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.
Modern high-speed internet uses light to quickly and reliably transmit large amounts of data through fiber-optic cables, but currently, light signals hit a bottleneck when data processing is necessary. For that, they must ...
Optics & Photonics
Oct 19, 2024
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677
Quantum defects have the potential to act as ultra-sensitive sensors that could offer new kinds of navigation or biological sensor technology.
Quantum Physics
Oct 17, 2024
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114
Thin-film lithium niobate is an emerging nonlinear integrated photonics platform ideally suited for quantum applications. Through spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC), it can generate correlated photon pairs for ...
Optics & Photonics
Oct 16, 2024
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88
Synthetic diamond is durable, inert, rigid, thermally conductive and chemically well-behaved—an elite material for both quantum and conventional electronics. But there's one problem. Diamond only likes diamond.
Nanophysics
Oct 16, 2024
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51
Metasurface technology is an advanced optical technology that is thinner, lighter, and more capable of precisely controlling light through nanometer-sized artificial structures than conventional technologies. KAIST researchers ...
Optics & Photonics
Oct 15, 2024
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96
"Color is crucial," as pop artist Roy Lichtenstein famously said, but the significance of color extends far beyond art. From the creation of Prussian blue—the first synthetic pigment—to quantum dots in modern display technology, ...
Nanophysics
Oct 15, 2024
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51
The Giant Magellan Telescope today announced the successful installation of one of its completed 8.4-meter-diameter primary mirrors into a support system prototype at the University of Arizona's Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab. ...
Astronomy
Oct 15, 2024
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40
Optical anti-counterfeiting technology, as a preventive measure, has deeply permeated our daily lives. Visually readable codes designed based on optical materials are widely used due to their ease of verification, reasonable ...
Optics & Photonics
Oct 15, 2024
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32
A class of material called perovskites, which have special electronic bonding with many applications, could be useful for quantum sensing.
Condensed Matter
Oct 15, 2024
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75
Glass materials are widely used in optical and optoelectronic devices due to their low cost and excellent mechanical and optical properties. Among them, glass concave/convex linear structures with feature sizes ranging from ...
Optics & Photonics
Oct 11, 2024
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63
