/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. As fast as modern electronics have become, they could be much faster if their operations were based on light, rather than electricity. Fiber optic cables already transport information at the speed of light; to do computations on that information without translating it back to electric signals will require a host of new optical components. /news/2025-05-memory-chiral-photonic-device-enables.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Optics & Photonics Wed, 28 May 2025 15:34:53 EDT news667665287 In the realm of general relativity, black holes are well-known for their ability to trap light and matter by bending spacetime, creating a point of no return. While black holes have fascinated scientists and the public alike, another concept, the white hole, has remained more theoretical. A white hole is thought to be the reverse of a black hole, expelling light and matter rather than absorbing them. Now, a team of researchers has designed a novel optical device with intriguing similarities with both these elusive cosmic phenomena. /news/2025-04-optical-device-mimics-black-white.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Optics & Photonics Tue, 15 Apr 2025 14:53:03 EDT news663947582 Chiral-structural-color materials produce color through microscopic structures that interact with light rather than through pigmentation or dyes. Some beetle exoskeletons, avian feathers, butterfly wings, and marine organisms feature these structures naturally, producing iridescent or polarization-dependent colors. Over the last 10–15 years, scientists have made progress in developing artificial chiral-structural-color materials. /news/2025-02-polymer-microdomes-reveal-tunable-chiral.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 27 Feb 2025 12:40:03 EST news659882402 Two heads are better than one, as the saying goes, and sometimes two instruments, ingeniously recombined, can accomplish feats that neither could have done on its own. /news/2025-02-microscope-reveals-full-3d-molecular.html Molecular & Computational biology Sat, 22 Feb 2025 03:07:04 EST news659416015 Terahertz (THz) waves, situated between the microwave and infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, have drawn considerable attention over the past two decades. /news/2025-01-scientists-device-modulate-polarization-thz.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 23 Jan 2025 11:03:03 EST news656852581 Skyrmions, recognized for their intricate spin configurations, have captivated researchers as topological quasiparticles with vast potential in data storage and information technology. Recently, optical skyrmions—light-based counterparts of these quasiparticles—have emerged as a promising avenue for developing advanced optical systems with unique topological properties. /news/2024-12-flexible-metafiber-device-generate-optical.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 09 Dec 2024 17:30:01 EST news652977902 The interactions between quantum spins underlie some of the universe's most interesting phenomena, such as superconductors and magnets. However, physicists have difficulty engineering controllable systems in the lab that replicate these interactions. /news/2024-09-floquet-tunes-ultracold-molecule-interactions.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 12 Sep 2024 16:49:04 EDT news645378541 The fine and efficient control of the properties of light at ultrafast speed down to the picosecond timescale is a challenging task, crucial for many scientific applications and technologies. For instance, in free-space optical links, manipulating on demand the attributes of light can be exploited to encode and transfer digital information robustly, over long distances and without optical fibers. /news/2024-09-giant-ultrafast-dichroism-birefringence-nonlocal.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 03 Sep 2024 16:45:20 EDT news644600717 An article in Opto-Electronic Advances, discusses complete-basis-reprogrammable coding metasurface for generating dynamically-controlled holograms under arbitrary polarization states. /news/2024-08-basis-reprogrammable-coding-metasurface-generating.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 30 Aug 2024 12:33:02 EDT news644239981 The concept of deep diffractive neural networks (D2NN) was introduced by Professor Ozcan's research team in 2018. D2NN combines the principles of light diffraction with the functionalities of neural networks. It consists of a series of continuous diffractive layers. As light passes through these layers, variations in transmission or reflection coefficients at different positions cause changes in the light's phase and amplitude. /news/2024-08-polarization-wavelength-routers-based-diffractive.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 01 Aug 2024 08:07:20 EDT news641718436 A structured light refers to a light field which is "customized" in both space and time, characterized by its unique distribution of amplitude, phase, and polarization state in both space and time. /news/2024-06-polarization-arbitrary-trajectories.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 14 Jun 2024 13:10:02 EDT news637588425 Optical waves propagating through air or multi-mode fiber can be patterned or decomposed using orthogonal spatial modes, with far-ranging applications in imaging, communication, and directed energy. Yet the systems that perform these wavefront manipulations are cumbersome and large, restricting their utilization to high-end applications. /news/2024-06-3d-microscale-photonic-lantern-opportunities.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 03 Jun 2024 23:00:02 EDT news636644102 The future of optical communications just got brighter. In a development reported in Advanced Photonics, researchers from Nanjing University have introduced iso-propagation vortices (IPVs), a novel concept that offers a solution to a long-standing challenge faced by scientists and engineers: how to increase information processing capacity while overcoming the limitations of traditional vortex beams. /news/2024-05-iso-propagation-vortices-optical-multiplexing.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 20 May 2024 10:10:07 EDT news635418601 Over the past decade, metasurfaces deploying two-dimensional artificial nanostructures have emerged as a groundbreaking platform to manipulate light across various degrees of freedom. These metasurfaces exhibit significant potential in foundational scientific research and industrial applications. /news/2024-04-gigahertz-switchable-wavefront-lnoi-empowered.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 16 Apr 2024 15:20:03 EDT news632499601 Unconventional superconducting states are states of superconductivity rooted in physical processes that do not conform with the conventional theory of superconductivity, namely Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer (BCS) theory. These states are characterized by close interactions between magnetism and superconductivity. /news/2024-04-spontaneous-emergence-1d-superconducting-stripes.html Superconductivity Mon, 08 Apr 2024 09:39:39 EDT news631787972 In contrast to conventional mirrors, light can be reflected on surfaces known as metasurfaces without changing its polarization. This phenomenon has now been proven by physicists at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL). The discovery enables circulating light to be used to reliably detect chiral molecules. /news/2024-01-physicists-concept-chiral-molecules.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 31 Jan 2024 11:18:02 EST news625922281 National University of Singapore (NUS) researchers have introduced an upconversion plasmonphore platform to enable precise control over the polarization of isotropic upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs). This is achieved by coupling upconversion activators with carefully designed anisotropic gap plasmon mode-supported metasurfaces. /news/2024-01-anisotropic-plasmon-multilevel-polarized-upconversion.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Wed, 10 Jan 2024 13:38:21 EST news624116298 As object identification and three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction techniques become essential in various reverse engineering, artificial intelligence, medical diagnosis, and industrial production fields, there is an increasing focus on seeking vastly efficient, faster speed, and more integrated methods that can simplify processing. /news/2023-12-all-optical-identification-three-dimensional-reconstruction-based.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 21 Dec 2023 13:00:04 EST news622386001 Liquid-crystal (LC) phase modulators are widely used in optical systems because of their advantages of low power consumption, lightweight, flexible bandwidth adjustment, and non-mechanical movements. However, most LC phase modulators are polarization-sensitive, meaning that they affect the light phase differently depending on its polarization. This can limit their performance and functionality in some applications. /news/2023-11-approach-polarization-independent-lc-phase-modulation.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Optics & Photonics Thu, 30 Nov 2023 17:05:02 EST news620586301 Flexible three-dimensional (3D) displays drive innovation in the next-generation display technology, as they allow for the creation of versatile and adaptable displays that can be easily manipulated and customized to fit various viewing scenarios. /news/2023-10-printable-circularly-polarized-luminescence-materials.html Materials Science Wed, 25 Oct 2023 17:12:03 EDT news617472722 By analyzing the data from the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey (DECaLS), astronomers from the Christ University in Bangalore, India, have serendipitously discovered a new ring galaxy, which received designation DES J024008.08-551047.5 and may belong to the rare class of polar ring galaxies. The finding was reported in a paper published August 29 on the pre-print server arXiv. /news/2023-09-galaxy-indian-astronomers.html Astronomy Tue, 05 Sep 2023 09:10:01 EDT news613123109 Scientists at Beijing Institute of Technology have developed an ultra-fast quasi-three-dimensional technology, overcoming the shortcomings of missing information in two-dimensional images and incomplete features, allowing for the analysis of three-dimensional characteristics of ultra-fast processes. /news/2023-08-ultrafast-imaging-2d-quasi-3d.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 31 Aug 2023 16:08:03 EDT news612716881 Quantum emission is pivotal to realizing photonic quantum technologies. Solid-state single photon emitters (SPEs), such as hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) defects, operate at room temperature. They are highly desirable due to their robustness and brightness. /news/2023-08-metalens-advanced-quantum-emission.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 08 Aug 2023 11:17:18 EDT news610712172 Precise control of light is a crucial requirement in optical imaging, sensing, and communication. Traditional lenses employed for the purpose have limitations, necessitating more precise and compact solutions. To address this need, researchers have developed metalenses, ultrathin lenses constructed from nanomaterials that are smaller in size than the wavelength of light. These sub-wavelength elements provide the means to manipulate light waves with exceptional precision, facilitating a precise control of the amplitude, phase, polarization, and direction of light waves. /news/2023-07-image-quality-broadband-achromatic-polarization-insensitive.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 25 Jul 2023 15:44:03 EDT news609518641 Polarization, as a primary physical quantity of light, is of great interest to almost all optical sciences and technologies. Along with linear polarization detection, circular polarization (or light ellipticity) detection is essential for chiral molecule distinguishing, vision dehazing, magnetic field sensing, quantum communication, and cryptography. Traditional solutions rely on external optical systems containing polarizers and wave plates, unfavorably increasing the complexity and sizes of light ellipticity detectors. /news/2023-07-on-chip-infrared-circular-polarization-detector.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 24 Jul 2023 15:34:04 EDT news609431642 Optical holography is a powerful method for recording and reconstructing complete optical field information, including intensity and phase. It has found extensive applications in various fields, such as optical display, imaging, data storage, encryption, and metrology. With the rapid development of the information society, the need for increased coding freedom to meet high-security and high-capacity challenges has become apparent. /news/2023-07-orbital-angular-momentum-boosts-multiplexed.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 05 Jul 2023 16:46:26 EDT news607794384 Vortices of light, null regions of intensity surrounded by spiral phases, make up the skeleton of a wavefield and influence the properties of light. Since the discovery of the tight connection of optical vortices and orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light in the seminal paper in 1992, considerable research progress has been made to unveil the beauty of vortices of light. /news/2023-05-latest-spatiotemporal-vortices.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 31 May 2023 12:01:17 EDT news604753275 Mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR) as one of the most important transparent atmosphere windows is less sensitive to interference from the background emission of the sun, providing a high-transmission zone for the finger-print spectra of various materials and enabling the communication channels between space and ground. Fundamental characteristics of photons, wavelength, polarization and their measurements are of great interest in almost all areas of science and in remote sensing technology. However, the crosstalk among various polarization and wavelength channels prevents accurate mid-infrared detections at high signal-to-noise ratio. /news/2023-05-polychromatic-full-polarization-mid-infrared.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 09 May 2023 10:36:06 EDT news602847363 Researchers at Columbia Engineering have developed a new class of integrated photonic devices—"leaky-wave metasurfaces"—that can convert light initially confined in an optical waveguide to an arbitrary optical pattern in free space. These devices are the first to demonstrate simultaneous control of all four optical degrees of freedom, namely, amplitude, phase, polarization ellipticity, and polarization orientation—a world record. /news/2023-05-leaky-wave-metasurfaces-interface-free-space-optical.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Mon, 08 May 2023 13:10:24 EDT news602770220 As fundamental properties of light, spectra and polarization carry vital information concerning the propagation of light waves. For example, spectral imaging can reflect the material composition of objects, while polarized imaging contains information on the texture of the surface, light polarization, and/or spatial distribution of the optical properties of a scene. /news/2023-04-multi-foci-metalens-spectra-polarization-ellipticity.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 04 Apr 2023 14:20:04 EDT news599836801