Image of the Week

Striking images of optics and photonics, contributed by OPN readers

Light hitting a soap film creates magical rainbow stripes—nature’s artwork in the tiniest place. When illuminated by a flashlight, the soap film’s varying thickness creates vivid, multi-colored interference fringes ranging from violet and green to yellow and white. These colors arise from constructive and destructive interference of reflected light waves at the air–film boundaries.

—Achini Mala Sri Ovitigala, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MI, USA

03 Jul 2026

$Crossed Diffraction$

Crossed Diffraction

A simple white light source transforms into a radiant burst of color through the interaction of crossed diffraction gratings. The overlapping gratings split and replicate the light into repeated spectral bands, producing a circular arrangement of vivid chromatic patterns that resemble a luminous optical mandala.

— Ana Karen Reyes, Universidad Tecnológica de Tulancingo, Mexico

26 Jun 2026

Staying Visible

Colorful chemoluminescent light sticks illuminate bikes during a bike visibility social ride in Ottawa, Canada.[OPN 2025 Photo Contest]

—Yaryna Mamchur, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

19 Jun 2026

Shiny, Tiny Eyes

Macro photography reveals complex textures and patterns within the iris, which can look similar to a “galaxy” or an alien landscape.

—Sai Krishna, civil engineer, Hyderabad, India

12 Jun 2026

Creating Art with Fruit

Black stripes printed on a sheet of paper reflected from the surface of diluted milk with a few berries. The image illustrates the use of structured light for visualizing small surface deformations. It also shows the working of surface tension.

—Anatoliy A. Kosterev, Yokogawa Corporation of America, Sugar Land, TX, USA

05 Jun 2026

Stem Autofluorescence

Autofluorescence image of an avocado (Persea americana) stem cross-section. The intrinsic fluorescence highlights the structural organization of vascular tissues, with xylem vessels and surrounding cell walls clearly delineated in bright green. Autofluorescence signal arises primarily from lignin and phenolic compounds in secondary cell walls. [OPN 2025 Photo Contest]

—Maria Alice Paularie (LabNS, UFMG), Élder Paiva (PlantSeR, UFMG), Leandro M. Malard (LabNS, UFMG), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil

29 May 2026

Metal Complex Beauty

Orthoscopic image of random growth of copper(II) phenanthroline-based complex crystals on a glass slide viewed under a 20× polarizing microscope Nikon ECLIPSE 50i POL and captured with an iPhone 15 Plus at the eyepiece. [OPN 2025 Photo Contest]

—Shahrul Kadri Ayop, Sultan Idris Education University, Tanjung Malim, Malaysia

22 May 2026

Rainbow Lightsail

This photograph captures the world’s highest-aspect-ratio nanophotonic element: a nanometer-thick, centimeter-scale photonic crystal “lightsail” suspended on a silicon wafer. The membrane’s billions of subwavelength holes allow for high reflectivity, producing the vivid rainbow colors seen here through optical interference. [OPN 2025 Photo Contest]

—Richard Alexander Norte, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

15 May 2026

Caustic and Shadow Artwork

Grazing sunlight illuminating a glass of water generates an artwork of caustics and shadows.

— Andrea Aiello, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen Germany

08 May 2026

Droplet Optics

A raindrop resting on a leaf forms a near-perfect sphere, transforming it into both a spherical mirror and a spherical lens. Its curved surface reflects a miniature image of the surrounding sky and trees, while within, the droplet magnifies the fine cellular structures of the leaf. [OPN 2025 Photo Contest]

—Vahid Abbasian, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, USA

01 May 2026

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Image of the Week