For the first time, researchers used a powerful microscopy technique in conjunction with automated image analysis algorithms to distinguish between healthy and metastatic cancerous tissue without using invasive biopsies or contrast dye. This novel non-invasive imaging approach could one day assist doctors in detecting cancer metastasis that is otherwise difficult to detect during operations using [..]

Researchers have demonstrated that Raman spectroscopy, an optical technique, can distinguish between benign and cancerous thyroid cells. The new study demonstrates Raman spectroscopy’s potential for improving thyroid cancer diagnosis, the ninth most common cancer in the United States, with over 50,000 new cases diagnosed yearly. The promising results indicate that Raman spectroscopy has the potential [..]

Researchers have created thin coatings that react mechanically and chromatically to specific vapors, drawing inspiration from the chameleon’s skin’s adaptive iridophores, or nanophotonic structures. According to the experts, the resulting “structural-color actuators” could be used for “sensing, communication, and disguise” in soft robotics. These actuators can move and change color in response to changes in [..]

A team of researchers has created and tested a miniaturized virus-scanning system that uses inexpensive components and a smartphone because current methods to detect viruses and other biological markers of disease are efficient but large and expensive (such as fluorescence microscopes). While current tools are accurate at counting viruses, they are often too laborious for [..]

It is critical for patients with kidney failure who require dialysis to remove fluid at the correct rate and stop at the correct time. This usually entails estimating how much water to remove and closely monitoring the patient for any sudden drops in blood pressure. There is currently no reliable, simple method for measuring hydration [..]

Majorana photons, a new superclass of photons, may improve information on quantum-level transitions and brain images and their workings. A research team based their findings on that photons can take various forms while possessing important properties such as polarization, wavelength, coherence, and spatial modes. The team aimed to use a special super form of photons [..]

To detect train acceleration and vibration, researchers have created new sensors. The technology could be combined with artificial intelligence to stop serious train derailments and rail mishaps. According to the researchers, railway accidents cause serious injuries and occasionally yearly fatalities. The fiber optic accelerometers could detect real-time issues with the train or railway track and [..]

Researchers are developing a novel technique that may help magnetic memory systems use less energy and operate more quickly. The technique combines spintronic and photonic materials to manipulate the spin orientation of magnetic materials and uses ultrashort laser pulses to produce strong magnetic fields. They have developed a novel magneto-photonics effort to use light to [..]

Researchers have displayed a flexible, stretchable optical fiber that functions as a biocompatible temperature sensor by receiving light impulses from embedded upconversion nanoparticles. The research team thinks fiber might provide an intriguing platform for creating real-time wearable temperature sensors for robotics and personal health care. Wearable sensors must be pliable enough to bend and stretch [..]

Block copolymers, which are self-assembling materials known to form various predictable, regular patterns, can now be made to form much more complicated patterns, according to a team of researchers. It could lead to the development of new materials design fields. The polymers can self-assemble in designs that differ from conventional symmetrical arrays thanks to a [..]

Without using possibly harmful X-rays, researchers have found microscopic twists in the internal structure of plant and animal cells. The method rotates terahertz imaging in real-time and is said to be its first successful application. It may lead to novel cosmology, encrypted communications, and medical imaging uses. Although terahertz imaging can enter the body for [..]

A team of researchers has combined the expansion microscopy method, a nanoscale microscopy technique, and virtual reality (VR) to allow enlarging, exploring, and analyzing of cell structures beyond conventional light microscopy’s capabilities. The advancement aims to improve researchers’ knowledge of autoimmune and infectious diseases and their capacity to create disease diagnostics and preventative and therapeutic [..]

Though conceptually simple, the goal of the developing field of photopharmacology is to use light as an external stimulus to activate drug molecules with a high degree of control over the time and location where this occurs. This task necessitates an interdisciplinary effort involving chemical synthesis and light delivery technology. A molecule whose therapeutic action [..]

The past decade has seen significant progress in the development of novel mid-infrared (mid-IR) coherent light sources spanning a broad spectral bandwidth, and new spectrometric techniques to make the most of them. Researchers now harness such light sources — based on mode-locked lasers and nonlinear frequency conversion, on frequency comb generators, on supercontinua, and on [..]

A growing number of applications, including smartphone cameras, depend on microlens arrays to boost performance, for example by compensating for the “dead space” around detector pixels. However, although micro-optics are commercially available, they can be prohibitively expensive to fabricate and hard to add to existing devices. Even with traditional microlens fabrication methods (see single point [..]

Researchers have developed a new way of operating miniature quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) to rapidly measure the absorption spectra of different organic molecules in the air simultaneously. The technique offers a sensitive method for detecting low concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), improving the ability to track how these compounds affect human health, industrial processes, [..]

Efforts to create reliable light-based quantum computing and quantum key distribution for cybersecurity could benefit from a new study that demonstrates a new method for creating thin films to control single-photon emission. The approach exploits strain at highly spatially localized and spectrally well-separated defect emission sites, or tips, in the 750 to 800 nm regime [..]

Researchers conducted extensive literature research, and systematically summarized and compared the sensing abilities of optical refractive index sensors according to their sensitivities and figure of merits. A 3-D technology map was then established to define the standard and development trend for optical refractive index sensors using plasmonic and photonic structures. The technology map, just like [..]

Auto lidar (for the autonomous-vehicle revolution), is one of the hottest hot topics today in optics and photonics. But what kind of lidar? The technology’s deceptively simple five-letter name packs in a complex array of choices, from spinning car-top sensors to tiny solid-state lidar scanners largely still on the drawing boards. Angular resolution is the [..]