Laser solitons: Theory, topology and potential applications

In almost all situations, even in a vacuum, light cannot travel endlessly without dissipating. Pulses of light known as solitons that propagate along fibres for long distances without changing their shape or losing focus ...

MIT researchers build an all-optical transistor

Optical computing—using light rather than electricity to perform calculations—could pay dividends for both conventional computers and quantum computers, largely hypothetical devices that could perform some types of computations ...

Detecting disease with a smartphone accessory

As antiretroviral drugs that treat HIV have become more commonplace, the incidence of Kaposi's sarcoma, a type of cancer linked to AIDS, has decreased in the United States. The disease, however, remains prevalent in sub-Saharan ...

Polymer coating could be breakthrough in diagnostic technology

(Phys.org) —When physics professor Randy Heflin brought his 18-month-old daughter to the pediatrician, he didn't know the visit would provide the motivation for a discovery that could herald a breakthrough in diagnostic ...

Making a better invisibility cloak

The first functional "cloaking" device reported by Duke University electrical engineers in 2006 worked like a charm, but it wasn't perfect. Now a member of that laboratory has developed a new design that ties up one of the ...

Dead stars could be the future of spacecraft navigation

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the University of Leicester have been commissioned by the European Space Agency (ESA) to investigate the feasibility of using dead stars to navigate spacecraft in deep ...