The time had come to open the envelope, but Stephan Schlamminger, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), wasn't sure he wanted to know the secret number that lay inside. For the past 10 ...
For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that a laser-plasma accelerator can reliably drive a free-electron laser for more than eight hours. Published in Physical Review Accelerators and Beams, the result was achieved ...
Most clocks, from wristwatches to the systems that run GPS and the internet, work by tracking regular, repeating motions.
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 ...
Thirty-four years after Cornell University scientists first conceived it, the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) now rises above the Atacama Desert, near the summit of Cerro Chajnantor in Chile. FYST will help answer ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Recent advancements in nanophotonics are moving beyond isotropic noble metals to achieve dynamic and directional control over plasmons. Conventional localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPR) are limited by their isotropic ...
Particle accelerators reveal the heart of nuclear matter by smashing together atoms at close to the speed of light. The high-energy collisions produce a shower of subatomic fragments that scientists can then study to reconstruct ...
