Eye diseases such as macular degeneration can have a devastating impact on quality of life. Early detection and treatment are thus crucial for preventing irreversible vision loss. A previous study found that the human eye can detect differences in ‘structured’ light beams. Such light beams are composed of a coherent superposition of differently polarized planar and helical waves. This structured light can be created by coupling polarization and orbital angular momentum to form spin-orbit states with space-varying polarization profiles. The original study determined that a healthy human eye can discriminate between two different spin-orbit states by observing distinct images (i.e., the number of azimuthal fringes) induced by viewing each state. These findings will be expanded to further explore the limits of human perception of structured light. A strong association between an individual’s perception of a structured light beam and the imaging data collected from their eye with the same beam is expected. The possibility of using structured light beams to image ocular structures, including the macular pigment, the cornea, and the retina, will be investigated. Ocular imaging using structured light beams has the potential to detect subtle changes in macular pigment and other ocular structures that occur before macular degeneration progresses to the point of vision loss. Such new sensing tools could enable the early detection and treatment of macular degeneration and reduce the significant societal burden of the disease.
Figure 1. (Left) Representation of a spin-orbit beam composed of a coherent superposition of planar and helical polarized states. (Right) The number of fringes that the eye sees when viewing the spin-orbit beams.
Related Content
Micro-Supercapacitors Based on Termination Optimized MXene Quantum Dots with Ultra-High Rate Capability and Fast Frequency Response
Micro-supercapacitors (MCs) are miniaturized energy storage devices that can enhance the performance of wearable health devices, medical implants, wireless sensors, and micro-electromechanical systems due to their fast frequency response, long life cycle, and vast temperature operation. However, to make these MC systems into commercially feasible products, necessary improvements to current MC performance are necessary, primarily […]
June 12, 2023
Cryo-CMOS to Control and Operate 2D Fault-Tolerant Qubit Network
Summary Large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computation requires precise and stable control of individual qubits. This project will use complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology to provide a cost-effective scalable platform for reliable and high-density control infrastructure for silicon spin qubits. We will use sub-micron CMOS technology to address device and circuit-level challenges and explore the integration of […]
June 14, 2018
Novel High-Speed Receiver for Quantum Communication and Sensing
Summary An essential aspect of a quantum channel is the detection and analysis of quantum signals in the form of photons. For most free-space applications, the photons are polarization encoded, e.g. by assigning the ‘0’ to horizontally polarized photons and ‘1’ to vertically polarized photons. However, where the geometric reference is not constant at all […]
January 1, 2019
Entangled States of Beams and their Applications
Summary With David Cory and collaborators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) we explore how to engineer beams of neutron or photons that carry entanglement. The degrees of freedom that can be entangled include spin (polarization), momentum, displacement, and angular momentum. These have potential applications ranging from studies of helical internal magnetic fields […]
September 7, 2016