We hear about climate change and its consequences almost daily, from wildfires in Greenland to melting ice in Antarctica to Europeans sweating in record-high summer temperatures. These stories, combined with dire warnings about rising sea levels and record levels of greenhouse gases, can elicit strong urges to “do something.” One of the first jobs is [..]

Researchers have developed a method to make reproducible nanoscale manufacturing possible. The team adapted a light-based technology employed widely in biology — known as optical traps or optical tweezers — to operate in a water-free liquid environment of carbon-rich organic solvents, enabling new potential applications. The optical tweezers act as a light-based “tractor beam” that [..]

Researchers have created a broadband laser-based sensor that can remotely detect the concentration level of key blood components like lactate, glucose, urea, ketones, or ethanol without drawing blood to make noninvasive blood analysis possible. Chronic disease patients, such as those with diabetes, won’t have to repeatedly prick their fingers to check their blood glucose levels [..]

These materials’ extraordinary optical, semiconducting, and mechanical qualities have increased interest in plastic electronics and photonics over the past few decades. For designing laser geometries of almost any form, plastic electronics based on conjugated polymers combine the advantages of cost-effective processability compatible with large-area deposition. With rigid inorganic semiconductor materials, this is not feasible. To [..]

Physicists and materials scientists have created a small optical device with vertically stacked metasurfaces to produce microscopic text and full-color holograms for encrypted data storage and color displays. A study team implemented a 3-D integrated metasurface device to make the optical device smaller. The study team designed optical elements by modifying the wavefront of light [..]

For the precise diagnosis of people with chronic hepatitis B (CHB), a research team has created a test that combines highly sensitive coamplification at lower denaturation temperature polymerase chain reaction (COLD-PCR) with probe-based fluorescence melting curve analysis (FMCA). The straightforward, affordable test might be applied frequently in medical labs. The hepatitis B virus (HBV) can [..]

A nanolaser developed by researchers can be used on living cells without damaging them. The nanolaser, created in collaboration with a team from Columbia University, can range in thickness from 50 to 150 nanometers, allowing it to fit and operate properly inside living cells. The tiny lasers function at energy orders of magnitude lower than [..]

Researchers have created a silicon carbide (SiC) photonic integrated optical chip that can be thermally tuned by applying an electric signal. Phase shifters and tunable optical couplers, which are required for networking apps and quantum information processing, could be made using the method in the future. SiC is becoming more popular even though silicon still [..]

In building, industrial design, and medical technology, the ability to bend glass sheets into angular corners without causing damage to the sheet or impairing the optical properties is appealing. Scientists have been working on a laser-based method to bend glass for some time, and they recently revealed their most recent project accomplishments. Lasers provide the [..]

An early instance of optical communication, or the transmission of information using light, can be found in the signs sent from lighthouses to ships at sea. Today’s integrated photonics scholars use optical communications principles to create high-tech, light-powered devices (with integrated photonics platform) like lightning-fast computers. One-dimensional metalens, tiny surfaces made of nanostructures to control [..]

Moore’s law won’t prevent you from developing better head-mounted displays for augmented reality (AR), but the law of etendue will, according to a member of Microsoft’s AR development team. According to Bernard Kress, a partner optical architect for the computer software business, the unwritten “law” that has guided silicon-chip development for more than 50 years [..]

Scientists have used a microchip to scan the back of the eye to diagnose diseases. The interference technology used in the chip has been around for a while; it is similar to bat sonar but uses light pulses instead of sound waves. It is the first instance in which technological challenges have been surmounted to [..]

For the first time, scientists have built holograms that can detect the polarization of light using incredibly thin layers of 2-D structures called metasurfaces. For polarization measurements, which are used in spectroscopy, sensing, and communications, the new metasurface holograms could be used to build extremely quick and small devices. Metasurfaces are optical components with features [..]

It is still difficult to increase the single-molecule lateral localization precision to molecular scale (2 nm) for high-throughput nanostructure imaging, even though a variety of image-based central position estimation (centroid fitting) methods, such as 2D Gaussian fitting methods, have been widely used in single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) to determine the location of each fluorophore precisely. [..]

Researchers have created the first completely integrated, non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) gas sensor, made possible by metamaterials, specially engineered synthetic materials. The optical gas sensor is among the smallest NDIR sensors ever made, needs little energy to operate, and has no moving parts. The sensor is perfect for new Internet of Things and smart house gadgets [..]

To improve the detection of pathogens with difficult-to-distinguish molecular fingerprints, such as HIV and viruses that cause respiratory tract infection, sensors in diagnostic tools require nanoscale light manipulation. However, there is no way to make these light manipulation devices without damaging the sensors. Recognizing this, researchers created 3D plasmonic nanoarrays, light manipulation devices that can [..]

Many specialists believe that a second quantum revolution is about to occur globally. The transistor and the laser were made possible by energy quantization, and the ability of humans to control individual atoms and electrons has the potential to revolutionize a variety of sectors, from communications and energy to medicine and defense. The quantum computer, [..]

The Nobel Prize-winning innovation of super-resolution microscopy, which allows imaging below the diffraction limit of light, has enabled some breathtakingly sharp views of tiny biological structures. However, it is not something you would find in a typical biology lab; instead, it necessitates sometimes using complex and expensive tools and extensive image post-processing. Researchers have developed [..]

The protein aggregates known as beta-amyloid plaques, which develop in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, impair numerous brain processes and have the potential to destroy neurons. They may also compromise the blood-brain barrier, a protective buffer between the bloodstream and the brain. Engineers have now created a tissue model that mimics the effects of beta-amyloid [..]

According to the researchers, new two-photon microscopy can capture video of brain activity 15 times more quickly than was previously thought feasible, revealing voltage changes and neurotransmitter release over sizable regions and simultaneously monitoring hundreds of synapses. The new tool, known as scanned line angular projection microscopy, or SLAP, increases the efficiency of data gathering [..]