The figures accompanied a NIST news article about a photonic chip designed to convert one input beam into multiple visible-light beams. The source paper contained a dense multi-panel figure combining microscope images, optical paths, device geometry, and phase/polarization examples.

The original figure combined several technical views, image sources, colors, and perspective systems, which made the mechanism difficult to read quickly outside the paper context. I used the original SEM images to recreate the waveguide surface patterns in Blender, then redrew the device, beam paths, polarization states, and callouts using restrained blue, white, and black.