Spotlight on Optics

Highlighted Articles from Optica Publishing Group Journals

March 2024

Spotlight Summary by Johann Toudert
- Four-color fiber-coupled mid-infrared laser-absorption sensor for temperature, CO, CO2, and NO at 5 kHz in internal combustion engine vehicle exhaust
- Tunable infrared lasers enable monitoring the exhaust gas transients of internal combustion engines. Combustion in the cylinders of an engine leads to the formation of hot gaseous products, which are expelled through...
- Appl. Opt. 62(32) 8517-8528 (2023) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Spotlight Summary by Pavel Shafirin and Artur Davoyan
- High forward thrust metasurface beam-riding sail
- Stable beam riding with architectured diffraction gratings. Optical manipulation of nanoscale objects using focused laser beams emerged as an indispensable tool. However, manipulating large – meter scale...
- Opt. Express 32(2) 1756-1763 (2024) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Spotlight Summary by Teng Zhang
- Rydberg excitation through detuned microwave transition in rubidium
- Rydberg atoms are atoms with an electron in a highly excited quantum state that is loosely bound to the atomic nucleus, rendering them exquisitely sensitive to electromagnetic fields. Optical techniques based on...
- J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 40(11) 2758-2761 (2023) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Spotlight Summary by Michael Zuerch
- High harmonic generation in epitaxially grown zinc oxide films
- This study presents a significant advancement in the field of photonics by exploring how the thickness and quality of epitaxially grown zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films impacts yield scaling of a solid-state high harmonic...
- J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 41(6) B1-B6 (2024) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Spotlight Summary by Emily A. Gibson
- Millimeter field-of-view miniature two-photon microscopy for brain imaging in freely moving mice
- Zhao and coauthors have developed a new miniature head-mounted two-photon microscope with enhanced capabilities for large field-of-view brain imaging in freely moving mice. The design can perform sub-cellular resolution...
- Opt. Express 31(20) 32925-32934 (2023) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Spotlight Summary by Shakil Rehman
- Reflective ultrathin light-sheet microscopy with isotropic 3D resolutions
- Light sheet fluorescence microscopy is a technique used to image an extremely thin section of a biological sample, offering axial resolution ranging from a few hundred nanometers to a few micrometers. Employing a thin...
- Photon. Res. 12(2) 271-281 (2024) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Spotlight Summary by David Novoa
- Photonic crystal fiber sensors to excite surface plasmon resonance based on elliptical detection channels are used for highly sensitive magnetic sensing
- Precise local sensing of magnetic fields is of utmost importance in many disparate areas ranging from power grid monitoring to early detection of earthquakes. Among the different approaches proposed and developed to...
- J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 41(4) 998-1007 (2024) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Spotlight Summary by Aseema Mohanty
- Liquid-crystal-based visible-light integrated optical phased arrays and application to underwater communications
- Liquid crystals provide compact and efficient reconfiguration capabilities to visible wavelength optical phased arrays (OPAs), which have been limited in scale for beam forming and steering. Many visible wavelength...
- Opt. Lett. 48(20) 5269-5272 (2023) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF

Spotlight Summary by Jorge Parra
- Topology optimization framework for designing efficient thermo-optical phase shifters
- Photonic topological optimization (TO) is the inverse design process of refining a material’s structure to achieve optimal light manipulation and performance characteristics for specific photonic applications....
- J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 41(2) A18-A31 (2024) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF