Image of the Week
Striking images of optics and photonics, contributed by OPN readers
Galactic Tapestry
Threads of superheated gas and magnetic fields weave a tapestry of energy at the center of the Milky Way galaxy in this image created with a giant mosaic of data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa.
—X-ray: NASA/CXC/UMass/Q.D. Wang; Radio: NRF/SARAO/MeerKAT
15 Mar 2024
Solar Corona
A solar corona with well-defined colors photographed in September 2022 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy.
—Teresa Molinaro, photographer, Palermo, Italy; Instagram: fotografia_ astronomia
08 Mar 2024
Laser-Stimulated Luminescence
Emission near green wavelength of NaYF4 codoped with Yr3+/Er3+, stimulated with a 977-nm CW laser. Image captured in the Nano Optics Laboratory of the Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil.
—Dayvid Mello, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil
01 Mar 2024
Illuminated Tissue
Soft tissue (leg) contact-illuminated by an LED-panel headlight. The red hue results from lower tissue attenuation at that longer wavelength causing red light to re-emit. The yellow is due to stronger surface scattering and the greater spectral intensity of the LED in the yellow band. The staggered strips of red and yellow arise from the abnormality of the image stabilization of the iPhone 6S camera.
—Daqing (Daching) Piao, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA
23 Feb 2024
Dance of Koi and People
“Drawing on the Water Surface Created by the Dance of Koi and People - Infinity,” from the teamLab exhibit in Tokyo, Japan. The koi, rendered by a computer program and projected onto water, interact with viewers and each other.
—Michael Duncan, Optica, Washington, DC, USA
16 Feb 2024
Tea-Glass Optics
The curved surface of a glass of tea and the liquid within refract and focus sunlight into a bright, concentrated spot, which diffuses into an amber-tinted conical shape. The glass also acts as a prism, creating a miniature dispersion effect along the light pattern’s edges that results in a boomerang-like rainbow.
—Vahid Abbasian, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA
09 Feb 2024
Laser Projection
A 520-nm wavelength laser is used to project a woman’s face onto an LCD screen. The hologram-like image is formed through an optical system composed of four lenses optimized to capture details with high fidelity using a 4 MP digital camera.
—Fabián E. Ávila-Cadena, César Camacho-Bello and Sergio Pérez-Quintero, Universidad Politécnica de Tulancingo, Hidalgo, México
02 Feb 2024
Dichroic Door
A row of consecutive dichroic filters is obliquely illuminated by a circular white flashlight, creating a diverse range of colors. A Huawei P30 smartphone camera in macro mode was positioned at the rectangular entrance (3 × 10 mm) with a strong tilt, providing a unique perspective.[OPN 2023 Photo Contest Editors’ Choice]
—Aliaksei Kobylinskiy and Robert Brunner, Ernst-Abbe-Hochschule Jena, Jena, Germany
26 Jan 2024
Deconvolved Projection
A deconvolved color-coded projection of microlenses used in thin-film-transitor monitors. The image was formed from 78 confocal photos captured with a 50×/0.95 objective and a 405 nm laser. Each lens has a diameter of 60 μm.[OPN 2023 Photo Contest Honorable Mention]
—José Manuel Martínez López, Química Tech, Cd. Juárez Chihuahua, México
19 Jan 2024
Colorful Scattering
White light from a halogen light source is scattered inside a bulb-shaped piece of glass. Due to a phase separation within the glass, Tyndall scattering of the light between the different phase regions leads to a striking effect.[OPN 2023 Photo Contest Honorable Mention]
—Azim-Onur Yazici, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen, Germany
12 Jan 2024