Hacker News with Generative AI: Optics

Efficient light control: Meta-optics replace conventional lenses (phys.org)
Conventional curved lenses, which direct light by refraction in glass or plastic, are often bulky and heavy, offering only limited control of light waves.

Physics, Optics, Nanotechnology, Metamaterials

25 points by bookofjoe 4 days ago | 2 comments

Plasmonic Modulators Break Wireless Terahertz Barrier (ieee.org)
A new plasmonic modulator [in gold] transfers signal information from an electrical wave to an optical wave at higher speeds than other modulator technologies.

Plasmonics, Terahertz Technology, Wireless Communication, Materials Science, Optics

25 points by rbanffy 9 days ago | 7 comments

WWI's 'Dazzle' Camouflage Seemed Effective Due to Unexpected Optical Trick (gizmodo.com)
During World War I, navies painted their ships in “dazzle” camouflage, also known as “razzle dazzle.” Unlike traditional camouflage, which helps objects blend into their surroundings, dazzle camouflage used stark geometric patterns to try to confuse German U-boat captains’ perception of a ship’s direction and speed, making it harder to target. But did the dazzle actually dazzle, or did it simply look ridiculous?

Camouflage, Military History, Optics

118 points by ilamont 11 days ago | 69 comments

Show HN: Torch Lens Maker – Differentiable Geometric Optics in PyTorch (victorpoughon.github.io)
Welcome to Torch Lens Maker, an open-source Python library for differentiable geometric optics based on PyTorch. Currently a very experimental project, the goal is to be able to design complex real-world optical systems (lenses, mirrors, etc.) using modern computer code and state-of-the art numerical optimization.

Open Source, Computer Vision, Python, Machine Learning, Optics

179 points by fouronnes3 13 days ago | 45 comments

China Made a Spy Camera That Can See Faces from Space (petapixel.com)
Chinese scientists have built a surveillance camera with unprecedented resolving capabilities.

Surveillance, Technology, China, Space, Optics

14 points by gnabgib 17 days ago | 2 comments

First flat telescope lens that captures color, detecting light from stars (phys.org)
For centuries, lenses have worked the same way: curved glass or plastic bending light to bring images into focus. But traditional lenses have a major drawback—the more powerful they need to be, the bulkier and heavier they become.

Astronomy, Optics, Science, Technology

87 points by wglb 31 days ago | 25 comments

Dramatically improve microscope resolution with Fourier Ptychography [video] (youtube.com)

Microscopes, Optics, Image Processing, Science, Videos

5 points by MaximilianEmel 31 days ago | 1 comments

All-optical control of charge-trapping defects in rare-earth doped oxides (degruyter.com)
Charge-trapping defects in crystalline solids play important roles in applications ranging from microelectronics, optical storage, sensing and quantum technologies.

Quantum Technologies, Materials Science, Optics

30 points by bookofjoe 44 days ago | 2 comments

F/0.38 camera lens made with oil immersion microscope objective (youtube.com)

Photography, Optics, DIY Projects

7 points by mhb 60 days ago | 0 comments

Optical Frequency Combs (nist.gov)
Optical frequency combs are specialized lasers that act like a ruler for light. They measure exact frequencies of light — from the invisible infrared and ultraviolet to visible red, yellow, green and blue light — quickly and accurately.

Lasers, Physics, Optics, Measurement

126 points by zafka 63 days ago | 40 comments

Researchers combine holograms and AI to create uncrackable optical encryption (optica.org)
As the demand for digital security grows, researchers have developed a new optical system that uses holograms to encode information, creating a level of encryption that traditional methods cannot penetrate.

Security, Artificial Intelligence, Holography, Encryption, Optics

26 points by gnabgib 63 days ago | 13 comments

Optical Fresnel zone plate flat lens: colored photoresist through I-line stepper (nature.com)
Light manipulation and control are essential in various contemporary technologies, and as these technologies evolve, the demand for miniaturized optical components increases.

Optics, Nanotechnology, Engineering, Materials Science

61 points by bookofjoe 76 days ago | 14 comments

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

97 points by LorenDB 81 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 87 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 88 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 98 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 129 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 132 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 132 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 132 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 134 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 135 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 139 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 149 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 159 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 170 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 178 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 182 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 186 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 256 days ago | 1 comments