Optics

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

New Technique Takes Cues From Astronomy And Ophthalmology To Sharpen Microscope Images

The complexity of biology can befuddle even the most sophisticated light microscopes because biological samples bend light in unpredictable ways, returning difficult-to-interpret information to the microscope and distorting the resulting image. New imagin ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 14 2014 - 6:43pm

Metasurface Lens: Flat Surface Becomes A Spherical Antenna

An array of tiny, metallic, U-shaped structures deposited onto a dielectric material creates a new artificial surface that can bend and focus electromagnetic waves the same way an antenna does. ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 14 2014 - 6:47pm

Downside To LED Bulbs- Like HDTV, It Makes Some Things Look Worse

If you have ever seen set pieces from a science-fiction show, you have probably been amazed at how cheap and silly the whole things looks. That was the initial concern with high-definition television too. Standard definition hid a lot of cosmetic defects ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 18 2014 - 2:22pm

Deformable Mirror Corrects Its Own Laser Beam Errors

The high power needed to cut or weld using a laser beam creates its own problem: the beam’s energy deforms the mirrors that focus it. When that happens, the beam expands and loses intensity. A new type of mirror is being presented at the Optatec trade fair ...

Article - News Staff - May 14 2014 - 9:29pm