https://phys.org/physics-news/optics-photonics/ en-us The latest news on Optics and Photonics When laser flashes hit matter, electrons are knocked off their orbits around the atomic nuclei. This can generate extremely hot plasmas composed of charged particles—ions and electrons. Researchers at HZDR have now observed this ionization process in more detail than ever before. To do so, they combined two state-of-the-art lasers: the X-ray free-electron laser and the high-intensity optical laser ReLaX at the HED-HiBEF experiment station at the European XFEL in Schenefeld, near Hamburg. Their findings, published in Nature Communications, deliver fundamental insights into the interaction of high-energy lasers and matter under extreme conditions. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-copper-blasted-million-degree-plasma.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 14 Apr 2026 12:40:04 EDT news695384221 For the last 80 years, the theory of quantum electrodynamics (QED), which describes all electromagnetic interactions, has been a cornerstone of the standard model, withstanding the scrutiny of countless experiments and agreeing with observations down to the smallest known precisions. Yet, some high-intensity scales of QED remain unexplored, prompting some to wonder if quantum computers could deal with these scales' inherent complexity. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-quantum-simulations-tackle-photon-polarization.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 14 Apr 2026 12:20:09 EDT news695384043 Adelaide University researchers have successfully tested a new type of portable atomic clock at sea for the first time, using technology that could help power the next generation of navigation, communications and scientific systems. The research team, from the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS), developed the highly precise device and trialed it aboard a vessel provided by the Royal Australian Navy in July 2024. They have reported their findings in a new paper published in the journal Optica. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-generation-atomic-clock-successfully-sea.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 14 Apr 2026 10:00:13 EDT news695376003 Acoustic metamaterials are a fast-evolving family of materials which manipulate sound waves in ever more advanced ways. Now, a team led by Changqing Xu at Nanjing Normal University in China has engineered an acoustic metamaterial, a "ghost tunnel": a structure which acts as a near-perfect waveguide for sound entering through its ends, while being essentially invisible to waves incident on its sides. The results, published in Physical Review Letters, could open new avenues for manipulating sound waves in complex signal environments. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ghost-tunnels-staying-invisible.html General Physics Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:20:06 EDT news695290653 For years, scientists have dreamed of using atomically thin van der Waals (vdW) materials to build faster, more efficient photonic chips. These materials can be stacked and tuned with extraordinary precision, opening possibilities far beyond those of conventional technologies. The challenge is that they are extremely fragile, making them notoriously difficult to shape with standard nanofabrication tools. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-photonics-approach-chip-millions.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 13 Apr 2026 05:00:03 EDT news695046182 A new study, published in Physical Review Letters, reports that scientists have successfully imaged the formation of cavity-induced density waves induced by laser light in an ultracold quantum gas. Previously, only global signals, such as photon leakage or the peak in energy deposition of a fast charged particle (Bragg peaks), have been used to detect this kind of ordering. Prior to this study, there had been no direct, high-resolution in situ imaging of cavity-induced density-wave order in ultracold gases. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-high-resolution-imaging-captures-cavity.html Optics & Photonics Sat, 11 Apr 2026 11:50:01 EDT news694782569 Researchers from the Monash University School of Physics and Astronomy have flipped a long-held assumption in optics, showing that deliberately introducing controlled disorder into ultra-thin optical devices can dramatically increase their power and versatility, without making them bigger or more complex. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-scientists-mess-breakthrough-chaotic-generation.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 10 Apr 2026 14:40:03 EDT news695041098 Optical vortices—light beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM)—are characterized by helical wavefronts and phase singularities. While they have been widely studied in recent decades, two fundamental limitations have restricted their broader impact: generating large numbers of vortices simultaneously and achieving high peak power in such configurations. Until now, large vortex arrays have been limited to low-power systems, whereas high-power demonstrations have typically involved only single vortices. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-megawatt-optical-vortices-array.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:20:06 EDT news694961373 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