Author(s): Lenny A. Romero, María S. Millán, Zbigniew Jaroszewicz, Andrzej Kolodziejczyk.

Abstract:

“The aged human eye is commonly affected by presbyopia, and therefore, it gradually loses its capability to form images of objects placed at different distances. Extended depth of focus (EDOF) imaging elements can overcome this inability, despite the introduction of a certain amount of aberration. This paper evaluates the EDOF imaging performance of the so-called peacock eye phase diffractive element, which focuses an incident plane wave into a segment of the optical axis and explores the element’s potential use for ophthalmic presbyopia compensation optics. Two designs of the element are analyzed: the single peacock eye, which produces one focal segment along the axis, and the double peacock eye, which is a spatially multiplexed element that produces two focal segments with partial overlapping along the axis. The performances of the peacock eye elements are compared with those of multifocal lenses through numerical simulations as well as optical experiments in the image space. The results demonstrate that the peacock eye elements form sharper images along the focal segment than the multifocal lenses and, therefore, are more suitable for presbyopia compensation. The extreme points of the depth of field in the object space, which represent the remote and the near object points, have been experimentally obtained for both the single and the double peacock eye optical elements. The double peacock eye element has better imaging quality for relatively short and intermediate distances than the single peacock eye, whereas the latter seems better for far distance vision.”

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Author(s): Antonio Ambrosio, Lorenzo Marrucci, Fabio Borbone, Antonio Roviello, Pasqualino Maddalena

Abstract:

“When an azobenzene-containing polymer film is exposed to a non-uniform illumination, a light-induced mass migration process may be induced, leading to the formation of relief patterns on the polymer free surface. Despite a research effort of many years and several proposed models many aspects of this phenomenon remain not well understood. Here we report the appearance of spiral-shaped relief patterns on the polymer under the illumination of focused Laguerre-Gauss beams, having helical wavefront and an optical vortex at their axis. The induced spiral reliefs are sensitive to the vortex topological charge and to the wavefront handedness. These findings are unexpected, because the “doughnut”-shaped intensity profile of Laguerre- Gauss beams contains no information about the wavefront handedness. We propose a model that explains the main features of this phenomenon from the surface-mediated interference of the longitudinal and the transverse components of the optical field. These results may find applications in optical micro- and nanolithography and optical-field. ”

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Author(s): Jolly Xavier, Raktim Dasgupta, Sunita Ahlawat, Joby Joseph, and Pradeep Kumar Gupta

Abstract:

“We demonstrate tunable helically stacked multi-layered microrotors realized in vortex-embedded three dimensional (3D) optical twister patterns. Intensity-tunable annular irradiance profiles with higher order vortex are generated as well as simultaneously unfolded by phase-engineered multiple plane wave interference. In the individually tunable 3D helical bright arms of these unfolded vortex structures, 2 μm silica beads are optically trapped as spiraling multilayered handles of multi-armed microrotors. Further, multiple rows of such microrotors are parallelly actuated with controllable sense of rotation. We also present our observation on helical 3D stacking of micro-particles in these longitudinally gyrating multi-armed rotor traps.”

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