Status of women in physics in Spain

2 pages, 3 tables.-- En: Women in Physics, 2nd lUPAP International Conference, AIP Conference Proceedings 795, New York.-- PACS: 01.78+p, 01.85.+fWe present activities of the group, Spanish Women in Physics, during the past three years. We describe measures adopted by the Spanish government to attain gender equality and discuss the status of women in the scientific field. Finally, we present statistical data updated from the last IUPAP Women in Physics Conference in 2005. The percentage of women at various staff levels at universities and at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) remains constant (approximately 32%). At CSIC, however, an increase in the number of available posts has led to an increase in the number of women in top positions. The most remarkable finding from Spanish universities is that 50% of women were hired at the new professorial category of “PhD contract.”Peer reviewe

The International Day of Light in Spain: a three years perspective

In this article we report on the activities in Spain related to the celebration of the International Day of Light (IDL). The Spanish Committee for the IDL was constituted in 2017, as a continuation of the previous Committee for the International Year of Light (2015). This Committee involves different academic, scientific and industrial partners in Spain related to light science and light technologies, and develops actions to promote and disseminate the IDL activities. After the success of the 2018 and 2019 editions, the 2020 IDL celebration has been totally affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, and most of the programmed events were cancelled. Nevertheless, some on-line activities were developed. The aim of this work is to review the IDL impact in Spain in these last three years

The first International Day of Light in Spain

In this work, we review the main activities related to the International Day of Light (IDL) in Spain. We describe the actions of the Spanish Committee for IDL that has been created in Spain, reactivating the Spanish Committee for the International Year of Light created in 2015. The Spanish Committee of the IDL has been very active in promoting the realization of events, and providing tools for the IDL related information dissemination, as the specific related webpage for the IDL in Spain. The Spanish Committee also was the Spanish contact with the International Secretariat of the IDL. We describe the flagship IDL event in Spain that was organized in the Faculty of Physics Sciences of Universidad Complutense de Madrid on May 16th 2018. And we report on many other activities that have been developed in different places in Spain. These activities of the IDL in Spain are intended to make the society aware of the importance of the light and the light based technologies for the progress and well-being of the humankind. They have also been oriented to attract young talent to the studies of science and engineering

Depth of focus increase by multiplexing programmable diffractive lenses

A combination of several diffractive lenses written onto a single programmable liquid crystal display (LCD) is proposed for increasing the Depth of Focus (DOF) of the imaging system as a whole. The lenses are spatially multiplexed in a random scheme onto the LCD. The axial irradiance distribution produced by each lens overlaps with the next one producing an extended focal depth. To compare the image quality of the multiplexed lenses, the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) is calculated. Finally we obtain the experimental Point Spread Functions (PSF) for these multiplexed lenses and experimental results in which an extended object is illuminated under spatially incoherent monochromatic light. We compare the images obtained in the focal plane and in some defocused planes with the single lens and with three multiplexed lenses. The experimental results confirm that the multiplexed lenses produce a high increase in the depth of focus.Fil: Iemmi, Claudio Cesar. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Campos, Juan. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Escalera, J. C.. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: López Coronado, O. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Gimeno, R.. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Yzuel, María J.. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; Españ

Jones matrix treatment for optical Fourier processors with structured polarization

We present a Jones matrix method useful to analyze coherent optical Fourier processors employing structured polarization. The proposed method is a generalization of the standard classical optical Fourier transform processor, but considering vectorial spatial functions with two complex components corresponding to two orthogonal linear polarizations. As a result we derive a Jones matrix that describes the polarization output in terms of two vectorial functions defining respectively the structured polarization input and the generalized polarization impulse response. We apply the method to show and analyze an experiment in which a regular scalar diffraction grating is converted into equivalent polarization diffraction gratings by means of an appropriate polarization filtering. The technique is further demonstrated to generate arbitrary structured polarizations. Excellent experimental results are presented.Fil: Moreno, Ignacio. Universidad Miguel Hernandez - Elche; EspañaFil: Iemmi, Claudio César. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Campos, Juan. Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona. Facultad de Física; EspañaFil: Yzuel, María J.. Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona. Facultad de Física; Españ

Binary polarization pupil filter: Theoretical analysis and experimental realization with a liquid crystal display

The Jones matrix formalism has been applied to evaluate the response of an optical system when a non-uniform polarizing pupil is introduced. With this formalism we analyze and experimentally demonstrate the properties of a binary polarization pupil filter having two regions with two orthogonal linear polarization orientations. We first study the case when no analyzer is placed behind the pupil filter, and both, the transversal and the axial behavior are described in terms of the intensity and the local state of polarization. Then it is shown how the response of the optical system can be easily changed through the orientation of an analyzer placed behind the pupil. We experimentally verified the theory using a twisted nematic liquid crystal display, which produces two orthogonal linear polarization states for two different addressed voltages.Fil: Moreno, Ignacio. Universidad de Miguel Hernandez; EspañaFil: Iemmi, Claudio Cesar. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Campos, Juan. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Yzuel, María J.. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; Españ

High depth of focus by combining annular lenses

In some technological applications, optical systems that produce a high depth of focus and superresolving transversal responses are required. In this paper we present a pupil design consisting in a phase pupil with binary amplitude, that added to a conventional optical system, can accomplish these goals. The pupil function is characterized by a complex amplitude that consists basically in combining two annular lenses with different focal length. Meanwhile the central portion of the pupil has an amplitude equal to 0, the external portion is modulated with two quadratic phases each one covering an annular zone. One of the phases corresponds to a convergent lens and the other to a divergent lens. The effect on the incident wavefront is to redirect the light in front of and behind the best image plane (BIP) producing a widened focus. The evolution of the transverse gain for the extended focus is also studied. Experimental results are given, and they confirm the extended focus and the superresolving behavior of the proposed pupil function.Fil: Ledesma, Silvia Adriana. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Escalera, J. C.. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Campos, Juan. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Mazzaferri, Javier E.. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; ArgentinaFil: Yzuel, María J.. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; Españ

Optical pattern recognition based on color vision models

A channel transformation based on opponent-color theory of the color vision models is applied to optical pattern recognition so that the conventional red, green, and blue (RGB) channels are transformed into bright-dark, red-green, and yellow-blue (ATD) channels. Matched filtering and correlation are performed over the new components of the target and the scene in the ATD system. The proposed transformation allows us to reduce the number of channels commonly used in color pattern recognition, passing from the three RGB channels to the two red-green and yellow-blue opponent-color channels

Image enhancement by spatial frequency post-processing of images obtained with pupil filters

The use of apodizing or superresolving filters improves the performance of an optical system in different frequency bands. This improvement can be seen as an increase in the OTF value compared to the OTF for the clear aperture. In this paper we propose a method to enhance the contrast of an image in both its low and its high frequencies. The method is based on the generation of a synthetic Optical Transfer Function, by multiplexing the OTFs given by the use of different non-uniform transmission filters on the pupil. We propose to capture three images, one obtained with a clear pupil, one obtained with an apodizing filter that enhances the low frequencies and another one taken with a superresolving filter that improves the high frequencies. In the Fourier domain the three spectra are combined by using smoothed passband filters, and then the inverse transform is performed. We show that we can create an enhanced image better than the image obtained with the clear aperture. To evaluate the performance of the method, bar tests (sinusoidal tests) with different frequency content are used. The results show that a contrast improvement in the high and low frequencies is obtained.Fil: Estévez, Irene. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Escalera, Juan C.. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Pears Stefano, Quimey Martín. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Iemmi, Claudio César. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Ledesma, Silvia Adriana. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Yzuel, María J.. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Campos, Juan. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Españ