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New Approach to Developing Efficient, High-Precision 3D Light Shapers


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Light manipulation with an APVE.

The intensity shaper can convert an input Gaussian beam to precisely direct light, as in the “smiley” light distribution.

Credit: Barré et al.

Researchers in Austria, Germany, and the U.K. have developed a simple method for manufacturing high-precision aperiodic photonic volume elements (APVEs).

The approach uses direct laser writing to three-dimensionally configure voxels of specific refractive indices within borosilicate glass.

The researchers programmed an algorithm that stimulates the flow of light through a medium to ascertain optimum voxel placement, and produced 154,000 to 308,000 voxels that each occupied a roughly 1.75-µm × 7.5-µm × 10-µm space in just 20 minutes.

The team used the technique to generate a light shaper controlling the input beam's intensity distribution, a red-green-blue (RGB) multiplexer that controlled the input beam's RGB transmission, and a data transfer speed-enhancing Hermite–Gaussian mode sorter.

From SPIE Newsroom
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Abstracts Copyright © 2023 SmithBucklin, Washington, D.C., USA


 

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