Huygens Optics
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2020–2022
11:33 · 69K views · Jun 29, 2020
Huygens Optics shows how DIY photon sieves shape a laser's wave front, explaining how they differ from zone plates and how aperture count affects the focal point, with time-resolved visualizations of the diffraction.
HN points to it for a clear explanation of photon sieves versus Fresnel lenses and for showing what interference patterns actually look like.
4 comments from Hacker News
Regarding waves and interference, have a look at this video: this video . It shows how the interference patterns actually look. Yes, the wave is 3D and the interference patterns can be kind of like checker board. We are usually considering a 2D example because it is simpler to visualize and analize. > how do we know that entanglement is the result of 'spooky action at a distance' and not the result of creating two entangled particles? A very high-level explanation is that we know this because quantum computers work (even though right now we can't build them big enough to be useful) and it can't be explained by any classical effects.
Here is a video explaining the difference between a Fresnel lens and a photon sieve: Photon sieves used to visualise optical wave front propagation this video
The Huygens Optics channel has a fascinating video abut a photon sieve created using a home-made litography setup: this video
They are talking about the photon seive micro lenses that make up the whole lens. Each micro lens is the size of a virus. The "camera" is the size of a grain of salt. I don't think this is intentional, but this feels like trigger bait for people dealing with a manic psychotic state. Like there were other things to compare it to other than an HIV virus. I'm sure it's exactly the same size, but you know, might as well say "the same size as a large Coronavirus wrapped in 5G Monkeypox". Also, > The researchers believe their micro camera could be dusted on a surface, making anything a camera. (Perhaps not the most comforting thought, as Nerdist points out.) I think this is really interesting technology. I was suspecting something similar would arrive after learning about making optical tensors that you print in 3D space and learning more about "photon sieves". This is a weird part of our future. There are really interesting new on a chip photonics methods to generate targetable full spectrum light out of a single laser light source. 2025 we'll see some really really crazy light processing products. - this video - [LINK] - [LINK] - [LINK]