https://phys.org/physics-news/optics-photonics/ en-us The latest news on Optics and Photonics Researchers have developed a new imaging technique that captures more information about ultrafast processes in the microscopic world than was previously possible. The technique offers scientists a powerful new tool to observe and analyze a wide range of ultrafast phenomena—which can happen in hundreds of femtoseconds—with unprecedented detail and speed. Writing in Optica, the researchers describe their new ultrafast imaging technique, called compressed spectral-temporal coherent modulation femtosecond imaging (CST-CMFI). https://phys.org/news/2026-04-shot-imaging-captures-ultrafast-microscopic.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 09 Apr 2026 10:00:08 EDT news694882480 A new analysis reveals what happens when very short or narrow electron beams encounter a particle. The research is published in the New Journal of Physics. Scientists should be able to achieve a new level of control over high-energy electrons interacting with a particle, according to the theoretical analysis by a RIKEN physicist and two colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-electronatom-encodes-quantum-state-electron.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:40:02 EDT news694869137 Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have reported important progress in quantum physics and materials science by optically initializing, controlling, and reading out nuclear spin states in a molecular material for the first time. Because of their weak interaction with the environment, nuclear spins are particularly stable quantum information carriers. The research, published in Nature Materials, shows that molecular nuclear spins could be a promising building block for future quantum technologies. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-optical-nuclear-molecules-paths-quantum.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:00:01 EDT news694866541 Near-infrared spectroscopy, or fNIRS, offers a way to monitor brain activity without surgery or radiation by tracking changes in blood flow and oxygenation. Light sources placed on the scalp send near-infrared light into the head, and detectors measure the light that scatters back. Because this light must pass through the scalp and skull before reaching the brain, the measured signal always includes a mix of superficial and cerebral contributions. Separating those signals has long been a central challenge for fNIRS researchers. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-layered-approach-sharpens-brain-optical.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 07 Apr 2026 10:20:03 EDT news694772401 Most people think of diamonds as high-end adornments. Not Ania Bleszynski Jayich. The UC Santa Barbara physicist sees diamonds, which she grows in the UC Quantum Foundry, as a potentially powerful foundation for quantum sensors. Sensors are currently much farther along in their development than other potential quantum applications. Diamond sensors are particularly promising because diamonds require relatively few quantum bits (qubits) to operate, whereas a quantum computer, for instance, requires more than 100,000, perhaps as many as a million, qubits to handle error correction, one of the main hurdles for quantum computing. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-mechanical-boost-diamond-quantum-sensor.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:30:01 EDT news694710121 Quantum mechanics tells us that a particle can never be perfectly still. But how precisely can it be oriented? A research team at the University of Vienna, together with colleagues at TU Wien and Ulm University, has now cooled the rotational motion of a levitated silica nanorotor all the way to its quantum ground state—in two orientational degrees of freedom. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-quantum-ground-state-rotation-dimensions.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 06 Apr 2026 12:20:03 EDT news694688821 Detecting a single particle of light is hard; detecting a single microwave photon is even harder. Microwave photons, the tiny packets of electromagnetic radiation used in current technologies like Wi-Fi and radar, carry far less energy than visible light. They are about 100,000 times weaker than optical photons. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-tiny-detector-microwave-photons-advance.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 03 Apr 2026 14:00:05 EDT news694368242 Most laser sources produce Gaussian beams that diverge as they propagate. This natural spreading limits their effectiveness in applications that require light to remain concentrated over long distances. To overcome this challenge, structured light beams have been developed, whose amplitude, phase, and polarization can be carefully controlled. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-compact-flat-lens-generate-nondiffracting.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:00:02 EDT news694351201 For the first time, an international team of physicists has successfully harnessed a rare orbital transition in atoms of ytterbium to create a new type of atomic clock that is both highly precise and extremely sensitive to fundamental physical effects. Publishing their results in Nature Photonics, the researchers, led by Taiki Ishiyama at Kyoto University, say their approach could pave the way for some of the most stringent tests yet of predictions made by the Standard Model. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ytterbium-atomic-clock-window-fundamental.html General Physics Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:00:01 EDT news694338430 Hidden features uncovered in X-ray signals are set to overturn a key scientific theory and fundamentally change how X-rays are interpreted across fields of physics, chemistry, biology and materials science, new research reveals. Researchers say the discovery can help scientists measure X-rays more precisely and reliably, and improve our understanding of common materials, from battery materials to biological proteins. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-hidden-features-rays-radically.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 01 Apr 2026 17:00:03 EDT news694264321 The direction in which the electromagnetic field of circularly polarized light rotates can be easily reversed by applying a voltage, RIKEN researchers have demonstrated. This could enable a new generation of optical devices based on circularly polarized light. The work is published in two papers in the journal Advanced Materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-helical-liquid-crystals-flip-chirality.html Condensed Matter Wed, 01 Apr 2026 16:10:01 EDT news694273141 Researchers at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology have, for the first time, measured the temporal duration of individual pulses of an extraordinary form of quantum light known as bright squeezed vacuum (BSV). Their findings are published in Optica. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ultrafast-quantum-pulses.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:20:02 EDT news694258144 Using high-intensity lasers, researchers have taken an important step toward miniaturization of particle accelerators by demonstrating free-electron laser amplification at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths (27–50 nm), with an acceleration length of only a few millimeters. By generating high-quality, monoenergetic electron beams (i.e. beams where all the electrons have nearly the same energy), they have achieved a key milestone toward compact accelerator technologies. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-desktop-particle-realms.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 01 Apr 2026 09:40:01 EDT news694254901 A new, miniature laser source developed by applied physicists in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Technical University of Vienna (TU Wien) could soon pack the power of a laboratory-based spectrometer—an important workhorse tool for precision environmental gas analysis—onto a single microchip. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-racetrack-lasers-bright-stable-frequency.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 31 Mar 2026 19:00:04 EDT news694189682 Light can carry angular momentum in two distinct ways. One comes from polarization, which describes how the electric field rotates. The other comes from the shape of the wavefront itself, which can twist like a corkscrew as it travels. This second form, known as orbital angular momentum, has attracted wide interest because it allows light to encode information, interact with matter in new ways, and probe physical and biological systems. Despite this promise, producing well-defined twisted light in free space remains technically challenging, especially when the light originates from small or localized sources. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-chiral-metasurfaces-free-space.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 31 Mar 2026 18:10:08 EDT news694195502 A research team led by Professor Jiwoong Yang of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at DGIST has developed next-generation optical sensor technology capable of precisely detecting not only the intensity and wavelength of light but also its rotational direction—the spin information of photons. The team successfully implemented a quantum-dot-based optical sensor that can detect circularly polarized light (CPL) across an ultra-wide spectral range—from ultraviolet to short-wave infrared—demonstrating photodetection performance comparable to that of commercial silicon optical sensors. The paper is published in Advanced Materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-generation-optical-sensor-photon-uv.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:00:04 EDT news694102621 Scientists in the Riccio College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of California Santa Barbara have demonstrated key laser and ion trap components necessary to help drastically shrink the size of quantum computers, an achievement aligned with the shrinking of integrated microprocessors in the 1970s, 80s and 90s that allowed computers to move from room-sized behemoths to today's ultrathin smartphones. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-stabilized-laser-components-quantum-room.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:00:06 EDT news694100162 When lasers were invented in the 1960s, they opened new avenues for scientific discovery and everyday applications, from scanners at the grocery store to corrective eye surgery. Conventional lasers control photons—individual particles of light—but over the past 20 years, scientists have invented lasers that control other fundamental particles, including phonons—individual particles of vibration or sound. Controlling phonons could open even more possibilities with lasers, such as taking advantage of unique quantum properties like entanglement. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-quantum-extremely-precise-phonon-lasers.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:00:05 EDT news694089241 In quantum technologies, everything depends on the ability to detect the properties carried by a single photon. But in the real world, that photon of interest is often buried in a sea of unwanted light—a true "needle in a haystack" challenge that currently limits the deployment of many applications, including secure quantum communication, quantum sensors used in telescope networks, as well as the interconnection of quantum computers to accelerate the development of new drugs and materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-quantum-needle-haystack-filtering-method.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 30 Mar 2026 13:20:02 EDT news694087741 Can light behave like a whirlwind? It turns out it can—and such "optical tornadoes" have now been created in an extremely small structure by scientists from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, the Military University of Technology, and the Institut Pascal CNRS at Université Clermont Auvergne. This discovery opens a new pathway for creating miniature light sources with complex structures, potentially enabling the development of simpler and more scalable photonic devices in the future, for applications such as optical communication and quantum technologies. The research is published in the journal Science Advances. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-physicists-laser-tornado-miniature-synthetic.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 27 Mar 2026 14:40:04 EDT news693834802 Researchers at the Würzburg site of the Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat have succeeded in transferring the topological quantum Hall and spin Hall effects to a hybrid light-matter system by harnessing targeted material design. The team led by Professor Sebastian Klembt generated this optical quantum phenomenon by using polaritons—hybrid light-matter particles. This advance paves the way for optical information processing. The results have been published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-physicists-optical-phenomenon-quantum-hall.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:00:04 EDT news693831255 A research group from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology reports in Nature an unprecedented achievement in electron microscopy: the direct measurement of "dark points" within light waves. By doing so, the researchers were able to confirm a prediction from the 1970s that the speed of these points exceeds the speed of light. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-year-dark-faster.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 26 Mar 2026 19:20:02 EDT news693755246 From 3D movie screens to augmented-reality devices, many modern technologies rely on our ability to manipulate light. Doing so in a cost-effective and efficient way, however, is often a formidable task. In an article published in Optics Letters, researchers from the University of Osaka announced a new light-emitting diode (LED) design that may help shrink complex optical systems into much smaller devices. The LED produces circularly polarized light using a built-in nanostructured surface, eliminating the need for bulky external optical components. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-tiny-power-generation-technology.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:40:01 EDT news693754261 The nature of quantum particles has long puzzled scientists. While single-particle interference suggests that a photon can behave like a spread-out wave, a whole photon is only ever detected in one specific place. Traditional interpretations of quantum mechanics often address this by suggesting the particle is in a superposition of being here and there at the same time. However, this tells us only where the particle is when it is measured, not where the particle physically is when no detector is present. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-experimental-evidence-photons-multiple-paths.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:00:03 EDT news693752759 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 such combs in optical devices and more practical to use them outside the laboratory. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-topological-solitons-power-chip-scale.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 25 Mar 2026 17:30:04 EDT news693676681 An international research team led by scientists from Skoltech has developed a method to position molecules on the surface of ultrathin materials with unprecedented precision using molecular DNA self-assembly, enabling the creation of quantum light sources. The results, published in the journal Light: Science & Applications, pave the way for the production of compact and efficient components for future quantum computers and secure communication networks. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-dna-origami-precisely-positions-photon.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 25 Mar 2026 10:00:05 EDT news693649141 Scientists have created the first microlasers capable of detecting individual molecules and even single atomic ions, a breakthrough that could significantly advance early disease diagnosis and molecular-scale medical testing. Researchers at the University of Exeter's Living Systems Institute have published their work in Nature Photonics. The paper opens up new possibilities for microlaser biosensing technology, including "lab-on-a-chip" technology capable of instant medical testing and diagnosis. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-microlasers-capable-individual-molecules-ions.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 25 Mar 2026 06:00:05 EDT news693565580 A tiny crystal chip which uses terahertz radiation to see clearly through a wide range of materials could find applications in health care, biological research, and security screening. Researchers from Scotland and Japan have developed a lightweight superconducting chip, which they say could unlock the full potential of terahertz imaging technologies and lead to the development of more powerful and portable devices. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-superconducting-chip-generates-tunable-terahertz.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 23 Mar 2026 16:10:07 EDT news693495781 Many current wireless communication, imaging and sensing technologies rely on components that convert oscillating electric and magnetic fields (i.e., electromagnetic waves) into electrical signals. Some of the most used components are so-called p-n diodes, semiconducting devices that combine two types of materials with distinct electrical properties. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-hall-rectenna-ghz-frequency-range.html Condensed Matter Sun, 22 Mar 2026 11:00:01 EDT news692975982 Scientists at the University of Warwick and University of Exeter have developed a fully fiber-coupled terahertz (THz) imaging system that significantly improves the speed, resolution, and clinical practicality of terahertz imaging. The study, published in Nature Communications, demonstrates a high-throughput, compact platform that overcomes key barriers limiting current THz systems—bringing real-time, non-invasive tissue imaging closer to routine clinical use. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-compact-terahertz-imaging-real-invasive.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 20 Mar 2026 15:40:03 EDT news693227136