Optical Instrumentation

Members of the Academic Staff

The Optical Instrumentation Group works on methods and optical instrumentation for the analysis of different specimens: rough surfaces, microscopic biological organisms and highly scattering objects. Their projects involve different aspects, from the optical design, construction and alignment of the systems, data analysis, test and calibration. In particular, the Group works on the design and numerical analysis of optical systems for the focusing of ultrashort pulses, microscopy for the study of biological samples, measurment problems and polarization control and coherence, diffraction and Fourier Optics. The Group includes a workshop dedicated to the measurement of the wavefront produced by optical surfaces using interferometry.

  • Instrumentation and applications of optical polarimetry

  • Polarization images using liquid-crystal variable retarders.

  • Modelling and measurementof an aberrated wavefront using Zernike polynomials, applied to the focusing of femtosecond pulses.

  • Construction of an automatic, low-cost optical microscopy.

  • Polarimetric microscopy for the analysis of semitransparent samples in water.

  • Wavefront measurement using interferometry for optical surface characterization.