diffraction tagged posts

A novel topological edge soliton developed for nonlinear photorefractive lattices enables robust light beams is promising for photonic technology. Diffraction is a natural property of light beams. It allows light to bend around obstacles. Because light serves as a carrier of information, some of the distorting effects of diffraction must be mitigated for many technological applications. Topological insulators, first unveiled in condensed matter physics, have attracted interest for over a decade. A photonic topological insulator can help ensure consistent propagation of a light beam along its edges...

Two become one: various diffraction patterns showing Rayleigh’s criterion

A team of researchers with the National University of Singapore has found a way to get around what they describe as ‘Rayleigh’s curse’—a phenomenon that happens when 2 light sources appear to coalesce as they grow closer together, limiting ability to measure the distance between them.

For many years, scientists working in a variety of fields studying the stars through a telescope or objects through a microscope have been limited by the same problem—diffraction interfering with light sources that are very close together—the wave-like nature of light causes spreading, which in turn can cause an overlap of photons striking a surface meant to be used to measure the difference between two sources.

Back in the late 1...