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.
Caltech scientists have developed a new way to produce optical frequency combs—important tools in devices that keep time and measure distances very precisely—at the chip scale, an advance that should make it easier to incorporate ...
Optics & Photonics
Mar 25, 2026
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Modern polymer materials face a fundamental challenge: they must remain strong and durable during use, yet ideally degrade when they are no longer needed. Designing materials that satisfy both requirements has long been a ...
Nanomaterials
Mar 25, 2026
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A laser-based system that can create mesh-like structures in a dish that resemble the cytoskeletons of cells has been developed by two RIKEN researchers. They demonstrated its usefulness for research by exploring how two ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 21, 2026
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From GPS satellites to mobile networks, modern technology relies on ultra-precise radio signals. Engineers have long tried to generate them on chips using interactions between light and sound, but the effect was too weak. ...
Optics & Photonics
Mar 19, 2026
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Penn-led researchers have shown for the first time that multiple, information-carrying light signals can be safely guided through chip-based, reconfigurable networks using topology, the esoteric branch of mathematics that ...
Optics & Photonics
Mar 19, 2026
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What will the computers of tomorrow look like? Chances are good that spintronics will play a decisive role in the next generation of computers. In spintronics, the intrinsic angular momentum of an electron (the spin) is used ...
Condensed Matter
Mar 18, 2026
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84
At Empa, an interdisciplinary research institute for materials science and technology within the ETH Domain, researchers are working on ways to kill harmful bacteria and viruses. In the Nanomaterials in Health Lab, headed ...
Bio & Medicine
Mar 17, 2026
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Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) have created a new and unusual state of matter—known as a supersolid—by engineering how light and matter interact inside a nanoscale device. The work, published in Nature ...
Nanophysics
Mar 17, 2026
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206
Scientists at Caltech have figured out how to precisely engineer tiny three-dimensional (3D) metallic pieces with nanoscale dimensions. The process can work with any metal or metal alloy and yields components of surprising ...
Nanomaterials
Mar 17, 2026
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13
For the first time, a quantum radiation reaction in strong electromagnetic fields has been demonstrated experimentally by allowing electrons to collide with an extremely intense and powerful laser beam. The research findings ...
Optics & Photonics
Mar 17, 2026
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