White light non-diffracting beams and applications

该赠款旨在研究使用非激光光源来创建在太空中传播时不会传播的光模式。通常人们认为我们需要激光和它们固有的一种颜色和铅笔状光束的特殊性质来制作干涉图案：然而，通过仔细设计，我们可以开发出新的光束，这些光束可以提供具有类似应用的扩展光图案。这些白色光图案甚至可以用家用灯泡制成！一旦我们理解了这些图案是如何形成的，我们就可以将它们用于物理和生物学研究的移动物体（微型牵引光束），并且还可以观察通过混浊样品的光穿透：这最终可能是雾或组织样品：如果我们可以让光更深入地进入这些样品，我们就可以更深入地成像，激活组织深处的药物，这可能在医疗保健中有应用。

The grant aims to look at the use of non-laser based sources to create patterns of light that do not spread as they travel in space. Normally one thinks we need lasers and their inherent special properties of one colour and pencil like beams to make patterns of interference: however with careful design we can develop new beams which can give extended patterns of light with similar applications. These white light patterns may be made even with a household bulb! Once we understand how these patterns are made we may use them for moving objects (a miniature tractor beam) for physics and biology studies and also to look at light penetration through turbid sample: this could be ultimately fog or a sample of tissue: if we can get light to go deeper into such samples we may be able to image deeper, activate drugs deep in tissue which may have applications in healthcare