In the years since the laser was invented, some serious resources have been focused on understanding the science and application of light, so that photonics now brings us—along...
Manufacturing a functional high-power laser optical component requires great care in every step. Even a flawless optical substrate is of no use if it hasn’t been cleaned adequately...
As I dimly recollect from my childhood readings of assorted European mythical tales, the trolls were mischievous little people who amused themselves by playing practical jokes...
Even as we seek smaller and faster chips to run our computers, we are rapidly approaching fundamental limits of conventional semiconductor electronics. One possible solution is...
Like the laser half a century ago, metamaterials sometimes seem to be a solution looking for a problem. Now developers are working on a first round of applications in niches that...
To enable the transfer of applications from the lab to the industry, a new hyperspectral camera module based on CMOS-compatible production techniques has been developed that eliminates...
Since beginning operations in 2002, the more than 800 scientists working on the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory have been anxious to observe tiny variations...
A true random-number generator (RNG) developed by a group of Chinese and American researchers can generate two simultaneous, independent 10 Gbit streams of random bits from a ...
Advances in the fabrication of organic thin-film-based photodetectors and their combination with atomic force microscopy probes enable simultaneous high-resolution optical and...
Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a semiconductor with a bandgap in the UV, making it potentially useful as an alternative to gallium nitride for blue- and UV-emitting laser diodes and LEDs...
Techniques for measuring simple ultrashort laser pulses are often unable to temporally characterize extremely complex pulses—such as shaped pulses, ultrabroadband continua, and...
Ideally, CMOS-compatible integrated silicon (Si) photonic circuits would contain microscopic analogues of all bulk-optic components such as emitters, receivers, and lenses.
The dramatic decrease in Arctic sea ice in the summer of 2007 was not predicted, and according to some scientists, not well characterized in scientific models.
The capability of hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber to transmit ultrahigh-power femtosecond pulses without distortion has been extended from the infrared to the visible; compression...
Using non-traditional etching techniques, it is possible to fabricate diffractive/refractive calcium-fluoride (CaF2) micro-optics for deep-UV excimer laser systems that can increase...
The choice of infrared optical material for an asphere determines how it can be fabricated; this in turn determines which design options are available, such as the addition of...
Although silicon-on-insulator (SOI) modulators have been demonstrated for future on-chip integrated-photonics interconnect architectures, they require an external laser source...
By directly writing with a femtosecond laser, researchers at the University of California–Davis and the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Rolla, MO) have tested several...
While many consumer display technologies for laptops, cell phones, and televisions have reached maturity, public displays and digital signage may have the largest growth potential...