Optics

Metamaterials Boost Means Next Generation Cloaking Device

'Cloaking' devices bend electromagnetic waves, such as light, in such a way that it appears as if the cloaked object is not there. In the latest laboratory experiments by Duke researchers, a beam of microwaves aimed through the cloaking device at ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 15 2009 - 4:18pm

Slicing Light For Datastreams Of 640 Gbits/second

Sliced light is how we communicate now. Millions of phone calls and cable television shows per second are dispatched through fibers in the form of digital zeros and ones formed by chopping laser pulses into bits. This slicing and dicing is generally done w ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 2 2009 - 11:59am

Refraction, The Speed Of Light In Beer, And How To Pop A Cap In A Carp

If you haven’t the infinite ammo of the late Hunter S. Thompson or the lightning-fast trigger finger (and impressive spray radius) of a recent Vice President, it actually takes considerable skill to shoot a fish in a barrel (exact difficulty proportional t ...

Article - Garth Sundem - Apr 3 2015 - 5:22pm

Ultrafast Laser Inscription Could Enable A 42-Meter Telescope To See The First Galaxies

Demands on telescope technology are rapidly increasing as astronomers look at fainter and fainter objects in the night sky. The large amount of light collection area required to view very dim objects poses a number of significant engineering problems to fu ...

Article - Chris Rollins - Feb 9 2009 - 6:17pm

Gravitational Lensing: 'Einstein's Telescope' In Understanding The Cosmos

Scientists are harnessing the cosmos as a scientific “instrument” in their quest to determine the makeup of the universe.   Evalyn Gates calls from the University of Chicago calls it “Einstein’s telescope” but she actually means the phenomenon of gravitati ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 22 2009 - 2:28pm

Nonlinear Optics- How Bricks And Snow Could Show Us A Superfast Internet

The next time an overnight snow begins to fall, take two bricks and place them side by side a few inches apart in your yard.  In the morning, the bricks will be covered with snow and barely discernible. The snowflakes will have filled every vacant space be ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 17 2009 - 8:32pm

Earthshine- Reflection Of Earth From The Dark Side Of The Moon

Researchers from the University of Melbourne and Princeton University have shown for the first time that the difference in reflection of light from the Earth's land masses and oceans can be seen on the dark side of the moon, a phenomenon known as eart ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 7 2009 - 9:42am

Laser On A Chip- Life Expectancy For Quantum States Goes Up And So Do Applications

People are always going on about the life expectancy of babies and people in general.   Now quantum states are getting their due. For the first time, scientists have succeeded in measuring and controlling the lifetime of quantum states with potential use i ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 19 2009 - 11:11am

World's Fastest Camera Is 1000X Conventional Kinds

Ultrafast, light-sensitive video cameras are needed for observing high-speed events such as shockwaves, communication between living cells and a Usain Bolt sprint. To catch such elusive moments, a camera must be able to capture millions or billions of imag ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 30 2009 - 2:50pm

Micro Light Sabers- Tunable Liquid Lens Can Make A Directional Movable Laser

Tunable fluidic micro lenses can focus and direct light at will to count cells, evaluate molecules or create on-chip optical tweezers, according to a team of Penn State engineers. They may also provide imaging in medical devices, eliminating the necessity ...

Article - News Staff - May 11 2009 - 5:07pm