Brilliantly colored chameleons, butterflies, opals—and now some 3-D-printed materials—reflect color by using nanoscale structures called photonic crystals.
Materials Science
Jun 10, 2020
0
138
Optical devices create, guide, and detect electromagnetic waves and include lasers, telescopes, and solar cells. Most of the materials used in these devices are challenging for certain applications because of a phenomenon ...
Optics & Photonics
Sep 18, 2019
0
477
A chameleon can alter the color of its skin so it either blends into the background to hide or stands out to defend its territory and attract a mate. The chameleon makes this trick look easy, using photonic crystals in its ...
Nanophysics
Sep 11, 2019
0
175
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed the thinnest optical device in the world—a waveguide that is three layers of atoms thin.
Optics & Photonics
Aug 12, 2019
2
646
A team led by scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory explored how atomically thin two-dimensional (2-D) crystals can grow over 3-D objects and how the curvature of those objects can stretch ...
Materials Science
Jun 3, 2019
0
501
Engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a device that can direct photons of light around sharp corners with virtually no losses due to backscattering, a key property that will be needed if electronics are ever to be ...
Nanophysics
Nov 19, 2018
1
443
Topological effects, such as those found in crystals whose surfaces conduct electricity while their bulk does not, have been an exciting topic of physics research in recent years and were the subject of the 2016 Nobel Prize ...
General Physics
Jan 12, 2018
4
895
If invisibility cloaks and other gee-whiz apps are ever to move from science fiction to science fact, we'll need to know more about how these weird metamaterials actually work. Michigan Tech researcher Elena Semouchkina has ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 6, 2017
0
224
A new technique developed by MIT researchers reveals the inner details of photonic crystals, synthetic materials whose exotic optical properties are the subject of widespread research.
Optics & Photonics
Nov 25, 2016
1
844
Scientists have created a crystal structure that boosts the interaction between tiny bursts of light and individual electrons, an advance that could be a significant step toward establishing quantum networks in the future.
Quantum Physics
Feb 8, 2016
0
1318
