Optical Instrumentation

Neil C. Bruce

Dr. Neil Bruce studied Physics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and obtained a first class honours degree in 1987, and the M.Sc. in Applied Optics, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Imperial College of Science and Technology in 1988 and 1992, respectively.

He has published more than 75 papers in indexed journals with work in the areas of light scattering in rough surfaces and in dense volumes, surface characterization using capacitance measurements, studies of ultrashort pulse focusing with mirrors and refractive lenses, and in the measurement of polarization using liquid-crystal variable retarders. His work has been cited more than 650 times by other authors.

He has directed the thesis work of 5 doctoral students, 9 masters students and 8 undergraduate students, and he is currently working with another 1 doctoral student and 1 undergraduate student. He has taught courses at undergraduate level for the Physics degree, and at postgraduate level in the Physical Sciences and Electrical Engineering programs, all at UNAM. He has taught courses on classical optics, experimental optics and Fourier optics.

From 2014 to 2018 he was Academic Secretary of CCADET-UNAM, and from 2018 to 2022 he was Academic Secretary of ICAT-UNAM.

From March of 2016 to March of 2022, he was Topical Editor in Applied Optics of OSA (now Optica), in the area of polarization and scattering. Since 2023 he is co-chief editor of the Journal of Applied Research and Technology.

Light scattering on surfaces

Light scattering in dense volumes

Focusing of ultrashort pulses

Measurement of the polarization of light

Light scattering in surfaces and volumes

Measurement of the polarization of light using liquid-crystal variable retarders

Corkidi G., Montoya F., Gonzalez-Cota A.L., Hernandez-Herrera P., Bruce N.C., Bloomfield-Gadelha H., Darszon H., Human sperm rotates with a conserved direction during free-swimming in 3D, Journal of Cell Science, 136(22), (2023), art. No.  jcs261306. https://journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/136/22/jcs261306/335727/Human-sperm-rotate-with-a-conserved-direction

Ulloa-Peña E., Muñoz-Flores L., Rodriguez Herrera O., Rosete-Aguilar M., Bruce N.C., Polarimetric measurement of non-depolarizing optical systems, Applied Optics, 62(31), (2023), pp. 8357-8365 https://opg.optica.org/ao/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-62-31-8357

Aguilar-Fernández E., Bruce N.C., Comparison of two configurations of a Stokes polarimeter measuring three wavelengths simultaneously, Applied Optics, 62(1), (2023), pp. 83-90 https://opg.optica.org/ao/abstract.cfm?URI=ao-62-1-83

Montes-González I., Rodríguez-Herrera O.G., Avendaño-Alejo M., Bruce N.C., Effect of typical liquid-crystal retarder errors on optimized Stokes polarimeters, Applied Optics, 61(35), (2022), pp. 10458-10464 https://opg.optica.org/ao/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-61-35-10458

Bendada H., Bakhouche B., González-Siu L.O., Bruce N.C., Arteaga O., Spectrally modulated polarimetry with wavelength domain analysis, Applied Optics, 61(19), (2022), pp. 5608-5613 https://opg.optica.org/ao/fulltext.cfm?uri=ao-61-19-5608&id=47708

Hernández-Roa D.L., García-Jomaso Y.L., Bruce N.C., Garduño-Mejía J., Pilloni O., Oropeza-Ramos L., Treviño-Palacios C.G., Ordoñez-Romero C.L., Velázquez-Benítez A., Qureshi N., Effect of oils on the transmission properties of a terahertz photonic crystal, Applied Optics, 61(1), (2022), pp. 135-140 https://opg.optica.org/ao/fulltext.cfm?uri=ao-61-1-135&id=466068

Baez-Castillo L, Ortiz-Rascón E., Carrillo-Torres R.C., Bruce N.C., Garduño-Mejía J., Lucero-Acuña A., Álvarez-Ramos M.E., “Deep photothermal effect induced by stereotactic laser beams in highly scattering medial”, Optics Letters, 46(17), (2021), pp. 4248-4251 https://opg.optica.org/ol/fulltext.cfm?uri=ol-46-17-4248&id=458155

L.O. González-Siu, M. Rosete-Aguilar, N.C. Bruce, “Algorithm to visualize a 3D normal surface in anisotropic crystals and the polarization states of the o- and e-waves in uniaxial crystals”, American Journal of Physics, 89(6), (2021), pp. 612-617 https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/10.1119/10.0003427

L.O. González-Siu, N.C. Bruce, “Analysis of Experimental Errors in Mueller Matrix Channeled Polarimeters”, Applied Optics, 60(18), (2021), pp. 5456-5464 https://www.osapublishing.org/ao/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-60-18-5456

L.O. González-Siu, N.C. Bruce, “Error Analysis of Channeled Stokes Polarimeters” , Applied Optics, 60(16), (2021), pp. 4511-4518 https://www.osapublishing.org/ao/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-60-16-4511

N.C. Bruce, “Optimization and calibration of polarimeters”, SPIE Poincaré Webinar, mayo 2023  https://spie.org/conferences-and-exhibitions/spie-online/poincare-series?SSO=1

L.O. González-Siu, N.C. Bruce, “Error Analysis of Channeled Stokes Polarimeters”, Applied Optics, 60(16), (2021), pp. 4511-4518

N.C. Bruce, J.M. López-Téllez, O. Rodríguez-Nuñez, O.G. Rodríguez-Herrera, “Permitted experimental errors for optimized variable-retarder Mueller-matrix polarimeters”, Optics Express, 26(11), (2018), 13693-13704

Kelly-Pérez, E.M. Méndez-Aguilar, C.G. Treviño-Palacios, N.C. Bruce, L.R. Berriel-Valdos, H. Al-Hohamedi, T. Bende, “Wavelength-dependent scattering in human eyes with cataracts”, Journal of Biophotonics, 2018; e201700235, (2018)

Kelly-Pérez, E.M. Méndez-Aguilar, C.G. Treviño-Palacios, N.C. Bruce, L.R. Berriel-Valdos, H. Al-Hohamedi, T. Bende, “Wavelength-dependent scattering in human eyes with cataracts”, Journal of Biophotonics, 2018; e201700235, (2018)

E. Ortiz-Rascón, N.C. Bruce, A.A. Rodríguez-Rosales and J. Garduño Mejía, “Time of flight dependent linearity in diffuse imaging: How effective is it to evaluate the spatial resolution by measuring the ESF?”, Applied Optics, 55, (7), (2016), 1613-1617

N.C. Bruce, M. Rosete-Aguilar, O.G. Rodriguez-Herrera, R. Ortega-Martínez y J. Garduño-Mejia, “Spatial chirp in the focusing of few-optical-cycle pulses by a mirror”, J. Modern Optics, 60, (2013), 1037-1044

N.C. Bruce, “Multiple scatter of vector electromagnetic waves from rough metal surfaces with infinite slopes using the Kirchhoff approximation”, Waves in Random and Complex Media, 21(2), (2011), 362-377

N.C. Bruce, A. Garcia-Valenzuela y D. Kousnetsov, “The lateral resolution limit for imaging periodic conducting surfaces in capacitive microscopy”, J. Physics D: Applied Physics, 33, (2000), 2890-2898.

N.C. Bruce y J.C. Dainty, “Multiple scattering from rough dielectric and metal surfaces using the Kirchhoff approximation”, Journal of Modern Optics, 38, (1991), 1471-1481.

Optics Laboratory (Undergraduate course in Physics)

Fourier Optics (Masters level)

Doctoral students

  • Eusebio Aguilar Fernández
  • Luis Oscar González Siu (UNSW, Australia)

Undergraduate student

  • Víctor Aarón Domínguez Ramírez