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.
Light can carry enormous amounts of information at extreme speeds, making photonic technologies promising for the development of faster communications, more powerful computing systems and more sensitive sensors. But for light ...
Nanophysics
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Electrons, negatively charged particles, sometimes coordinate their movements in ways that produce certain collective excitations referred to as quasiparticles. One case in which this occurs is the quantum Hall effect, a ...
Physicists have long puzzled over a strange contradiction inside a family of minerals called rutile oxides. These materials all share the same crystal structure—but while some of them, like titanium dioxide, are firmly insulating, ...
Normally, a material absorbs and emits heat in a linked way: A surface that absorbs heat well at a certain wavelength and direction will also emit heat in the same way. This fundamental relationship, known as reciprocity, ...
General Physics
14 hours ago
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Fraunhofer ILT in Aachen has developed a highly complex laser-optical system for a quantum computer currently under construction at the 5th Institute of Physics at the University of Stuttgart. This system enables 2,000 Rydberg ...
Optics & Photonics
Jul 6, 2026
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A German-Japanese research team involving the University of Augsburg has made a significant breakthrough in the use of antiferromagnets. For the first time, the team has succeeded in writing magnetic information using only ...
Condensed Matter
Jul 4, 2026
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Werner Heisenberg's famous uncertainty principle describes one of the most intriguing features of quantum physics: certain pairs of physical quantities describing a particle, such as position and momentum, cannot simultaneously ...
Optics & Photonics
Jul 3, 2026
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412
Quantum properties of light are extremely delicate. When researchers attempt to measure them, even small losses on the way to a detector can make them invisible, limiting their use outside carefully controlled environments. ...
Optics & Photonics
Jul 2, 2026
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Hawking radiation is a form of radiation emitted by black holes, as theoretically predicted by Stephen Hawking. It suggests that black holes do not merely swallow matter—as had previously been assumed—but also emit very faint ...
General Physics
Jul 2, 2026
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Scientists have engineered a nanoscale switch using DNA "origami." Inspired by macroscale mechanical switches, the device achieves long-term functionality without the continuous forcing mechanism that past versions required ...
