This section is the special issue for the winners of the Optics Awards for Excellent Papers, given by the Optical Society of Japan (OSJ). This special issue contains the review articles by two winners. These papers were reviewed and accepted according to the editorial policy of Optical Review. Optics Awards for Excellent Papers started in 1960 and 117 young researchers received these awards over 62 years. The recipients have led optical research in Japan and have extended and applied optical research in many fields.

Two excellent papers were selected: one is “Three-dimensional deeply generated holography,” by Dr. Ryoichi Horisaki and the other is “Full-color-sorting metalenses for high-sensitivity image sensors” by Masashi Miyata and the others.

Dr. R. Horisaki reported a high-speed generation method of a computer-generated hologram (CGH). The method is performed by replacing the iterative calculations for obtaining the CGH with the non-iterative calculation based on deep neural networks. In the special feature of this issue, “Computational imaging with randomness” is described as a development of this awarded research.

Dr. M. Miyata reported a color image sensor integrated with metasurface lenses. The metasurface lens simultaneously performs the wavelength separation and light focusing to the different positions without color filters, consequently, the color imaging is performed with a high light use efficiency.

I hope you enjoy the excellent reviews by the two winners and get inspiration for your research. Finally, I greatly appreciate the Section Committee member of Optics Awards for Excellent Papers for their great efforts.

April 2024

Yoshio Hayasaki

The Chair of the Selection Committee of Optics Awards for Excellent Papers

Optics Awards 2022 (OA 2022)