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.
Researchers from Monash University have developed a breakthrough nanoscale circuit that can generate, direct, and read light-based information, all on a single chip.
Nanophysics
May 26, 2026
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52
Flashes of femtosecond laser light, lasting just a few trillionths of a second, have made it possible to observe new magnetic structures for the first time. By using light as a remote control, researchers were able to switch ...
Condensed Matter
May 25, 2026
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292
For two decades, physicists have predicted the existence of a remarkable family of exotic molecules: giant atoms bound to ordinary atoms, with an electron so distant from its nucleus that it sculpts the pair into bizarre ...
Complexity may seem subjective, but a quantitative measure of the complexity of nanomaterials was recently developed by a team of researchers from the University of Michigan Engineering, the University of Southern California ...
Nanomaterials
May 21, 2026
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45
Gold nanoparticles, which are about one-thousandth the width of a human hair, can convert light they receive from a laser into heat. This capacity, known in medicine as photothermal therapy, is effective at destroying cancer ...
Bio & Medicine
May 19, 2026
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13
Quantum technologies promise powerful new kinds of computers, giving scientists new tools to mimic and explore nature at its tiniest scales. At those levels, everything in nature—from atoms and electrons to light itself—follows ...
Optics & Photonics
May 19, 2026
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51
They rank among the darkest and coldest places in the solar system: Hundreds of lunar craters, many of them at the moon's south pole, never receive direct sunlight and lie in permanent shadow. That's exactly why physicist ...
Planetary Sciences
May 18, 2026
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14
Chinese scientists have developed a programmable quantum computing prototype called Jiuzhang 4.0 that has set a new world record for optical quantum information technology, according to a study published May 13 in the journal ...
Optics & Photonics
May 18, 2026
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71
Quantum materials, materials with properties that are influenced by the laws of quantum mechanics, have attracted considerable attention over the past few decades. Their unique properties make these materials advantageous ...
Eighty years ago, Penn researchers J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly launched the age of electronic computing by harnessing electrons to solve complex numerical problems with ENIAC, the world's first general-purpose electronic ...
Optics & Photonics
May 15, 2026
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