Grupo de Tecnologías Ópticas y Optoelectrónicas

María del Mar Sánchez became the President of the Local Section in Alicante of RSEF – Real Sociedad Española de Física,

RSEF is the Royal Spanish Society of Physics. With more than 4000 members, it is organized in different thematic divisions and specialized groups, as well as in local sections. The Local Section of Alicante started few years ago, and María del Mar has been active as a member of the Board. Now a new board has been elected and she has become President of the local section. The main objectives of the new board is promoting Physics in our local area, through outreach activities and seminars, and to foster the collaboration with High Schools, including activities to attract girls to STEM.

A new paper entitled Arithmetics with q-plates was published in Applied Optics where we show the capability to form various q-plate equivalent systems using combinations of commercially available q-plates. We show operations like changing the sign of the q-value, or the addition and subtraction of q -plates. These operations only require simple combinations of q-plates and half-wave plates.

This work was developed in collaboration with our friends at San Diego State University.

We published a new paper in the journal Optica & Lasers in Engineering about a digital microscope with programmable Fourier transform filtering. The paper is entitled Microscope system with on axis programmable Fourier transform filtering and was developed by Jose Luis Martínez, Pascuala Garcia and Ignacio Moreno.

In this work we demostrate such opto-digital filtering on-axis, taking advantage of phase and polarization modulation of a LCOS-display. We use a Hamamatsu SLM,free of flickering, which can be tuned to fully eliminate the zero order component of the encoded diffractive filter, therefore making use of the full space-bandwidth. The system is  demonstrated by implementing different optical processing operations based on phase-only gratings such as phase-contrast, band-pass filtering, or additive and subtractive imaging. A simple Differential Interference Contrast(DIC) imaging is also obtained changing to a polarization modulation scheme.

A proposal related to this work was selected as finalist on the 2016 Educational Award by Edmund Optics.

A new paper entitled Investigadoras en la luz y en las tecnologías de la luz (Women in Light Sciences and Light Technologies) has been published in the Revista Española de Física (Spanish Journal of Physics).

This paper describes the exhibition with the same name that was developed to commemorate the International Year of Light, describing the life and work of 12 women that made relevant contributions to the science of light.

This paper was written by Maria del Mar and Pascuala, in collaboration with Ana J. López-Díaz, from Universidade da Coruña, and Augusto Beléndez, from Universidad de Alicante.

A new paper has been published in Applied Optics entitled New key based on tilted lenses for optical encryption, that describes a novel concept based on tilted spherical lenses for optical encryption using Lohmann’s type I systems. An experiment is presented, considering a hybrid encryption/decryption process where the image is numerically encrypted but optically decrypted.

This work was developed by our friends at the University of Valencia and we contributed by developing a experimental system that demonstrates the procedure.

We published a new paper in European Journal of Physics entitled Vortex beam generation and other advanced optics experiments reproduced with a twisted-nematic liquid-crystal display with limited phase modulation.

In this work we propose the use of twisted-nematic liquid-crystal spatial light modulators (TN-LC-SLM) as a useful tool for training students in the manipulation of light beams with phase-only masks. In particular, we focus the work on the realization of phase-only gratings and phase-only spiral phases for the generation of vortex beams, beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM). We include different examples, including a optimal triplicator phase grating, and its combination with spiral phase patterns and lens functions to generate a variety of vortex beams.

The paper is included in a special section of the journal devoted to «Advanced Optics», and it is the first publication from the PhD Thesis of Aarón Cofré.

Ignacio Moreno has been awarded as a new 2017 OSA Fellow Member. This distinction was awarded to 96 OSA members for their significant contributions to the advancement of optics and photonics. The selection of these candidates was confirmed by the Board of Directors at its meeting in October 2016.

Ignacio Moreno has been recognized for his achievements on the control over amplitude, phase, polarization and wavelength with diffractive optical elements encoded onto liquid crystal displays.

The complete list of new awarded Fellows can be found at: link

We published a new paper in Journal of the European Optical Society – Rapid Publications, entitled Optical system for measuring the spectral retardance function in a extended range.

Here we apply a well-known technique for determining the spectral retardance of different linear retarders by measuring the transmission spectra between crossed or parallel polarizers. The system we developed allows measurements in a wide spectral range covering the visible (VIS) and near infrared (NIR) spectrum in the range from 400 to 1600 nm.

This work was made in collaboration with our friend Asticio Vargas from UFRO (Chile), and it is the first paper of the PhD thesis of Abdelghafor Messaadi.

We published a new paper in Japanese Journal of Applied Physics entitled Parallel generation of multiple first-order vector beams with a polarization grating and a q-plate device.

In this work we demonstrated the parallel generation of multiple vector beams by combining a polarization diffraction grating with a q-plate element.

This work was made with our friends at San Diego State University (US), and in collaboration with our colleagues at the Development Division of Citizen Holdings Co (Japan).

TecnOpto was selected as a finalist of the 2016 Educational Award of the company Edmund Optics.

The selection was made on the basis of a proposed project of building a programmable optical microscope with different Fourier transform filtering operations performed in real time from a computer with a LCoS display. This way we are able to reproduce classical and novel microscopy techniques without moving elements in the optical system.

The complete list of winners and finalists can be found in: link