Geometry of intricately fabricated glass makes light trap itself

Laser light traveling through ornately microfabricated glass has been shown to interact with itself to form self-sustaining wave patterns called solitons. The intricate design fabricated in the glass is a type of "photonic ...

Gold in limbo between solid and melted states

If you heat a solid material enough, the thermal energy (latent heat) causes the material's molecules begin to break apart, forming a liquid. One of the most familiar examples of this phase transition from a well-ordered ...

Shining a new light on biomimetic materials

Advances in biomimicry – creating biological responses within non-biological substances – will enable synthetic materials to behave in ways that were typically only found in Nature. Light provides an especially effective ...

When plasmons reach atomic flatland

Researchers from the MPSD and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in the United States have discovered a significant new fundamental kind of quantum electronic oscillation, or plasmon, in atomically thin materials. ...

Graphene mapping 50 times faster

Graphene has created high expectations, as a strong, ultrathin, two-dimensional material that could also be the basis for new components in information technology. There is hence a huge need for characterization of graphene ...

Molecular vibrations lead to high performance laser

Lasers. They are used for everything from entertaining our cats to encrypting our communications. Unfortunately, lasers can be energy intensive and many are made using toxic materials like arsenic and gallium. To make lasers ...

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