Optical materials and elements, considered as a physical system, comprise engineered media and components that manipulate electromagnetic radiation in the optical frequency range through controlled refraction, reflection, diffraction, absorption, and emission. This system includes bulk and nanostructured dielectrics, semiconductors, and metals configured as lenses, mirrors, prisms, gratings, filters, waveplates, and coatings, characterized by parameters such as complex refractive index, dispersion, nonlinear susceptibilities, and anisotropy. Their collective behavior determines wavefront shaping, spectral and polarization control, and spatiotemporal light propagation, underpinning the performance of optical assemblies in imaging, beam delivery, photonic integration, and laser systems.
We've been covering the journey of the Habitable Worlds Observatory for some time now. Over the past few years, it's gone from a proposal to a relatively fleshed-out plan for how and what the next Great Observatory should ...
Astronomy
Jul 27, 2026
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Light typically interacts with a material the same way whether it enters through the front or the back—like polarized sunglasses that work the same from either side. Cornell researchers have demonstrated a simple route to ...
Optics & Photonics
Jul 27, 2026
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Integrated photonic devices—tiny circuits that use light instead of electrons—are becoming increasingly important for scalable photonics technologies and high-bandwidth communications. They are particularly valuable for managing ...
Condensed Matter
Jul 27, 2026
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A new study published in Nature Physics reports the first direct experimental evidence of a Floquet topological state, a novel light-induced phase of matter that, until now, has existed only on paper and in simulations. Topological ...
Photonic microchips can process data at extremely high speeds and are embedded in a wide variety of today's technologies. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) and Harvard University have ...
Nanophysics
Jul 24, 2026
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In a promising development for cancer treatment, a collaborative research team has overcome two issues that have prevented photothermal therapy, a much less invasive treatment option than surgery and/or radiation, from becoming ...
Bio & Medicine
Jul 22, 2026
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Researchers have developed a new type of optical fiber by freezing a glass capillary filled with liquid. It guides light and sound waves simultaneously and enables highly efficient coupling between them. The high coupling ...
Optics & Photonics
Jul 21, 2026
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Seoul National University College of Engineering announced that a joint research team led by Professor Namkyoo Park and Professor Sunkyu Yu of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at SNU, in collaboration ...
Optics & Photonics
Jul 17, 2026
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173
Nanocrystals are so useful that they formed the basis of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. But despite their usefulness, scientists have so far been able to make these microscopic crystals from only a limited palette of ...
Nanomaterials
Jul 16, 2026
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417
Quantum materials could transform technologies ranging from powerful computers and ultrasecure communications to advanced energy systems. But there has always been one major obstacle.
Quantum Physics
Jul 15, 2026
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