Things can always be done faster, but can anything beat light? Computing with light instead of electricity is seen as a breakthrough to boost computer speeds. Transistors, the building blocks of data circuits, are required ...
Quantum Physics
Jul 20, 2020
0
363
Laser light traveling through ornately microfabricated glass has been shown to interact with itself to form self-sustaining wave patterns called solitons. The intricate design fabricated in the glass is a type of "photonic ...
Optics & Photonics
Jun 1, 2020
0
745
Fiber-optic cables that constitute a global undersea telecommunications network could one day help scientists study offshore earthquakes and the geologic structures hidden deep beneath the ocean surface.
Earth Sciences
Nov 28, 2019
0
755
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues have developed an optical switch that routes light from one computer chip to another in just 20 billionths of a second—faster ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 14, 2019
2
159
In 1884, a schoolmaster and theologian named Edwin Abbott wrote a novella called Flatland, which tells the story of a world populated by sentient two-dimensional shapes. While intended as a satire of rigid Victorian social ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 6, 2019
0
158
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have constructed a quantum-mechanical state in which the colors of three photons are entangled with each other. The state is a special combination, called a W ...
Quantum Physics
Sep 23, 2019
0
443
At the chemical level, diamonds are no more than carbon atoms aligned in a precise, three-dimensional (3-D) crystal lattice. However, even a seemingly flawless diamond contains defects: spots in that lattice where a carbon ...
Nanophysics
Jun 11, 2019
0
442
In "Avengers: Endgame," Tony Stark warned Scott Lang that sending him into the quantum realm and bringing him back would be a "billion-to-one cosmic fluke."
Optics & Photonics
Jun 10, 2019
0
463
Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley have built a new photonic switch that can control the direction of light passing through optical fibers faster and more efficiently than ever. This optical "traffic cop" ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 12, 2019
0
138
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a light-based imaging technique currently used in clinical diagnostics to examine organs in vivo. The technique uses interferometry; in which light reflected from an examined object combines ...
