Optics

Tabletop SLAC, Thanks To An 'Accelerator On A Chip'

Researchers recently used a laser to accelerate electrons at a rate 10 times higher than conventional technology in a nanostructured glass chip smaller than a grain of rice, an advance that could dramatically shrink particle accelerators for science and m ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 29 2013 - 7:00am

Move Over Electrons, Here Comes A Neutron Microscope

Researchers have developed a new concept for a microscope that would use neutrons,  subatomic particles with no electrical charge, to create high-resolution images instead of the more traditional beams of light or electrons. Among other benefits, neutron- ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 6 2013 - 7:00am

Heat To Electricity: A Better Thermoelectric Materials Emulator

Thermoelectric materials were discovered in the 19th century and have the remarkable property that heating them creates a small electrical current- but adopting them to the 21st century has been a challenge.  ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 25 2013 - 7:41am

Wave Or Particle? Quantum Reality Is Fickle

Experiments on individual photons conducted by physicists from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw (FUW) and the Faculty of Applied Physics and Mathematics at the Gdansk University of Technology (PG), have revealed yet another bizarre featu ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 28 2013 - 1:15pm

Better Thermal Infrared Detection Means Better Seeing In The Dark

Thermal infrared (IR) energy is emitted from all things which have a temperature greater than absolute zero- so, basically all things worth looking at. Though mechanical detection of IR radiation has been possible since Samuel Pierpont Langley invented th ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 30 2013 - 7:30am

100 Percent Chance A Milky Way Supernova Will Be Visible From Earth

Astronomers have calculated the odds that, sometime during the next 50 years, a supernova occurring in our home galaxy will be visible from Earth and found the chances to be nearly 100%- and it will be visible from telescopes in the form of infrared radia ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 31 2013 - 1:19pm

Raman Scattering: Taking Fingerprints Of The Infinitely Small

Raman scattering mode is an optical phenomenon, discovered in 1928 by the physicist Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, that involves the inelastic scattering of photons- the physical phenomenon by which a medium can modify the frequency of the light impinging ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 4 2013 - 6:30am

The Puzzle Of How Quantum Effects Help Plant Cells Capture Light

Experiments with ultrashort laser pulses support the idea that quantum interactions between molecules help plants, algae, and some bacteria efficiently gather light to fuel their growth- but that's about it. Key details of nature's vital light-h ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 8 2013 - 12:31pm

Speed Up Underwater Communications By 76X- Without Bothering Whales

A project to develop fast-blinking LED systems for underwater optical communications has led to discovering that an artificial metamaterial can increase the light intensity and "blink speed" of a fluorescent light-emitting dye molecule. The nano ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 26 2014 - 4:18pm

Blue Light Has An Immediate Effect On Fatigue

Exposure to short wavelength, blue, light during the biological day directly and immediately improves alertness and performance. In order to determine which wavelengths of light were most effective in warding off fatigue, the researchers teamed with Georg ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 3 2014 - 9:22pm