Traditional lenses and mirrors focus light using curved surfaces. Metasurfaces can achieve similar functions with a flat layer of nanoscale structures that locally control the phase of light. Extending these flat optics into ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 6, 2026
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503
Stanford engineers and colleagues designed a chip that can take a muddled mixture of light from multiple lasers and output clean beams of light. It's the first time researchers have demonstrated a device that can take in ...
General Physics
Nov 3, 2026
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189
Typically, after a physical system is disturbed, it can gradually return toward a state of thermal equilibrium by exchanging heat with its surroundings. Thermal equilibrium is a state in which there is no net transfer of ...
Detecting a single photon is a challenge in itself. But what if you also want to know exactly how many photons arrive at a particular point at the same time? Physicist Erik Baalbergen is working on light detectors that can ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 5, 2026
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The principle "Work smarter, not harder!" apparently also applies to controlling quantum materials with light. Many of their fascinating properties depend on how the atoms are arranged in the crystal. Ultrashort laser pulses ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 4, 2026
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71
X-rays with wavelengths between approximately 2.3 and 4.4 nanometers, i.e., in the so-called water window, are particularly well suited to examining biological samples in their natural, aqueous environment. To date, however, ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 5, 2026
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26
Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered that charged states made of two electrons and a positively charged hole (or vice versa) on atomically thin rolls of carbon atoms have a structure-derived "handedness" ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 9, 2026
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17
The tiny atomic defects so important for future quantum technologies can be difficult to spot. Fortunately, they leave behind some clues. The defects can alter how a material responds to light, producing a distinctive optical ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 9, 2026
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15
A KAIST-led research team has characterized how light propagates through and is absorbed by barium titanate (BTO), a promising material for next-generation optical communication devices. By clarifying optical properties that ...
Condensed Matter
Nov 9, 2026
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14
A research team led by Lu Haipeng, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), has achieved a breakthrough in preserving spin information for optoelectronic technologies. ...
Condensed Matter
Nov 9, 2026
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