Image of the Week
Striking images of optics and photonics, contributed by OPN readers
Polynomial Beauty
A 2D histogram on the complex plane of the number of solutions from a given set of polynomials generated from a set of 7×7 matrices. The heat map can be interpreted as a plot of the probability that a random matrix will have a characteristic polynomial with a solution in a certain location.
—Trra02, Wiki Science Competition 2023
11 Jul 2025
Guided Light
Red and green laser beams projected on a spool of twisted silica yarn (Quarztel) lead to light being trapped (waveguided) along the circumference of the spool.
—Catalin Florea, Voyage Photonics
04 Jul 2025
Dispersion in Cloud
Mesmerizing dispersion of colors in the clouds at sunset above Kotturpuram railway station, Chennai, India.
—Mahalingam Babu, India
27 Jun 2025
Love Letter
An axicon lens normally produces a circular beam, but placing a hand in its path caused diffraction and scattering, forming a heart shape. It became a love letter, written in light.
—Kanako Yoshimura, Kobe University, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan
20 Jun 2025
A Star Like No Other
Scientists have discovered a star behaving like no other seen before, giving fresh clues about the origin of a new class of mysterious objects called long period radio transients. Discovered in 2022, these objects vary in radio wave intensity in a regular way over tens of minutes. Read more.
—X-ray: NASA/CXC/ICRAR, Curtin Univ./Z. Wang et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL/CalTech/IPAC; Radio: SARAO/MeerKAT; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
13 Jun 2025
Elastic Scattering Sunset
Rayleigh scattering produces a vibrant sunset as the sunlight traverses a greater atmospheric path, scattering more blues and greens to leave behind predominantly red hues.
— Edgar Guevara, CONAHCYT-UASLP, San Luis Potosi, Mexico
06 Jun 2025
"Coffee Bubble" Mirrors
Hot coffee poured into a ceramic mug bubbles up rapidly, generating a myriad of self-similar, curved reflectors that include images of the ceiling light gleaming at different scales.
—Jaeyoun Kim, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
30 May 2025
Degenerating Beauty
Confocal image of a fruit fly retina expressing a toxic form of the RdgB protein, leading to degeneration.
—Guilliaume Thuery, Ireland, Wiki Science Competition 2023; CC-BY-4.0
23 May 2025
Pink Coriander
Coriander extract exhibits fluorescence due to the presence of chlorophyll under illumination from a 405-nm laser beam.
—Emiliano Hernández Figueroa, UNAM, Temixco, Mexico
16 May 2025
Milky Way Spiral
Milky Way dust emission as measured from the Planck satellite and converted into a polarization pattern of B-modes, a spiral type of polarization imprinted in the microwave sky.
—Uroš Seljak, University of California, Berkeley, USA, Winner Wiki Science Competition 2019; CC-BY-4.0
09 May 2025
