P&A Colloquium: Vinh Nguyen, “Diffractive Optics for Focusing and Imaging on Flexible Materials”
Join the Department of Physics and Astronomy on Wednesday, February 19 at 2:30pm in White Hall G09 for a colloquium presented by Vinh Nguyen (Virginia Tech). The title of the talk is, “Diffractive Optics for Focusing and Imaging on Flexible Materials.” A reception will precede the colloquium at 2:00pm in White Hall 105/111.
Abstract
The emergence of planar meta-lenses on flexible materials has profoundly impacted the long-standing perception of diffractive optics. Despite their advantages, these lenses still face challenges in design and fabrication to obtain high focusing efficiency and resolving power. A nanofabrication technique combining photolithography and polyimide casting is demonstrated for creating membrane-based, multilevel phase-type Fresnel zone plates, photon-sieves, and meta-surfaces with high focusing efficiency. By employing these advantageous techniques, these lenses with nanostructures are directly patterned into thin polyimide membranes. The potential impact of these lenses extends across various applications including microscopy, imaging, micro-diffraction, remote sensing, and space flight instruments which require lightweight and flexible configurations. I will review recent advancements in diffractive optics for focusing and imaging, highlighting how flat optics could revolutionize lens manufacturing, adapting planar technologies used for computer chip production to create CMOS-compatible diffractive optical components.
Biography
Vinh Nguyen received his M.Sc. degree in physics from the Institute of Physics, Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1999 and his PhD in experimental physics from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 2004.
He then joined the faculty of the Physics Department at Virginia Tech. Previously. He was a research scientist at the Institute for Terahertz Science and Technology, University of California, Santa Barbara, and a senior United Kingdom Facility Scientist at the Dutch Free-Electron Laser for Infrared Experiment (FELIX), in The Netherlands.
His research interests include optoelectronic materials for optical interconnect; terahertz coherent control for quantum information processing; ultra-fast dynamics of intersubband transitions in quantum systems; diffractive optics; dynamics of hydration shell and biomolecules/ions in liquid water by the terahertz spectroscopy for its biological functions.