photoelectron holography and forward scattering in atomic ionization by elliptically polarized laser pulses
    • This work by H. Xie and co-authors opens a new dimension for probing both the structure of atoms and molecules and the dynamics of electron and ions on the attosecond time scale using photoelectron holography in...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(14) 3220-3223 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Filippo Miatto

    • On-chip quantum interference with heralded photons from two independent micro-ring resonator sources in silicon photonics
    • The big frontier in the future of integrated device engineering is "quantum" integrated circuits, which exploit entirely quantum effects to achieve much more powerful computation, metrology, and sensing than...
    • Opt. Express 26(16) 20379-20395 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by James R. Taylor

    • Optical phase control of coherent pulse stacking via modulated impulse response
    • The superior beam quality, high repetition rate, and high efficiency of fiber lasers, together with their competitive average power and short pulse capability, make them more attractive than their solid state free-space...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 35(9) 2081-2090 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by David R. Busch

    • Broadband time-resolved multi-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy system to monitor in vivo physiological changes of human brain activity
    • Lange, Peyrin, and Montcel present a system for quantitative functional measurement of the human brain with temporally and spectrally resolved light. Non-invasive functional near-infrared (fNIRS) optical measurement of...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(22) 6417-6429 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Ilya Shadrivov

    • Reconfigurable near-IR metasurface based on Ge2Sb2Te5 phase-change material
    • Tunable composite optical materials with tailored properties are highly sought after. The near-infrared and visible frequency ranges remain the most challenging for achieving strong and fast tunability. Authors of this...
    • Opt. Mater. Express 8(8) 2264-2275 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Michael Strain

    • Integrated waveguides and deterministically positioned nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond created by femtosecond laser writing
    • Robust coupling of nitrogen vacancy centers to integrated optical devices will be crucial for future scaling of on-chip quantum optical systems. In this work, the authors demonstrate the fabrication of type II optical...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(15) 3586-3589 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Stéphane Schilt

    • Downsampling of optical frequency combs
    • Downsampling of the repetition rate of optical frequency combs by pulse gating is reported in this paper as a powerful means to reduce the repetition rate and subsequently increase the pulse energy of a laser pulse...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 35(7) 1666-1673 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Johann Toudert

    • Theory of plasmon reflection by a 1D junction
    • The demonstration of terahertz plasmons with long propagation distance in graphene has opened a path to developing two-dimensional photonic circuits analogous to the electronic ones, yet driven at higher frequencies. To...
    • Opt. Express 26(13) 17209-17226 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Johann Toudert

    • Multiphase strontium molybdate thin films for plasmonic local heating applications
    • The coupling of light with surface plasmons enables subwavelength effects, such as near-field enhancement, localized optical absorption, and heat generation. These effects are promising for applications in various...
    • Opt. Mater. Express 8(7) 1806-1817 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Dmitry Morozov

    • Ultra-sensitive mid-infrared emission spectrometer with sub-ns temporal resolution
    • A multinational team of researchers from MPI (Germany) and NIST (USA) reports on the use of novel ultrafast single photon detectors in mid-infrared spectroscopy. This pioneering work opens new experimental possibilities...
    • Opt. Express 26(12) 14859-14868 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Periklis Petropoulos

    • Observation of subfemtosecond fluctuations of the pulse separation in a soliton molecule
    • Solitons have fascinated scientists in numerous fields of physics—including, for example, fluid dynamics and plasmas. In optics, a careful balance between the dispersive and nonlinear effects that take place in a...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(7) 1623-1626 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Guangyuan Li

    • Rogue waves under influence of Raman delay
    • Rogue waves, also known as killer waves and abnormal waves, have an exceptionally large amplitude and may appear from nowhere and disappear without a trace. These waves were first observed in the deep ocean and later in...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 35(4) 899-908 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Manuel Martínez-Corral

    • 360-degree large-scale multiprojection light-field 3D display system
    • The development of auto stereoscopic 3D imaging and display systems is a subject of great interest in a world that is progressing towards full interconnection. Among existing approaches, 3D light-field technology has...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(8) 1817-1823 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Filippo Miatto

    • Single phonon source based on a giant polariton nonlinear effect
    • Take a lattice, poke it at a regular frequency and it will start oscillating. Have you ever thought of how exactly its components are moving? If everything moves harmonically then the dynamics are not extremely...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(5) 1163-1166 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Jim Schwiegerling

    • Optical quality of hydrogel ophthalmic devices created with femtosecond laser induced refractive index modification
    • In the future, femtosecond lasers may be used to fine tune your eye’s prescription. Gandara-Montano et al. have demonstrated a technique in which pulses from a femtosecond laser are used to modify the refractive...
    • Opt. Mater. Express 8(2) 295-313 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Andrey Kuzmin

    • Tuning parametric processes in semiconductor diode lasers
    • Microscale optical parametric oscillators (MOPO) based on laser diode technology may have important practical applications, especially in quantum optics. The self-pumped Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion (SPDC)...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 35(3) 552-557 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Riccardo Borghi

    • Fully controllable adiabatic geometric phase in nonlinear optics
    • The wave nature of light is revealed whenever interference and diffraction phenomena take place. Such phenomena are related to the phases of the wavefields which, in the underlying superposition process, are combined in...
    • Opt. Express 26(4) 4920-4932 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by David Novoa

    • Phase-matched harmonic generation in gas-filled waveguides in the vicinity of a multiphoton resonance
    • Vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) light, the wavelength being ≲200 nm, is a powerful tool for modern molecular spectroscopy since the majority of outer electronic excitations of molecules lie in this spectral range. In...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 35(2) 468-480 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Adam Selyem

    • Radiation pressure on a two-level atom: an exact analytical approach
    • Since their invention in the 1980s, cold atom traps have become an exciting tool to study regimes of physics which were previously thought to be experimentally unrealizable, such as Bose-Einstein condensates. They are...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 35(1) 127-132 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Thomas Gerrits

    • Generation of highly pure Schrödinger’s cat states and real-time quadrature measurements via optical filtering
    • Asavanant et al. demonstrate the deterministic generation of high-purity coherent state superpositions (CSS) in time derived from a continuous wave (CW) squeezing source and photon subtraction. The authors refer to the...
    • Opt. Express 25(26) 32227-32242 (2017) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Optical Design and Instrumentation

  • Spotlight Summary by Peter Banzer

    • Demonstration of longitudinally polarized optical needles
    • Optical needles, i.e., laterally highly confined optical fields with ultra-high depth-of-field, are considered as promising tools in different optics disciplines, ranging from optical manipulation, trapping, and guiding...
    • Opt. Express 26(21) 27572-27584 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Julien Réhault

    • Waveguide-enhanced Raman spectroscopy of trace chemical warfare agent simulants
    • Tyndall et al. demonstrate low-level detection of chemical agents using waveguide-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (WERS). By using the TM00 mode of a thin silicon nitride waveguide, they decreased significantly...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(19) 4803-4806 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Shakil Rehman

    • Reference-free polarization-sensitive quantitative phase imaging using single-point optical phase conjugation
    • Innovations in holography are helping to develop new technologies and applications. Holography is used for quantitative assessment of amplitude and phase of an object, thereby providing a wealth of information, not just...
    • Opt. Express 26(21) 26858-26865 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Paul Steinvurzel

    • Design and fabrication of multiplexed volume Bragg gratings as angle amplifiers in high power beam scanning system
    • Chen et al. have demonstrated a multiplexed volume Bragg grating (VBG)-based angular amplifier for non-mechanical optical beam steering. Laser-based imaging technologies such as LIDAR require some means of continuously...
    • Opt. Express 26(19) 25336-25346 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Simone Lolli

    • Spectrally resolved thermal emission of atmospheric gases measured by laser heterodyne spectrometry
    • The matter constituting the universe continuously interacts with electromagnetic radiation; each molecule in thermal equilibrium with its environment emits a spectrum of electromagnetic radiation (the so-called...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(16) 3810-3813 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Roarke Horstmeyer

    • Field of view in monocentric multiscale cameras
    • Long before the age of the cell phone selfie, most images were recorded on film. And during these simpler times, the goal of the camera lens was straightforward—the lens had to form as perfect an image as possible...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(24) 6999-7005 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Paul Steinvurzel

    • Nanotrimer enhanced optical fiber tips implemented by electron beam lithography
    • Wang and co-authors use standard planar electron beam lithography techniques to fabricate plasmonic nanosensors on single mode optical fiber tips. Optical fibers are the most reliable and easiest-to-use platform...
    • Opt. Mater. Express 8(8) 2246-2255 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by David R. Busch

    • Broadband time-resolved multi-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy system to monitor in vivo physiological changes of human brain activity
    • Lange, Peyrin, and Montcel present a system for quantitative functional measurement of the human brain with temporally and spectrally resolved light. Non-invasive functional near-infrared (fNIRS) optical measurement of...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(22) 6417-6429 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Fabian Duerr

    • Beam shaping with a plano-freeform lens pair
    • Tailored freeform lens pairs can offer unprecedented flexibility and performance for laser beam shaping systems. It has been known for some time how a pair of plano-aspheric lenses can be designed to transform a...
    • Opt. Express 26(15) 19406-19419 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Dmitry Morozov

    • Ultra-sensitive mid-infrared emission spectrometer with sub-ns temporal resolution
    • A multinational team of researchers from MPI (Germany) and NIST (USA) reports on the use of novel ultrafast single photon detectors in mid-infrared spectroscopy. This pioneering work opens new experimental possibilities...
    • Opt. Express 26(12) 14859-14868 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Francesco Morichetti

    • All-silicon-based nano-antennas for wavelength and polarization demultiplexing
    • Antennas can radiate and detect electromagnetic waves along well-defined directions. This is something everyone probably knows very well. Yet, far beyond this common perception, there is much more we can do with an...
    • Opt. Express 26(10) 12344-12362 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Manuel Martínez-Corral

    • 360-degree large-scale multiprojection light-field 3D display system
    • The development of auto stereoscopic 3D imaging and display systems is a subject of great interest in a world that is progressing towards full interconnection. Among existing approaches, 3D light-field technology has...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(8) 1817-1823 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Abbie Watnik

    • Optical see-through Maxwellian near-to-eye display with an enlarged eyebox
    • Development of head-mounted displays is critical for improved experiences for augmented reality. Authors Kim and Park build and test a near-to-eye (or head-mountable display) prototype consisting of spatial light...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(4) 767-770 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Angus Macleod

    • Anti-reflective coating with a conductive indium tin oxide layer on flexible glass substrates
    • A great advantage of thin flexible glass is that it is capable of being processed roll to roll. In most applications it must be coated, and since optical coatings are generally hard and brittle and crack easily when...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(9) 2202-2207 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Andrey Kuzmin

    • Active frequency matching in stimulated Brillouin amplification for production of a 2.4 J, 200 ps laser pulse
    • Optical pulse compression by backward Brillouin scattering, produced by the coupling between light and sound, has been widely used for decades. This technique offers an attractive method for energy delivery from a pump...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(3) 511-514 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Michael Berry

    • Geometric optics of a refringent sphere illuminated by a point source: caustics, wavefronts, and zero phase-fronts for every rainbow “k” order
    • Completing Descartes’ Rainbow
      In the Middle Ages, it was known that the rainbow originates in "sunshine on a dripping cloud." Descartes’ achievement, in 1637, was the definitive understanding of the...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 35(1) 1-11 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Optics in Biology and Medicine

  • Spotlight Summary by Roarke Horstmeyer

    • Laser speckle contrast imaging of blood flow in the deep brain using microendoscopy
    • Optical technologies are playing an increasingly important role in expanding our understanding of the brain. Deep structures below the cortex, however, are still quite challenging to probe and thus remain experimentally...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(22) 5627-5630 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Johann Toudert

    • Nano-plasmonics and electronics co-integration in CMOS enabling a pill-sized multiplexed fluorescence microarray system
    • Realizing accurate point-of-care diagnostics is the key to an efficient detection and monitoring of diseases, as required to provide patients with personalized, adequate, and successful medical treatments. To this aim,...
    • Biomed. Opt. Express 9(11) 5735-5758 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Ronald Sroka

    • Robot-assisted laser tissue soldering system
    • During medical surgery, fast and reliable closure of incisions is required. Conventional techniques (sutures, clips, adhesives) clinically applied, either classically or with robotic assistance, show some drawbacks....
    • Biomed. Opt. Express 9(11) 5635-5644 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Robert Zawadzki

    • Simple approach for aberration-corrected OCT imaging of the human retina
    • In the latest paper by Helge Sudkamp, the authors propose a very simple system allowing acquisition of retinal data with phase stability that is suitable for computational aberration correction (CAC). To achieve that,...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(17) 4224-4227 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Summer Gibbs

    • Three-way decision based reconstruction frame for fluorescence molecular tomography
    • Fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) is a promising research tool that enables accurate localization and quantification of fluorophore distribution noninvasively in intact small animal model systems. Typically, FMT...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 35(11) 1814-1822 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Roarke Horstmeyer

    • Complete plenoptic imaging using a single detector
    • The standard two-dimensional RGB image has had a great run, but it appears to be reaching the end of its monopoly on our camera technology. In this work, Zhu et al. present a camera that can simultaneously capture all...
    • Opt. Express 26(20) 26495-26510 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Marco Endrizzi

    • Visualizing the 3D cytoarchitecture of the human cochlea in an intact temporal bone using synchrotron radiation phase contrast imaging
    • The team of Iyer, Zhu, Gasilov, Ladak, Agrawal, and Stankovic reports on the visualization of the three-dimensional cytoarchitecture of the human cochlea in an intact temporal bone. They achieved their impressive...
    • Biomed. Opt. Express 9(8) 3757-3767 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Orges Furxhi

    • Ka-band microwave photonic ultra-wideband imaging radar for capturing quantitative target information
    • Wang and co-authors demonstrate a Ka-band frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) ultra-wideband microwave photonic imaging radar. In conventional FMCW radar, a continuous wave signal with frequency that varies...
    • Opt. Express 26(16) 20708-20717 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Robert J. Zawadzki

    • Multiscale nonlinear microscopy and widefield white light imaging enables rapid histological imaging of surgical specimen margins
    • One of the longstanding challenges in cancer surgery might have just been solved by the researchers from MIT and Harvard Medical School as reported by Giacomelli et al. The authors developed and evaluated performance of...
    • Biomed. Opt. Express 9(5) 2457-2475 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Roger J. Zemp

    • Integrated catheter for simultaneous radio frequency ablation and optoacoustic monitoring of lesion progression
    • Doctors sometimes use a procedure called RF ablation to treat dysfunctional areas of the heart but with varied success, in part due to lack of feedback monitoring technology. To address this unmet need, a group of...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(8) 1886-1889 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Daryl Preece

    • Technique of laser chromosome welding for chromosome repair and artificial chromosome creation
    • Since the early days of lasers, it has been recognized that focused laser beams can be used to great effect in medical and biological research. The ability of coherent light to be focused to a tight spot has allowed for...
    • Biomed. Opt. Express 9(4) 1783-1794 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Roarke Horstmeyer

    • Large area laser scanning optical resolution photoacoustic microscopy using a fibre optic sensor
    • Photoacoustics continues to pop up in all sorts of new and useful research. First studied nearly a century and a half ago by Alexander Graham Bell, the effect, wherein variations in light absorption...
    • Biomed. Opt. Express 9(2) 650-660 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Robert Zawadzki

    • Ultrahigh-resolution optical coherence elastography through a micro-endoscope: towards in vivo imaging of cellular-scale mechanics
    • Quantitative detection of mechanical properties of the living tissue is of great importance in clinical imaging as it promises to improve our understanding of disease processes and provides advanced diagnostic...
    • Biomed. Opt. Express 8(11) 5127-5138 (2017) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Richard Bowman

    • Extended depth of field for single biomolecule optical imaging-force spectroscopy
    • Optical microscopy makes it possible to see many biological processes—and techniques such as confocal microscopy provide 3D information with sufficient sensitivity and resolution to follow single biomolecules. Optical...
    • Opt. Express 25(25) 32189-32197 (2017) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Optoelectronics

  • Spotlight Summary by James R. Taylor

    • Normal-dispersion fiber optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification
    • Ultrafast fiber lasers are increasingly finding wide application, particularly in industry. In order to overcome pulse energy limitations, because of nonlinearity, all-fiber chirped pulse amplification schemes have been...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(21) 5331-5334 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Alessia Pasquazi

    • Graphene-decorated microfiber knot as a broadband resonator for ultrahigh-repetition-rate pulse fiber lasers
    • Micro-resonator-based lasers have demonstrated great potential for developing ultrafast, high-repetition-rate sources with a small footprint, low cost, and little energy consumption. Reinterpreting the filter-driven...
    • Photon. Res. 6(10) C1-C7 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Dmitry Morozov

    • Design of a sensitive uncooled thermal imager based on a liquid crystal Fabry–Perot interferometer
    • Infrared imaging in the Long Wave Infrared (LWIR) band (8–15 µm) has become crucial across many important application domains. Fields such as industrial thermography, firefighting, security scanning, and night...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(28) 8264-8271 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Christos Grivas

    • Room temperature continuous-wave nanolaser diode utilized by ultrahigh-Q few-cell photonic crystal nanocavities
    • The demonstration of electrically-driven continuous wave (CW) laser operation at room temperature and at wavelengths lying in the third telecommunication band in few-cell point photonic crystal nanocavities may lead to...
    • Opt. Express 26(20) 26598-26617 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Alessando Chiasera

    • In-fiber whispering-gallery mode microsphere resonator-based integrated device
    • M. Zhang and coauthors propose, realize, and test an innovative coupling method to excite whispering-gallery modes (WGMs) of a microsphere resonator. The coupling is obtained by placing a silica microsphere into an...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(16) 3961-3964 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Esa Saarinen

    • Tandem dual-functioning multiple-quantum-well diodes for a self-powered light source
    • The Internet of Things (IoT) has boosted the demand for self-sustained devices that can sense and transmit signals. However, powering up the multitude of devices remains a practical challenge. Nitride-based diodes...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(15) 3710-3713 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Erik Schartner

    • Crystalline GaSb-core optical fibers with room-temperature photoluminescence
    • Molten-core fibers with a semiconductor core have been enhanced by laser annealing, with the ultimate aim of making improved infrared fiber laser sources. Song and colleagues have developed a technique in which GaSb...
    • Opt. Mater. Express 8(6) 1435-1440 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Johann Toudert

    • Specular side reflectors for high efficiency thermal-to-optical energy conversion
    • To make incandescent light bulbs a viable alternative to LEDs, it is required to convert with a high efficiency the broadband thermal radiation of the incandescent material into visible light. The ideal way to achieve...
    • Opt. Express 26(10) A462-A479 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Dennis K. Killinger

    • 3D pulsed chaos lidar system
    • A novel 3D pulsed chaos lidar system may significantly impact current 3D imaging lidar systems for the booming autonomous vehicle, surveillance, and robotic applications market. The new pulsed homodyned chaos lidar...
    • Opt. Express 26(9) 12230-12241 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Guangyuan Li

    • Propagating bound states in the continuum in dielectric gratings
    • When could dielectric gratings indefinitely trap light with infinite lifetime, or Q factor? Recently, MIT researchers discovered a new phenomenon known as optical bounded states in the continuum (BICs): light is...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 35(6) 1218-1222 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Jan G. Korvink and Dario Mager

    • Non-contact printing of optical waveguides using capillary bridges
    • This paper presents a practical solution to directly inkjet print sharp-cornered polymer tracks on flexible surfaces that can even work as optical waveguides. Inkjet printing enables the fabrication of nearly arbitrary...
    • Opt. Express 26(9) 11934-11939 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Yiyu Ou

    • ZnMgO:ZnO composite films for fast electron transport and high charge balance in quantum dot light emitting diodes
    • Colloidal quantum dot-based light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) exhibit a high potential of being the next-generation technology of large-scale display and solid-state lighting, thanks to their unique advantages of tunable...
    • Opt. Mater. Express 8(4) 909-918 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Lan Fu

    • Size reduction of Ge-on-Si photodetectors via a photonic bandgap
    • Monolithically integrated Ge-on-Si photodetectors are highly desirable for achieving Si-based photonic integration or infrared sensing at low cost and low power consumption. This requires the development of...
    • Appl. Opt. 57(12) 2962-2966 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Johann Toudert

    • Next generation smart window display using transparent organic display and light blocking screen
    • Combining the concepts of smart windows and transparent displays enables compact smart window displays, usable both for modulating the flow of outdoor light into a building and as screens. Like smart windows, such...
    • Opt. Express 26(7) 8493-8502 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Filippo Miatto

    • Secure communications using nonlinear silicon photonic keys
    • One-Time-Pads are the absolute best way of doing encryption, at the expense of requiring a key exactly as long as the message. This makes it impossible to send the key securely, because we would have to go back to...
    • Opt. Express 26(4) 4710-4722 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

  • Spotlight Summary by Radan Slavík

    • Optically powered radio-over-fiber system based on center- and offset-launching techniques using a conventional multimode fiber
    • Using a single optical fiber to transfer both power and data may prove to be appealing in applications in which traditional electric wires are impractical to use. The main challenge of such a transmission is the...
    • Opt. Lett. 43(5) 1067-1070 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Vision and Color

  • Spotlight Summary by Manuel Spitschan

    • Color appearance model for self-luminous stimuli
    • Aside from “too bright” or “not bright enough,” how bright is the screen you’re reading this article from? This question—predicting how bright a self-luminous object appears—is at the heart of this recent paper by...
    • J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 35(12) 2000-2009 (2018) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

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