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.
The controlled generation of single photons is an essential element of numerous quantum technology applications, such as quantum networks and quantum computing. A research team has now demonstrated the successful application ...
Optics & Photonics
Mar 17, 2026
0
79
Optical frequency combs—laser sources that emit evenly spaced colors of light—are foundational, ubiquitous tools for precision measurement, found in optical clocks, gas-sensing spectrometers, and instruments that detect the ...
Optics & Photonics
Mar 16, 2026
0
44
Timing is critical in diagnosing diseases such as cancer. Researchers within The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign used a historically underappreciated tiny powerhouse to detect ...
Bio & Medicine
Mar 16, 2026
0
57
Cerebral blood flow is essential for normal brain function and often perturbed in neurological disease. If one shines a source of coherent light on perfused tissue, the detected speckles, or "grains" of light fluctuate, or ...
Optics & Photonics
Mar 14, 2026
0
43
Researchers in China have developed magnetically controlled microrobots made from diatoms for the treatment of glioblastoma using photodynamic therapy. These microrobots exhibit excellent magnetic responsiveness and programmable ...
Bio & Medicine
Mar 12, 2026
0
19
Ultrashort mid-infrared (mid-IR) laser pulses are essential for applications such as molecular spectroscopy, nonlinear microscopy, and biomedical imaging, but their generation often relies on complex and power-intensive systems ...
Optics & Photonics
Mar 11, 2026
0
38
Physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have demonstrated a new kind of vacuum ultraviolet laser that is 100 to 1,000 times more efficient than existing technologies of its kind. The researchers say the device could ...
Nanophysics
Mar 11, 2026
0
123
Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created a chip-scale device that can dynamically control the "handedness" of light as it passes through—also known as its optical ...
Optics & Photonics
Mar 11, 2026
0
72
Photonic chips use light to process data instead of electricity, enabling faster communication speeds and greater bandwidth. Most of that light typically stays on the chip, trapped in optical wires, and is difficult to transmit ...
Optics & Photonics
Mar 11, 2026
1
82
An international research team led by Alexander Kuznetsov at the Paul Drude Institute for Solid State Electronics (PDI) in Berlin has demonstrated a fundamentally new way to control the condensation of hybrid light-matter ...
Condensed Matter
Mar 11, 2026
0
35
