Optics & lasers as a research area encompasses the fundamental and applied study of the generation, propagation, manipulation, and detection of light, with a particular emphasis on coherent and monochromatic radiation from lasers. It includes laser physics (gain media, optical cavities, nonlinear and quantum optical effects), beam shaping and guiding (waveguides, fibers, integrated photonics), optical materials and devices (mirrors, modulators, detectors), and advanced techniques such as ultrafast optics, high-power and high-intensity laser systems, laser spectroscopy, and laser-based metrology. This field underpins technologies in precision measurement, optical communication, imaging, microfabrication, and control of matter with light.
Most clocks, from wristwatches to the systems that run GPS and the internet, work by tracking regular, repeating motions.
Quantum Physics
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Justus Ndukaife, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and Chancellor Faculty Fellow, and his team have developed next generation nanotweezers that better analyze extracellular vesicles and aid in unraveling ...
Bio & Medicine
Apr 13, 2026
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Physicists in China have simulated the effect of "false vacuum decay": a phenomenon believed to play out constantly in the seemingly empty expanses of space, and which one theory even suggests could bring an abrupt end to ...
Light, as we usually conceive of it, is defined by the astonishing velocity at which it moves from one point to another. For example, in just one second, light can travel most of the distance between Earth and the moon. This ...
Nanophysics
Apr 13, 2026
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Tiny robots—around 50 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair—open up fascinating possibilities: they enable the controlled manipulation of objects far too small for human hands. This brings us closer to a long-standing ...
Bio & Medicine
Apr 11, 2026
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A new study, published in Physical Review Letters, reports that scientists have successfully imaged the formation of cavity-induced density waves induced by laser light in an ultracold quantum gas. Previously, only global ...
Researchers from the Monash University School of Physics and Astronomy have flipped a long-held assumption in optics, showing that deliberately introducing controlled disorder into ultra-thin optical devices can dramatically ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 10, 2026
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Optical vortices—light beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM)—are characterized by helical wavefronts and phase singularities. While they have been widely studied in recent decades, two fundamental limitations have ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 9, 2026
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Researchers have developed a new imaging technique that captures more information about ultrafast processes in the microscopic world than was previously possible. The technique offers scientists a powerful new tool to observe ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 9, 2026
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An international team of researchers, led by scientists from the University of California, Irvine, has demonstrated a fundamentally new way to make silicon emit light—overcoming one of the most persistent limitations in modern ...
Nanophysics
Apr 8, 2026
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