Hacker News with Generative AI: Optics

Getting an all-optical AI to handle non-linear math (arstechnica.com)
A team of MIT researchers figured that if you had a chip that could process photons directly, you could skip the entire digitization step and perform calculations with the photons themselves. It has the potential to be mind-bogglingly faster.

Artificial Intelligence, Optics, Hardware, Computing

96 points by LorenDB 6 days ago | 16 comments

Show HN: Optics Challenge – Design a solar concentrator for a non-round sun (nonimaging-conference.org)
The challenge: Design a reflective solar concentrator with the highest possible efficiency, but designed for a sun with the shape "XX" instead of the regular round shape.

Solar Energy, Optics, Engineering, Design Challenges

10 points by hakonjdjohnsen 12 days ago | 0 comments

Soft Metalens for Broadband Ultrasonic Focusing Through Aberration Layers (nature.com)
Aberration layers (AL) often present significant energy transmission barriers in microwave engineering, electromagnetic waves, and medical ultrasound.

Science, Materials Science, Acoustics, Ultrasound, Optics

16 points by bookofjoe 13 days ago | 2 comments

Nikon reveals a lens that captures wide and telephoto images simultaneously (digitalcameraworld.com)

Photography, Optics, Technology, Innovation, Nikon

191 points by giuliomagnifico 23 days ago | 100 comments

Lens breakthrough paves the way for ultrathin cameras (physicsworld.com)
A research team headed up at Seoul National University has pioneered an innovative metasurface-based folded lens system, paving the way for a new generation of slimline cameras for use in smartphones and augmented/virtual reality devices.

Optics, Camera Technology, Nanotechnology, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality

4 points by sohkamyung 54 days ago | 0 comments

Monocle: Optics Library for Scala (optics.dev)
Monocle is a Scala library which offers a simple yet powerful API to access and transform immutable data.

Scala, Programming, Libraries, Optics

106 points by curling_grad 57 days ago | 69 comments

A “meta-optics” camera that is the size of a grain of salt (cacm.acm.org)
When it comes to cameras, size matters, but not in the way you think.

Camera Technology, Optics, Nanotechnology

244 points by rbanffy 57 days ago | 131 comments

Iceland Spar (wikipedia.org)
Iceland spar, formerly called Iceland crystal (Icelandic: silfurberg [ˈsɪlvʏrˌpɛrk], lit. 'silver-rock') and also called optical calcite, is a transparent variety of calcite, or crystallized calcium carbonate, originally brought from Iceland, and used in demonstrating the polarization of light.[1][2]

Science, Geology, Minerals, Optics

29 points by Thevet 57 days ago | 4 comments

Redesigning Photography with AI-Enhanced Metalenses (petapixel.com)
Optics and artificial intelligence have converged to create a new imaging system that could transform photography.

Artificial Intelligence, Photography, Optics

7 points by martyvis 59 days ago | 0 comments

The Physics of Butterfly Wings (wordpress.com)
Some butterflies have shiny, vividly colored wings. From different angles you see different colors. This effect is called iridescence. How does it work?

Physics, Nature, Biology, Optics

71 points by boringg 60 days ago | 14 comments

Scientists discover laser light can cast a shadow (phys.org)
Can light itself cast a shadow? It may sound like a philosophical riddle, but researchers have found that under certain conditions, a laser beam can act like an opaque object and cast a shadow.

Physics, Science, Optics, Lasers

53 points by passwordoops 64 days ago | 21 comments

Scientists decipher two-photon vision (phys.org)
Two-photon vision is a novel method with great potential for the future of ophthalmic diagnostics.

Science, Biology, Optics, Ophthalmology

70 points by bookofjoe 73 days ago | 13 comments

Efficient Microresonator Frequency Combs (springeropen.com)
The rapid development of optical frequency combs from their table-top origins towards chip-scale platforms has opened up exciting possibilities for comb functionalities outside laboratories.

Photonics, Optics, Microresonators, Frequency Combs

5 points by PaulHoule 84 days ago | 1 comments

The Physics of Magic Windows (2021) (mattferraro.dev)
I recently made a physical object that defies all intuition. It's a square of acrylic, smooth on both sides, totally transparent. A tiny window.

Physics, Creative Projects, Optics

178 points by mhb 95 days ago | 11 comments

Shrinking augmented reality displays into eyeglasses to expand their use (phys.org)
To make the technology easier to integrate into common personal devices, researchers report in ACS Photonics how to combine two optical technologies into a single, high-resolution AR display.

Augmented Reality, Optics, Technology, Research, Displays

66 points by PaulHoule 103 days ago | 18 comments

Design of a Novel Microlens Array and Imaging System for Light Fields (mdpi.com)
To address these issues, we proposed a novel four-focal-square microlens and light field system.

Optics, Imaging, Micro-optics, Light Fields, Microlens Arrays

4 points by PaulHoule 107 days ago | 0 comments

Meta Orion AR Glasses: Optical Architecture Deep Dive (reddit.com)
Here is the very first deep analysis of the optical architecture of Meta's new AR glasses prototype. Written by Axel Wong and published here with his permission - in English for the first time.

Augmented Reality, Meta, Hardware, Optics

25 points by AR-MR-XR 111 days ago | 0 comments

Micro-sized spectrometer operates across visible spectrum, sub-5-nm resolution (techxplore.com)

Spectroscopy, Nanotechnology, Optics, Physics

9 points by rbanffy 181 days ago | 1 comments

New all-optical approach to revolutionise night vision technology (anu.edu.au)

Night Vision, Optics, Technology, Research

4 points by rbanffy 193 days ago | 1 comments

Circularly Polarized Light Unlocks Ultrafast Magnetic Storage and Spintronics (scitechdaily.com)

Magnetism, Optics, Storage, Spintronics

13 points by westurner 193 days ago | 1 comments

Subwavelength imaging using a solid-immersion diffractive optical processor (springeropen.com)