Free-Form Optical Fiber with a Square Mode and Top-Hat Intensity Distribution.

The development of bend-induced effectively single-mode fiber with a square cross-section and flat top-hat intensity distribution is reported using core topology nanostructuring dedicated to femtosecond laser ablation systems. The fiber's core comprises 5419 silica and germanium-doped silica nanorods with a diameter of 430 nm each arranged into a hexagonal lattice. The distribution of the rods is calculated using in-house developed code based on the Monte Carlo algorithm to obtain a target shape of mode and intensity distribution. As a proof-of-concept, a silica nanostructured fiber with a 24 µm core is developed and verified against the purity of mode guidance, bending, and guiding losses. It is shown that for a wavelength of 1030 nm, the fiber is effectively single-mode with 96% mode purity when bending with a radius of 20 cm is applied. The fiber has a measured mode area of 360 µm2, numerical aperture of 0.03, and total losses of 0.07 dB m-1.

Fabrication of multilevel metalenses using multiphoton lithography: from design to evaluation.

We present a procedure for the design of multilevel metalenses and their fabrication with multiphoton-based direct laser writing. This work pushes this fast and versatile fabrication technique to its limits in terms of achievable feature size dimensions for the creation of compact high-numerical aperture metalenses on flat substrates and optical fiber tips. We demonstrate the design of metalenses with various numerical apertures up to 0.96, and optimize the fabrication process towards nanostructure shape reproducibility. We perform optical characterization of the metalenses towards spot size, focusing efficiency, and optical functionality with a fiber beam collimation design, and compare their performance with refractive and diffractive counterparts fabricated with the same technology.

Handheld Fluorescence Spectrometer Enabling Sensitive Aflatoxin Detection in Maize.

Aflatoxins are among the main carcinogens threatening food and feed safety while imposing major detection challenges to the agrifood industry. Today, aflatoxins are typically detected using destructive and sample-based chemical analysis that are not optimally suited to sense their local presence in the food chain. Therefore, we pursued the development of a non-destructive optical sensing technique based on fluorescence spectroscopy. We present a novel compact fluorescence sensing unit, comprising both ultraviolet excitation and fluorescence detection in a single handheld device. First, the sensing unit was benchmarked against a validated research-grade fluorescence setup and demonstrated high sensitivity by spectrally separating contaminated maize powder samples with aflatoxin concentrations of 6.6 µg/kg and 11.6 µg/kg. Next, we successfully classified a batch of naturally contaminated maize kernels within three subsamples showing a total aflatoxin concentration of 0 µg/kg, 0.6 µg/kg and 1647.8 µg/kg. Consequently, our novel sensing methodology presents good sensitivity and high potential for integration along the food chain, paving the way toward improved food safety.

Fabrication of large-scale scaffolds with microscale features using light sheet stereolithography.

The common characteristics that make scaffolds suitable for human tissue substitutes include high porosity, microscale features, and pores interconnectivity. Too often, however, these characteristics are limiting factors for the scalability of different fabrication approaches, particularly in bioprinting techniques, in which either poor resolution, small areas, or slow processes hinder practical use in certain applications. An excellent example is bioengineered scaffolds for wound dressings, in which microscale pores in large surface-to-volume ratio scaffolds must be manufactured - ideally fast, precise, and cheap, and where conventional printing methods do not readily meet both ends. In this work, we propose an alternative vat photopolymerization technique to fabricate centimeter-scale scaffolds without losing resolution. We used laser beam shaping to first modify the profile of the voxels in 3D printing, resulting in a technology we refer to as light sheet stereolithography (LS-SLA). For proof of concept, we developed a system from commercially available off-the-shelf components to demonstrate strut thicknesses up to 12.8 ± 1.8 µm, tunable pore sizes ranging from 36 µm to 150 µm, and scaffold areas up to 21.4 mm × 20.6 mm printed in a short time. Furthermore, the potential to fabricate more complex and three-dimensional scaffolds was demonstrated with a structure composed of six layers, each rotated by 45° with respect to the previous. Besides the demonstrated high resolution and achievable large scaffold sizes, we found that LS-SLA has great potential for scaling-up of applied oriented technology for tissue engineering applications.

Wide-Field-of-View Multispectral Camera Design for Continuous Turfgrass Monitoring.

Sustainably using resources, while reducing the use of chemicals, is of major importance in agriculture, including turfgrass monitoring. Today, crop monitoring often uses camera-based drone sensing, offering an accurate evaluation but typically requiring a technical operator. To enable autonomous and continuous monitoring, we propose a novel five-channel multispectral camera design suitable for integrating it inside lighting fixtures and enabling the sensing of a multitude of vegetation indices by covering visible, near-infrared and thermal wavelength bands. To limit the number of cameras, and in contrast to the drone-sensing systems that show a small field of view, a novel wide-field-of-view imaging design is proposed, featuring a field of view exceeding 164°. This paper presents the development of the five-channel wide-field-of-view imaging design, starting from the optimization of the design parameters and moving toward a demonstrator setup and optical characterization. All imaging channels show an excellent image quality, indicated by an MTF exceeding 0.5 at a spatial frequency of 72 lp/mm for the visible and near-infrared imaging designs and 27 lp/mm for the thermal channel. Consequently, we believe our novel five-channel imaging design paves the way toward autonomous crop monitoring while optimizing resource usage.

Freeform Wide Field-of-View Spaceborne Imaging Telescope: From Design to Demonstrator.

Wide field-of-view imaging optics offer a huge potential for space-based Earth observation enabling the capture of global data. Reflective imaging telescopes are often favored, as they do not show chromatic aberrations and are less susceptible to radiation darkening than their refractive counterparts. However, the main drawback of reflective telescopes is that they are limited with respect to field-of-view while featuring large dimensions. We propose the use of freeform optics to maximize the field of view while maintaining diffraction-limited image quality and minimizing system dimensions. In this paper, we present a novel freeform wide field-of-view reflective telescope, starting from the optical design, and continuing to tolerancing analysis and manufacture, towards a proof-of-concept demonstrator. The novel telescope features a full field-of-view of 120° while showing an exceptional spatial resolution of 2.6 km and fitting within 1 CubeSat unit. To the best of our knowledge, this is the widest field-of-view that has ever been realized for a space-based telescope, nearly reaching Earth observation from limb to limb from an altitude of about 700 km. We hope this design paves the way for future space missions enabling improved Earth observation and leading to enhanced monitoring of climate and climate change.

Batch analysis of microplastics in water using multi-angle static light scattering and chemometric methods.

Size and concentration are two important parameters for the analysis of microplastics (MPs) in water. The analytical tools reported so far extract this information in a single-particle analysis mode, dramatically increasing the analysis time. Here, we present a combination of multi-angle static light scattering technique, called "Goniophotometry", with chemometric multivariate data processing for the batch analysis of size and concentration of MPs in water. Nine different sizes of polystyrene (PS) MPs with diameters between 500 nm and 20 µm are investigated in two different scenarios with uniform (monodisperse) and non-uniform (polydisperse) size distribution of MPs, respectively. It is shown that Principal Component Analysis (PCA) can reveal the existing relationship between the scattering data of mono- and polydisperse samples according to the size distribution of MPs in mixtures. Therefore, a Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) model is constructed based on the PCA of scattering data of PS monodisperse samples and is subsequently employed to classify the size of MPs not only in unknown mono- and polydisperse PS samples, but also for other types of MPs such as Polyethylene (PE) and Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA). When the size of MPs is classified, their concentration is measured using a simple linear fit. Finally, a Linear Least Square (LLS) model is used to evaluate the reproducibility of the measurements.

Design and demonstration of a six-channel multiresolution imaging system.

Multichannel imaging systems consist of multiple channels that have different imaging characteristics (fields-of-view and angular resolutions). We design and demonstrate a six-channel multiresolution imaging system that can achieve a relative magnification ratio of up to 10 times between the channels and at the same time result in different depths-of-field. The imaging system consists of two double-sided lens arrays made of PMMA material, a baffle to eliminate possible cross talk between neighboring channels, and a Sony full-frame image sensor. The imaging system was tested by capturing images of stationary and moving objects. The acquired images exhibit different resolutions, fields-of-view, and levels of blur proving our concept.

Miniaturized cost-effective broadband spectrometer employing a deconvolution reconstruction algorithm for resolution enhancement.

We demonstrate a miniaturized broadband spectrometer employing a reconstruction algorithm for resolution enhancement. We use an opto-digital co-design approach, by firstly designing an optical system with certain residual aberrations and then correcting these aberrations with a digital algorithm. The proposed optical design provides an optical resolution less than 1.7 nm in the VIS-channel (400-790 nm) and less than 3.4 nm in the NIR-channel (760-1520 nm). Tolerance analysis results show that the components are within a commercial class, ensuring a cost-efficient design. We build the prototype with a size of 37x30x26 mm3 and demonstrate that by applying a restoration algorithm, the optical resolution can be further improved to less than 1.3 nm (VIS-channel) and less than 2.3 nm (NIR-channel).

Benchmarking Spectroscopic Techniques Combined with Machine Learning to Study Oak Barrels for Wine Ageing.

Due to its physical, chemical, and structural properties, oakwood is widely used in the production of barrels for wine ageing. When in contact with the wine, oak continuously releases aromatic compounds such as lignin, tannin, and cellulose to the liquid. Due to the release process, oak loses its characteristic aromatic compounds in time; hence, the flavour that it gives to the enclosed wine decreases for repeated wine refills and a barrel replacement is required. Currently, the estimation of the maximum number of refills is empirical and its underestimation or overestimation can impose unnecessary costs and impair the quality of the wine. Therefore, there is a clear need to quantify the presence of the aforementioned aromatic compounds in an oak barrel prior to a refill. This work constitutes a study to examine noninvasive optical biosensing techniques for the characterization of an oak barrel used in wine ageing, towards the development of a model to unveil its lifespan without inducing structural damage. Spectroscopic diagnostic techniques, such as reflectance, fluorescence, and Raman scattering measurements are employed to assess the change in the chemical composition of the oakwood barrel (tannin and lignin presence) and its dependence on repeated refills. To our knowledge, this is the first time that we present a benchmarking study of oak barrel ageing characteristics through spectroscopic methods for the wine industry. The spectroscopic data are processed using standard chemometric techniques, such as Linear Discriminant Analysis and Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis. Results of a study of fresh, one-time-used, and two-times-used oak barrel samples demonstrate that reflectance spectroscopy can be a valuable tool for the characterization of oak barrels. Moreover, reflectance spectroscopy has demonstrated the most accurate classification performance. The highest accuracy has been obtained by a Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis model that has been able to classify all the oakwood samples from the barrels with >99% accuracy. These preliminary results pave a way for the application of cost-effective and non-invasive biosensing techniques based on reflectance spectroscopy for oak barrels assessment.

Miniature freeform flow-line lightguide for sensing: from design to fabrication.

We present the development of a compact (about 1.3 × 2.0 × 20 mm3) freeform optical lightguide for sensing applications, from the conceptual design to the fabrication through injection molding. The design of the optic is based on the flow-line method from Nonimaging Optics, which allows the desired optical functionalities (45° half-acceptance and 40° beam steering) while meeting particularly tight mechanical and geometrical constraints. An extensive analysis of the effects of fabrication parameters on the performances demonstrates the importance of minimizing the fillet radius. This requisite inspired a special procedure for designing the mold, which is built as a "3D puzzle" assembly of separate pieces, each one dedicated to one specific side surface of the lightguide. This technique enables uniform optical quality on all the optic's surfaces and removes the need of a fillet radius in the mold. At present, the first lightguide prototypes have been fabricated; after the coating phase, they will be ready for the validation stage.

Increasing the Microfabrication Performance of Synthetic Hydrogel Precursors through Molecular Design.

Implementation of hydrogel precursors in two-photon polymerization (2PP) technology provides promising opportunities in the tissue engineering field thanks to their soft characteristics and similarity to extracellular matrix. Most of the hydrogels, however, are prone to post-fabrication deformations, leading to a mismatch between the computer-aided design and the printed structure. In the present work, we have developed novel synthetic hydrogel precursors to overcome the limitations associated with 2PP processing of conventional hydrogel precursors such as post-processing deformations and a narrow processing window. The precursors are based on a poly(ethylene glycol) backbone containing urethane linkers and are, on average, functionalized with six acrylate terminal groups (three on each terminal group). As a benchmark material, we exploited a precursor with an identical backbone and urethane linkers, albeit functionalized with two acrylate groups, that were reported as state-of-the-art. An in-depth characterization of the hexafunctional precursors revealed a reduced swelling ratio (<0.7) and higher stiffness (>36 MPa Young's modulus) compared to their difunctional analogs. The superior physical properties of the newly developed hydrogels lead to 2PP-based fabrication of stable microstructures with excellent shape fidelity at laser scanning speeds up to at least 90 mm s-1, in contrast with the distorted structures of conventional difunctional precursors. The hydrogel films and microscaffolds revealed a good cell interactivity after functionalization of their surface with a gelatin methacrylamide-based coating. The proposed synthesis strategy provides a one-pot and scalable synthesis of hydrogel building blocks that can overcome the current limitations associated with 2PP fabrication of hydrogel microstructures.

The interaction between daylight and fifteenth and sixteenth century glass windows from the Low Countries.

The positive impact of daylight on various forms of life is well understood. The daylight conditions a person experiences inside a building strongly depend on the character of the glazing. Contemporary windows maximize the transmission of visible daylight. In post-medieval times glassmakers were confronted with less pure materials. Driven by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation they were at the same time challenged by the demand for increased daylight. Luckily, technological evolutions allowed the production of thinner windows. It is currently an open question if glassmakers in the (Southern) Low Countries during the booming economic period from the fifteenth to seventeenth century made use of the interplay between material and fabrication properties to bring light into the darkness. Therefore, this paper links the impact of glass purity and production technique to light transmission for a well-diagnosed group of excavated glass window pieces from the castle of Middelburg-in-Flanders and a set of roundels, all dating back to between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries and explores what factors have influenced this technological improvement. A non-destructive approach making use of UV-vis-NIR absorption spectroscopy unveiled that the more recent material is less pure compared to the older dated material but that light transmission was maximized due to the applied production technique.

Automated freeform imaging system design with generalized ray tracing and simultaneous multi-surface analytic calculation.

Recently, freeform optics has been widely used due to its unprecedented compactness and high performance, especially in the reflective designs for broad-wavelength imaging applications. Here, we present a generalized differentiable ray tracing approach suitable for most optical surfaces. The established automated freeform design framework simultaneously calculates multi-surface coefficients with merely the system geometry known, very fast for generating abundant feasible starting points. In addition, we provide a "double-pass surface" strategy with desired overlap (not mutually centered) that enables a component reduction for very compact yet high-performing designs. The effectiveness of the method is firstly demonstrated by designing a wide field-of-view, fast f-number, four-mirror freeform telescope. Another example shows a two-freeform, three-mirror, four-reflection design with high compactness and cost-friendly considerations with a double-pass spherical mirror. The present work provides a robust design scheme for reflective freeform imaging systems in general, and it unlocks a series of new 'double-pass surface' designs for very compact, high-performing freeform imaging systems.

Freeform imaging systems: Fermat's principle unlocks "first time right" design.

For more than 150 years, scientists have advanced aberration theory to describe, analyze and eliminate imperfections that disturb the imaging quality of optical components and systems. Simultaneously, they have developed optical design methods for and manufacturing techniques of imaging systems with ever-increasing complexity and performance up to the point where they are now including optical elements that are unrestricted in their surface shape. These so-called optical freeform elements offer degrees of freedom that can greatly extend the functionalities and further boost the specifications of state-of-the-art imaging systems. However, the drastically increased number of surface coefficients of these freeform surfaces poses severe challenges for the optical design process, such that the deployment of freeform optics remained limited until today. In this paper, we present a deterministic direct optical design method for freeform imaging systems based on differential equations derived from Fermat's principle and solved using power series. The method allows calculating the optical surface coefficients that ensure minimal image blurring for each individual order of aberrations. We demonstrate the systematic, deterministic, scalable, and holistic character of our method with catoptric and catadioptric design examples. As such we introduce a disruptive methodology to design optical imaging systems from scratch, we largely reduce the "trial-and-error" approach in present-day optical design, and we pave the way to a fast-track uptake of freeform elements to create the next-generation high-end optics. We include a user application that allows users to experience this unique design method hands-on.

Monitoring of Torque Induced Strain in Composite Shafts with Embedded and Surface-Mounted Optical Fiber Bragg Gratings.

In this study, silica glass, optical fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) are used for torque-induced strain monitoring in carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) hollow shafts toward the development of a methodology for structural load monitoring. Optical fibers with gratings are embedded during shaft manufacturing, by an industrial filament winding process, along different orientations with respect to its central axis and surface mounted after production. Experimental results are supported by numerical modeling of the shaft with appropriate boundary conditions and homogenized material properties. For an applied torque up to 800 Nm, the strain sensitivity of an embedded grating positioned along the reinforcing fibers' direction winded under 55° is in the order of 3.6 pm/Nm, while this value is more than 4× times higher than the other examined orientations. The study also shows that surface-mounted optical fiber Bragg gratings along the reinforcing carbon fibers' direction perform equally well in monitoring strains in composite shafts under torque.

Challenges in the Fabrication of Biodegradable and Implantable Optical Fibers for Biomedical Applications.

The limited penetration depth of visible light in biological tissues has encouraged researchers to develop novel implantable light-guiding devices. Optical fibers and waveguides that are made from biocompatible and biodegradable materials offer a straightforward but effective approach to overcome this issue. In the last decade, various optically transparent biomaterials, as well as different fabrication techniques, have been investigated for this purpose, and in view of obtaining fully fledged optical fibers. This article reviews the state-of-the-art in the development of biocompatible and biodegradable optical fibers. Whilst several reviews that focus on the chemical properties of the biomaterials from which these optical waveguides can be made have been published, a systematic review about the actual optical fibers made from these materials and the different fabrication processes is not available yet. This prompted us to investigate the essential properties of these biomaterials, in view of fabricating optical fibers, and in particular to look into the issues related to fabrication techniques, and also to discuss the challenges in the use and operation of these optical fibers. We close our review with a summary and an outline of the applications that may benefit from these novel optical waveguides.

3D direct laser writing of microstructured optical fiber tapers on single-mode fibers for mode-field conversion.

We present a design and fabrication approach for 3D printed polymer microstructured optical fiber tapers on standard single-mode glass fibers for efficient and compact mode-field conversion. This paves the way towards complex functionalized fiber tips for various applications, like sensors and beam shaping components, currently limited by the mode-field size and distribution of standard optical fibers. In this paper, we demonstrate the potential of mode-field converting tapers for relaxing the misalignment tolerance in fiber-to-fiber connections and maximizing the coupling efficiency in fiber-to-chip connections. We demonstrate a mode-field diameter expansion ratio of 1.7 and reduction ratio of 3 and show that our microstructured tapers achieve a comparable performance in coupling efficiency as their step-index counterparts, while providing greater robustness.

Thiol-norbornene gelatin hydrogels: influence of thiolated crosslinker on network properties and high definition 3D printing.

Photocrosslinkable gelatin hydrogels are excellent bioinks or biomaterial ink components to serve biofabrication applications. Especially the widely investigated gelatin-methacroyl (gel-MA) hydrogels hold an impressive track record. However, over the past decade, increasing attention is being paid to thiol-ene photo-click chemistry to obtain hydrogel networks benefitting from a faster reactivity (i.e. seconds vs minutes) along with superior biocompatibility and processability. In order to exploit this photo-click chemistry, often an ene-functionality (e.g. norbornene) is introduced onto gelatin followed by crosslinking in the presence of a multifunctional thiol (e.g. dithiothreitol). To date, very limited research has been performed on the influence of the applied thiolated crosslinker on the final hydrogel properties. Therefore, the present work assesses the influence of different thiolated crosslinkers on the crosslinking kinetics, mechanical properties and biological performance of the hydrogels upon encapsulation of primary adipose tissue-derived stem cells which indicated a cell viability exceeding 70%. Furthermore, the different formulations were processed using two-photon polymerization which indicated, in addition to differences in processing window and swelling ratio, a previously unreported phenomenon. At high intensities (i.e. ⩾150 mW), the laser results in cleavage of the gelatin backbone even in the absence of distinct photo-cleavable functionalities. This can have potential to introduce channels or softer regions in gels to result in zones characterized by different degradation speeds or the formation of blood vessels. Consequently, the present study can be used to provide guidance towards tailoring the thiol-ene system towards the desired applications.