We introduce Airy-beam tomographic microscopy (ATM) for high-resolution, volumetric, inertia-free imaging of biological specimens. The work exploits the highly adjustable Airy trajectories in the 3D space, transforming the conventional telecentric wide-field imaging scheme that requires sample or focal-plane scanning to acquire 3D information. The results present a consistent near-diffraction-limited 3D resolution across a tenfold extended imaging depth compared to wide-field microscopy. We anticipate the strategy to not only offer a promising paradigm for 3D optical microscopy, but also be translated to other non-optical waveforms.

We reveal that polymerization degree is a significant factor that affects the holographic properties of glass-like photopolymer. By modulating polymerization degree, as well as changing the photosensitizer concentration, we fabricate multilayer PQ/PMMA photopolymer, exhibiting excellent performances in storage fidelity and reproduction resolution. A reflection geometry holographic disk system is established using the multilayer sample, in which a high storage density of 40.5GB/cm3 is realized. The reproduced images exhibit high quality with an average diffraction efficiency of 7.4 × 10−4 and average peak SNR of 27.4. This study provides a paradigm for the fabrication and holographic application of other photopolymers.

Laguerre–Gaussian (LG) mode is widely adopted in various applications due to carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM). In practice, it is challenging to sort Laguerre–Gaussian mode according to various features. Traditional fork grating and optical geometric transformations are regarded as convenient methods for sorting LG mode. However, these methods have to destroy the OAM carried by the beam during the sorting process. Here, we demonstrate a nondestructive beam sorting mechanism for LG mode carrying orbital angular momentums based on a translation operator. The numerically solved operator can sort the input beams to pre-defined positions with faithful preservation of all the beam features, which shows good agreement with the experimental results. We believe the proposed translation operator will benefit potential applications in information processing, quantum optics, and optical communications.

The photochemical kinetics of phenanthrenequinone (PQ) doped poly (methyl methacrylate) photopolymer in holographic recording was studied theoretically and experimentally. The diffusion of PQ molecules during holographic recording was negligible because of its small diffusion coefficient at room temperature. A photochemical reaction kinetics model of PQ/PMMA was established. The analytical expressions for the temporal variations of transmittance and diffraction efficiency were derived. By fitting the experimental curves, some parameters related with the polymer components were obtained by the proposed model, which can be used to analyze the photochemical process and will be helpful to the optimization of material preparation.