Laser systems, as physical systems, comprise an optical gain medium, an energy pump source, and an optical resonator configured to produce coherent, monochromatic, and highly directional electromagnetic radiation via stimulated emission. The gain medium (solid-state, gas, liquid, or semiconductor) is excited by optical, electrical, or chemical pumping, creating a population inversion between quantized energy levels. The resonator, typically a pair of mirrors or integrated waveguide structures, provides optical feedback and mode selection, defining spatial and spectral properties. System performance is characterized by thresholds, efficiency, beam quality (M²), temporal regime (CW or pulsed), and stability against thermal, mechanical, and nonlinear optical effects.
Measuring conditions in volatile clouds of superheated gases known as plasmas is central to pursuing greater scientific understanding of how stars, nuclear detonations and fusion energy work. For decades, scientists have ...
Plasma Physics
Feb 5, 2026
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120
Recently, a research team from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences successfully grew a high-entropy garnet-structured oxide crystal and achieved enhanced laser performance at the 2.8 ...
Optics & Photonics
Feb 5, 2026
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34
Plasma mirrors capable of withstanding the intensity of powerful lasers are being designed through an emerging machine learning framework. Researchers in Physics and Computer Science at the University of Strathclyde have ...
Optics & Photonics
Feb 2, 2026
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78
Applied physicists in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have demonstrated a new way to structure light in custom, repeatable, three-dimensional patterns, all without the use of ...
Optics & Photonics
Feb 2, 2026
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277
Time is almost up on the way we track each second of the day, with optical atomic clocks set to redefine the way the world measures one second in the near future. Researchers from Adelaide University worked with the National ...
General Physics
Jan 31, 2026
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144
A team of engineers and scientists has shown for the first time that a hard-X-ray cavity can provide net X-ray gain, with X-ray pulses being circulated between crystal mirrors and amplified in the process, much like happens ...
Optics & Photonics
Jan 28, 2026
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63
Building things so small that they are smaller than the width of a human hair was previously achieved by using a method called two-photon polymerization, also known as 2PP—today's state-of-the-art in 3D micro- and nanofabrication. ...
Nanophysics
Jan 28, 2026
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137
Vacuum ultraviolet (VUV, 100–200 nm) light sources are indispensable for advanced spectroscopy, quantum research, and semiconductor lithography. Although second harmonic generation (SHG) using nonlinear optical (NLO) crystals ...
Condensed Matter
Jan 28, 2026
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25
Quantum computing represents a potential breakthrough technology that could far surpass the technical limitations of modern-day computing systems for some tasks. However, putting together practical, large-scale quantum computers ...
Optics & Photonics
Jan 27, 2026
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147
In a recent study, researchers from China have developed a chip-scale LiDAR system that mimics the human eye's foveation by dynamically concentrating high-resolution sensing on regions of interest (ROIs) while maintaining ...
