Using a combination of resist reflow to form a highly circular etch mask pattern and a low-damage plasma dry etch, high-quality-factor silicon optical microdisk resonators are fabricated out of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. Quality factors as high as Q = 5x10(6) are measured in these microresonators, corresponding to a propagation loss coefficient as small as alpha ~ 0.1 dB/cm. The differe...

Behavioral measures of the development of spatial vision, such as contrast sensitivity and acuity, do not distinguish between optical and neural contributions to the emergence of adult visual sensitivity in primates. The optical contribution to visual development in monkeys was estimated by measuring retinal image quality in the eyes of seven infant monkeys ranging in age from 2 days to 9 month...

Optical aberrations lead to defects in image-forming, the image obtained being imperfect and thereby decreasing the quality of vision. When an optic system is not perfect, as happens with the eye, the rays of light that pass through the system produce optical aberrations. The purpose of this review is to describe optical aberrations and their impact on vision and how refractive surgery outcomes...

Different paper grades have been used to evaluate the optical formation measurements for newsprint and SC paper. Formation of the SC papers has been measured both before and after supercalendering to see how it affects the optical measurements. The optical measurements have been compared to β-radiation measurements and the results showed that optical measurements give a fair estimation of the f...

PURPOSE To compare the in vitro optical quality at different focal points of two new bifocal intraocular lenses (IOLs) and one new trifocal IOL. METHODS The AcrySof ReSTOR SV25T0 (+2.5 diopter [D] add) and the AcrySof ReSTOR SN6AD1 (+3.0 D add) with two main foci (Alcon Laboratories, Fort Worth, TX) and the AT LISA tri 839MP with three main foci (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, CA) were evaluated...

We prepared urchin-like micron-sized ZnO cavities with high optical quality by oxidizing metallic Zn and proposed the mechanism that resulted in the growth of the urchin-like microstructures. The photoluminescence spectra of the ZnO microstructures had a predominant excitonic emission at room temperature. The lasing properties of the urchin-like ZnO microstructures were investigated systematica...

Several approaches have been demonstrated to build focus tunable lenses. The additional degree of freedom enables the design of elegant, compact optical systems, typically with less mechanics. We present a new range of electrically and mechanically focus tunable lenses of different sizes and tuning ranges and discuss their characteristics. We show how tunable lenses can be used to improve optic...

High refractive index contrast optical microdisk resonators fabricated from silicon-on-insulator wafers are studied using an external silica fiber taper waveguide as a wafer-scale optical probe. Measurements performed in the 1500 nm wavelength band show that these silicon microdisks can support whispering-gallery modes with quality factors as high as 5.23105, limited by Rayleigh scattering from...

Degree of Polarization (DOP) is an important property of light sources. It directly relates to the accuracy of optical component characterization, the sensitivity of sensor systems, and the quality of optical signals in optical communication systems. Therefore, the accurate and fast characterization of DOP is increasingly important. This article first reviews the fundamentals of DOP and summari...