News tagged with optical sciences

Nowhere to hide: New device sees bacteria behind the eardrum

Doctors can now get a peek behind the eardrum to better diagnose and treat chronic ear infections, thanks to a new medical imaging device invented by University of Illinois researchers. The device could usher ...

Technology / Engineering

created May 29, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

A magnetic approach to lattices

(Phys.org) -- JQI experimentalists under the direction of Ian Spielman are in the business of using lasers to create novel environments for neutral atoms. For instance, this research group previously enticed ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 22, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

New 'metamaterial' practical for optical advances

(Phys.org) -- Researchers have taken a step toward overcoming a key obstacle in commercializing "hyperbolic metamaterials," structures that could bring optical advances including ultrapowerful microscopes, computers and solar ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created May 15, 2012 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (7) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Computing the best high-resolution 3-D tissue images

Real-time, 3-D microscopic tissue imaging could be a revolution for medical fields such as cancer diagnosis, minimally invasive surgery and ophthalmology. University of Illinois researchers have developed ...

Physics / General Physics

created Apr 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past

Physicists of the group of Prof. Anton Zeilinger at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), the University of Vienna, and the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology (VCQ) ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Apr 23, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (28) | comments 29 | with audio podcast

NASA engineers testing Webb telescope's OSIM and BIA instruments

(Phys.org) -- Several critical items related to NASA's next-generation James Webb Space Telescope are being tested in the giant thermal vacuum test chamber at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 12, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 1

New ultra-small laser opens up a world of possibilities

(PhysOrg.com) -- Computing and medicine are among the many fields which could be revolutionised by a new form of ultra-small laser.

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Apr 04, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Atomtronics: A new phase

Just as NASA engineers test new rocket designs in computer studies before committing themselves to full prototypes, so physicists will often model matter under various circumstances to see whether something ...

Physics / General Physics

created Feb 19, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Researchers efficiently couple light from a plane wave into a surface plasmon mode

Researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology have made a grating coupler that transmits over 45 % of the incident optical energy from a plane wave into a single surface plasmon polariton (SPP) mode ...

Physics / General Physics

created Feb 02, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Quantum mechanics enables perfectly secure cloud computing

Researchers have succeeded in combining the power of quantum computing with the security of quantum cryptography and have shown that perfectly secure cloud computing can be achieved using the principles of ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Jan 19, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (15) | comments 13 | with audio podcast

Researchers produce ultra-short light pulses using on-chip microresonator

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology and Purdue University have designed and fabricated an on-chip microresonator that converts continuous laser light into ultra-short pulses ...

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Jan 19, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Keeping our beaches safe: New wireless sensor device rapidly detects E. coli in water samples

Fecal contamination of public beaches caused by sewage overflow is both dangerous for swimmers and costly for state and local economies. Current methods to detect Escherichia coli, a bacterium highly indicative of the pr ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Dec 08, 2011 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Putting artificial atoms on the clock

Around the turn of the century, scientists began to understand that atoms have discrete energy levels. Within the field of quantum physics, this sparked the development of quantum optics in which light is ...

Physics / General Physics

created Nov 07, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Bio-inspired coating resists liquids

After a rain, the cupped leaf of a pitcher plant becomes a virtually frictionless surface. Sweet-smelling and elegant, the carnivore attracts ants, spiders, and even little frogs. One by one, they slide to ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Sep 21, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

Digital quantum simulator realized

(PhysOrg.com) -- The physicists of the University of Innsbruck and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) in Innsbruck have come considerably closer to their goal to investigate complex ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Sep 01, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (16) | comments 4 | with audio podcast