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Image of the Week

Striking images of optics and photonics, contributed by OPN readers

Iridescent Contrail
Iridescent Contrail

Water droplets in vapor, generated by the engines of a Biman Bangladesh flight over Kolkata, India, are diffracted by sunlight to create an iridescent contrail.

—Soumyadeep Mukherjee, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

22 Sep 2023

Color Explosion
Color Explosion

A view over Western Australia, captured by NASA's Landsat 8 satellite on 12 May 2013, shows rich sediment and nutrient patterns in a tropical estuary area and complex patterns and conditions in vegetated areas.

—NASA/USGS Landsat; Geoscience Australia

15 Sep 2023

Structural Color
Structural Color

Diffractive structures create the color of the blue Morpho (Morpho peleides) butterfly wings.[OPN 2022 After Image Photo Contest]

—Samuel F. Pellicori, Senior Member, Optica, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

08 Sep 2023

Pop Goes the Coating
Pop Goes the Coating

Announced by a loud "pop" after turning on a compact diode-pumped CW Nd:YAG laser with imperfect heatsinking, examination under a 20× microscope reveals that the front (AR-coated) surface of the crystal has been converted to a Matisse-like collage of fractured dielectric platelets. Crystal dimensions 3 mm × 3 mm × 2.5 mm.[OPN 2022 After Image Photo Contest]

—David C. Brown, Advanced Photonic Sciences, Friendsville, PA, USA

01 Sep 2023

Green Flash at Sunset
Green Flash at Sunset

A green flash appears as the sun drops below the horizon. Image taken with a 500 mm lens from the beach in Honolulu, USA, in August 2007.

—Michael Duncan, Optica, College Park, MD, USA

25 Aug 2023

Dinosaur Bone
Dinosaur Bone

A dinosaur bone in transmitted light under a polychromatic polarization microscope with a 4x objective lens and illuminating white polarized light with a spectral fan of polarization ellipses (nature.com/articles/srep17340). Image size 2.1 mm x 1.6 mm.[OPN 2022 After Image Photo Contest]  

—Michael Shribak, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, USA; Specimen provided by Bernardo Cesare, University of Padua, Italy

18 Aug 2023

Out-of-Band Laser Scattering
Out-of-Band Laser Scattering

A 1064-nm laser scattering in a reasearch setup photographed with a 4 MP digital CCD camera. The brightest upper spot is the beam blocked by black cardboard, and the lower spots are from optical components.

—Dirk Voigt, Ministry of Defence, Netherlands

11 Aug 2023

Sunset in a Glass
Sunset in a Glass

Refraction taking place in a glass in front of Anjuna Beach, Goa, India. [OPN 2022 After Image Photo Contest]

—Ayush Singhal, President of JIIT Optica Student Chapter, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

04 Aug 2023

Ammonite Fossil
Ammonite Fossil

Ammonite fossil replaced by aragonite mineral layers that produce iridescent colors by interference. Collection of Dr. Robert Lavinsky, exhibited at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, USA, Summer 2022.[OPN 2022 After Image Photo Contest]

—Samuel F. Pellicori, Senior Member, Optica, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

28 Jul 2023

Birth of Sun-Like Stars
Birth of Sun-Like Stars

A new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displays the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. Jets bursting from young stars crisscross the image, impacting the surrounding interstellar gas and lighting up molecular hydrogen, shown in red.

—NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI)

21 Jul 2023

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