Multimedia / Image of the Week

Image of the Week

Striking images of optics and photonics, contributed by OPN readers

Birefringence of Glass-Metal Seal
Birefringence of Glass-Metal Seal

Birefringence of glass-metal seal viewed through crossed polarizers. [Co-submitters: Michael Tanksalvala, Nicholas Jenkins, Hans Green]

—Yuka Esashi, JILA, University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA

27 Jun 2022

Rainbow Droplets
Rainbow Droplets

A photo of water droplets on a DVD, exposed to a cellphone flashlight, simultaneously displays diffraction (by the DVD microsocopic track), reflection (by the metallic label) and refraction (by the water drops). Photographed using a separate SLR camera (18-mm-focal-length lens; f/16).

—Edgar Guevara, CONACYT-Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi, Mexico

20 Jun 2022

Sunset over Zion
Sunset over Zion

Sunset over Zion National Park, Utah. Photo taken with a mobile-phone camera, held up to a binocular eyepiece.

—Daniel Mittleman, Brown University, RI, USA

10 Jun 2022

Discovering Hidden Colors in Nature
Discovering Hidden Colors in Nature

The fluorescence of olive oil—as well as the phenomenon of total internal reflection—is visible under illumination with a green laser.

—Luis Alberto Sánchez, Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain

03 Jun 2022

Green Dove
Green Dove

405-nm light through a dove prism appears as a green line through a blue-glowing prism. Image captured with a phone camera.

—Goronwy Tawy, University of Southampton, UK

27 May 2022

Stress Imaging, via DIC
Stress Imaging, via DIC

Laser engraving on a cellphone chip, observed using differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy in reflected light. The colors observed in the image are interference colors, with yellow, orange and red coincident with zones with residual stress. Image created using a 50x/0.8 objective.

—Jose Manuel Martinez Lopez, Quimica Tech, Chihuahua, Mexico

20 May 2022

Supercontinuum Light
Supercontinuum Light

Supercontinuum light generated by the self-phase-modulation effect in a microstructured fiber, dispersed by a prism. Long exposure (20 s) taken with an SLR camera.

—Raúl Rangel-Rojo, Department of Optics, CICESE, Mexico

13 May 2022

3.6 Billion Years in Color
3.6 Billion Years in Color

The Pilbara, northwestern Australia, which exposes some of the oldest rocks on Earth—over 3.6 billion years old—is captured in a composite image by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on the Terra satellite.

—NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

06 May 2022

Colored Perovskite Cells
Colored Perovskite Cells

A colored version of perovskite solar cells created by mimicking stained glass. The colors are generated by a metal-insulator-metal and show Janus colors on each side, which could open new possibilities for window design.

—Young Min Song, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju, Republic of Korea

29 Apr 2022

Sunset over the Himalayas
Sunset over the Himalayas

A glimpse of dusk behind the Himalayan cliffs.

—Vipin Tiwari, Kumaun University, Nainital, India

22 Apr 2022

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