Category Archives: Uncategorized

Snapshot ellipsometry. Check our prototype in a video

Check out these videos showcasing our snapshot generalized ellipsometer (which measures eight elements of the normalized Mueller matrix). Additional details and explanations can be found in the video description.

Companies interested in this technology are welcome to contact me for more information, as I think this is very interesting for many applications demanding high speed.

Today I have taken these videos to demonstrate some reflection and transmission measurements.

Our current prototype works in the spectral range 400 nm – 850 nm (graphs in the computer show this spectral range).

 

 

1-year positions available in our project POLVISION

We have 2 positions available within the POLVISION project in our PLAT research group. This project, funded by AGAUR (the Catalan Agency for Research and Universities) through the Knowledge Industry program, aims to foster an economy driven by knowledge by promoting the transfer of research results from academic institutions to the market.

Our project focuses on bringing to market a novel method for complete polarization vision (full-Stokes vision) that we have developed. This method offers unprecedented simplicity and represents a significant advancement in the field of polarization optics.

Position Details:

The two positions are for 1 year (up to ~14 months, due to the project duration). The positions  available are:

  •  Postdoc position
  •  Early-career researcher (e.g., Master’s student) that ideally could serve as a starting point for a PhD.

The successful candidates will contribute to developing a fast, intuitive, and user-friendly interface for our polarized vision system. Additionally, they will actively participate in technology transfer activities related to the project and support other research initiatives within our group.

Key Qualifications (especially for the postdoc):

  • Strong programming skills in LabVIEW, Python, and/or MATLAB
  • A keen interest and experience in polarization optics, hands-on experimental work, and the implementation of calibration algorithms
  • A strong commitment to research excellence and continuous development

Additional Information:

  • Salary: Commensurate with experience and according to the guidelines in Spanish universities for postdocs and early-career researchers.
  • Working Place: Physics Faculty, Universitat de Barcelona.

Late 2024 Update

It is time to update the various activities carried out in 2024. Hopefully, in 2025 this website will see more updates.

  • Dr. Huihui Li (Jimei University) did a 6-month postdoctoral research stay in our lab working on polarimetric imaging for scattering turbid media. A paper about the work she carried out is already published:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optlaseng.2024.108804

  • Mr. Han Tong (Huqiao University) did a 7-month predoctoral stay in our lab. Working on the calibration of Mueller matrix ellipsometer.
  • In autunm 2024  Beáta Hroncová from Masaryk University, Brno did another stay of 3 months in our lab funded under an Erasmus+. She continued exciting work on spatial dispersion. Stay tuned for a publication.
  • In November 2024 I did a short trip to China as I was invited to the 1st International Conference on Metrology and Standards (ICMS2024) in Hangzhou, China. On the same trip, I also visited the city of Xiamen to meet collaborators and friends Dr. Huihui Li and Dr. Ziqing Li and the city of Shanghai where I visited Prof. Xiaoyan Cui (http://cuilabs.com/), a friend and colleague from my Postdoc times in NYU, now Prof. in East Normal University.
  • In December 2024 I was invited to the NETLINCS workshop in Trieste “New Trends in Linear and Non-linear Spectroscopic Chirality Studies”.
  • We got a new Project, IdC product (AGAUR) for the project “A System for Complete Polarization Vision (POLVISION)”. In this project, we develop a system for complete (full-Stokes) polarization vision to be transferred to the industry.

Early 2024 update

Long time without updates. I try to summarize in brief bullet points some of the accumulated news, without following any particular order.

Figure 5

  • A few months ago I got a “Consolidación” project. The project is titled SPECTROPEM – Ultrasensitive polarization encoded spectroscopy without monochromator based on photoelastic modulators. This project will involve not only some research activities, but brings some new lab spaces and renewal works.
  • We also got another project from the PID2022 call. The project is titled “Imagen polarimétrica para la mejora de la visibilidad y la detección en medios turbios” and it is our first project that approaches biomedical imaging aspects. The project has just started now.
  • Our student Subiao Bian got a Fi-SDUR 2023 fellowship to complete his PhD.
  • Last Spring-Summer Beáta Hroncová from Masaryk University, Brno did a stay of 3 months in our lab funded under an Erasmus+. She did some very interesting work on spatial dispersion (on different materials) that now needs to be completed.
  • Las summer I visited Huaqiao University in China. It was the kick-off of a 111 project (“Introducing Intelligence Base of Intelligent Manufacturing Technologies for Brittle Material”) where we participate. China’s “111 Project” or “Project 111”, launched in 2005, is a national programme that aims to draw about 1000 leading overseas scholars and researchers from worldwide top 100 universities and research institutes to over 100 “innovation bases” in China.
  • Last autumn Akash Tiwari from New York University (USA) did a stay in our lab of 3 months. Akash was interested in learning all the tricks of the 4-PEM Mueller matrix polarimeter.
  • During Jan and Feb 2024 Prof. Kevin McPeak from Louisiana State University is visiting our group. We are trying to finish some pending on tricky chiroptics of metamaterials.

 

 

New SGR Group about “Polarized light Applications & Technologies (PLAT)”

Research in Catalan Universities is organized through Research Groups recognized by the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR). In the last call, I led the application for a new emergent research group called “Polarized light Applications & Technologies (PLAT)”, which was granted. 

I made a preliminary (under-construction) website of the group at: www.ub.edu/plat

However, this (www.mmpolarimetry.com) personal website will of course continue to exist, as it already has a long history, offers more personal views on research topics, and is easier to update.

History papers

Here I share some historical papers/documents/books about polarization optics that are very hard to find and that I consider important or very nice.

Soleillet Thesis (1929) [First description of Stokes-Mueller calculus]

https://www.mmpolarimetry.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SoleilletThesis.pdf

Perrin 1942 (English translation) [First work describing Mueller matrix symmetries]

https://www.mmpolarimetry.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/perrin1942.pdf

Mueller 1943 (Memorandum on the polarization optics of the photoelastic shutter] [The most relevant available work by Hans Mueller]

https://www.mmpolarimetry.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Mueller1943_OEMsr-576_Memorandum-on-the-polarization-optics-of-the-photoelastic-shutter.pdf

Walker 1904, The analytical theory of light [book] [The only English book that described Stokes parameters way before they were rediscovered]

https://www.mmpolarimetry.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/The_analytical_theory_of_light_IA_analyticaltheory00walkrich.pdf

 

November update

Many months without updates. So this is a summary of the latest news (without following any particular order)

New Book Chapter

Arteaga, O., Ossikovski, R. (2023). Mueller Matrix Analysis, Decompositions, and Novel Quantitative Approaches to Processing Complex Polarimetric Data. In: Ramella-Roman, J.C., Novikova, T. (eds) Polarized Light in Biomedical Imaging and Sensing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04741-1_2

New Optics letter paper about spatial dispersion selected as an editor’s pick

Razvigor Ossikovski and Oriol Arteaga, “Optical response of media and structures exhibiting spatial dispersion,” Opt. Lett. 47, 5602-5605 (2022)

(more research on this topic will follow)

2022 Horizon Award from Royal Society

I participated in the large international team of scientists that developed chiral organics for photon/electron spin control. 

New projects starting!

Two new projects funded by Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades,  will start very soon. 

  • “Microscopio de matriz de Mueller” (PDC2022-133625-I00).
  • “Caracterización óptica de células solares altamente texturizadas para optimizar su eficiencia” (TED2021-129639B-I00).

Funding opportunities for interested students may be possible (contact me).

Listed in the “Stanford list”

For a second consecutive year, I have been listed in the list of the top 2% of most influential researchers in their field. The database gathers the leading scientists in different disciplines and is made from the information provided by the Scopus database.

Press release from UB