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.
An international team of physicists has achieved a significant advance in laser science, demonstrating for the first time a practical route to dramatically boosting the intensity of high-power laser light.
Optics & Photonics
Apr 22, 2026
0
79
Plasma, the fourth state of matter, consists of a gas in which electrons are no longer bound to atoms, which allows electricity to flow freely. When beams of particles moving close to the speed of light travel through plasma, ...
Researchers from the University of Twente and Harvard University have developed a new way to generate ultraviolet (UV) light on a photonic chip at power levels high enough for real-world use. For the first time, the technique ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 21, 2026
0
69
Researchers from Bar-Ilan University have successfully recreated key features of black hole physics in a laboratory setting using an innovative optical system that mimics how black holes behave after violent cosmic events ...
General Physics
Apr 21, 2026
1
44
Spintronics are devices that operate leveraging the spin, an intrinsic form of angular momentum, of electrons. The ability to switch magnetic states is central to the functioning of these devices, as it ultimately allows ...
Distributed fiber-optic sensors are widely used to monitor temperature and strain in infrastructure, but their spatial resolution has long been limited. In a new study, researchers from Shibaura Institute of Technology and ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 20, 2026
0
11
Today, I want to walk you through a deceptively simple innovation from the lab at Loughborough University (PI: Prof Marco Peccianti): what happens when we decorate a spintronic heterostructure with a sparse layer of plasmonic ...
A new theoretical study finds shorter laser pulses achieve higher quantum efficiency for photoemission from a solid surface without increasing power or intensity. Using light to knock electrons loose from a surface—known ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 20, 2026
0
41
A team of international researchers, including an Aston University researcher, has cracked the code on how "breather" laser pulses work, creating a single mathematical model that explains two completely different laser behaviors ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 20, 2026
0
39
If you walk across the open yard in front of the Physics, Math and Astronomy building at the University of Texas at Austin, you'll see a 17-story tower and a huge L-shaped building. What you won't see is what's underneath ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 20, 2026
0
24
