Photonics Spectra: light This is the syndication feed for Photonics Spectra: light. https://www.photonics.com/Splash.aspx?Tag=light Mon, 18 Mar 2024 22:11:17 GMT Mon, 04 Jul 2022 07:00:00 GMT 1800 Team Challenges, Resolves Fundamental Rule Governing Light Propagation
A study conducted by researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and collaborators from Mexico, Scotland, and the University of Pretoria aims to explain the rules governing the complex light propagation in complex media — media that tends to distort light significantly. The team found that all such media can be treated in the same way, and that the analysis does not depend on the type of light used.

Previously, each choice of media and light beam were treated as a special. Additionally, they show that despite the distortion, there is a property of light that remains unchanged, invariant to the media — its “vectorness.”
An artistic impression of complex vectorial light passing through some...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Team_Challenges_Resolves_Fundamental_Rule/p5/a68159 A68159 Mon, 04 Jul 2022 07:00:00 GMT
Global Community Celebrates Day of Photonics 2021
More than 25 nations on five continents are hosting activities to celebrate the Global Day of Photonics 2021. The annual event held every Oct. 21 promotes photonics to the public. Companies, research organizations, and organizations involved in photonics engage with their communities to raise awareness about and promote the role of their organization in the photonics ecosystem and value chain.

Symposia, radio campaigns, and expert panels, with organizers that include LIGENTEC, the Lithuanian Laser Association, and ISBAT University, Kampala, Uganda (in association with IEEE Uganda Section) are leading the day’s events.

Additionally, companies, universities, schools, associations, organizations, and individuals are invited...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Global_Community_Celebrates_Day_of_Photonics_2021/p5/a67455 A67455 Thu, 21 Oct 2021 13:47:40 GMT
Light, Nanotechnology Could Prevent Bacterial Infections in Implants
Researchers have devised a novel technique that uses nanotechnology and photonics to dramatically improve the performance of medical meshes for surgical implants and help prevent antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Institute of Photonic Sciences researchers have developed a medical mesh that features a surface of the mesh chemically modified to anchor millions of gold nanoparticles, which have been proven to efficiently convert light into heat at localized regions.

The technique of using gold nanoparticles in light-heat conversion processes had already been tested in cancer treatments in previous studies. For this particular case, knowing that more than 20 million hernia repair operations take place worldwide every year, the...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Light_Nanotechnology_Could_Prevent_Bacterial/p5/a64739 A64739 Thu, 23 May 2019 16:02:12 GMT
Muscle-Like Material Contracts When Illuminated
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) developed the material that in experiments showed the ability to lift a weight by simply shining a light on it. Tests are being conducted to determine the polymer’s best use, but the main goal has been to see whether the material can do work, a trait that could facilitate the development of an artificial muscle.
A proprietary polymer that contracts and expands in response to light could someday be used to create artificial muscles implanted in the human body and controlled by illuminating the skin.
Jonathan Barnes, Ph.D., of WUSTL, said the discovery was made when he and his team synthesized polymer chains with viologens in their backbones. When a blue LED light was...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Muscle-Like_Material_Contracts_When_Illuminated/p5/a64580 A64580 Thu, 04 Apr 2019 16:23:34 GMT
Read By The Light Of a Glowing Plant?
The global energy consumption attributed to direct and indirect lighting accounts for nearly 20 percent of demand and over 2 Gt of CO2 emissions per year. The rapid growth of cities and urbanizing regions around the world is changing the ways in which urban infrastructure is conceived, powered, delivered and maintained. Typical municipal lighting requires complex electrical grids and infrastructure, keeping many developing nations around the world literally in the dark.

Researchers at MIT think they may have a solution to this ongoing problem: nanobionic light-emitting plants.

Two mature watercress are used as nanobionic light-emitting plants to illuminate John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Courtesy of MIT.
“The vision...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Read_By_The_Light_Of_a_Glowing_Plant/p5/a63052 A63052 Mon, 29 Jan 2018 09:31:04 GMT
Light Augments Conventional Methods of Mosquito Control
Exposure to just 10 minutes of white light presented at timed intervals during the late daytime, dusk, dawn and throughout the night could suppress biting and manipulate flight behavior in the Anopheles gambiae mosquito, the major vector for transmission of malaria in Africa. Researchers believe that a photic exposure method could be used to reinforce current insect control techniques or be implemented as a standalone approach.
Critical behaviors exhibited by the Anopheles gambiae are time-of-day specific, including a greater propensity for nighttime biting.

Scientists at the University of Notre Dame have found that exposure to just 10 minutes of light at night suppresses biting and manipulates flight behavior in the Anopheles...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Light_Augments_Conventional_Methods_of_Mosquito/p5/a62174 A62174 Wed, 21 Jun 2017 15:27:29 GMT
White Hot Future for LEDs
Today’s LEDs are true workhorses. Prized for their lower energy consumption, physical robustness and faster switching, they’re found in applications as diverse as aviation lighting, lighted wall paper and automotive headlamps, and are powering the next generation of video displays and sensors.

Considered by many as a relatively “new” technology, some may find it surprising that the concept of electroluminescence, the means by which LEDs create light, was discovered more than a century ago.

British experimenter Henry Joseph Round of Marconi Labs was tasked with developing a new direction-finding system for marine transportation. Experimenting with a crystal of silicon carbide and a “cat’s...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/White_Hot_Future_for_LEDs/p5/a58397 A58397 Wed, 02 Mar 2016 12:46:03 GMT
Natcore, Eurotron Partner on HIT Solar Cells
The company recently announced that it had produced an all-back-contact silicon heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) solar cell using proprietary laser technology. The company said the technique increases cell efficiency and could allow low-cost, environmentally friendlier production.

The cells are made using thin, amorphous silicon layers in combination with a standard crystalline silicon wafers. Contacts are applied to the back of the cell using a laser.

Natcore has filed a provisional patent application for the technology.

Its collaboration with Eurotron is aimed at incorporating 6-in. cells into...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Natcore_Eurotron_Partner_on_HIT_Solar_Cells/p5/a57280 A57280 Tue, 24 Mar 2015 00:00:00 GMT
Reader Polls
READER POLL:

Textbooks or experience? Which is the better teacher?

Both are great, but I prefer a good textbook to start learning from. You can refer back to it, and there is more time to process the information.
Patricia Comeford, engineer
(via Facebook)

While I can’t say what works for others, I know what worked for me: Rigorous learning from both texts and lectures gave me the tools to build experience. The experience of work gave me opportunities to tackle problems with the aid of those books, as well as a rich base of published literature from relevant researchers. Access to literature and research is the single most important reason for joining the OSA, SPIE and IEEE. But none of the above taught critical...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Reader_Polls/p5/a56541 A56541 Mon, 04 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT
System Pushes Better Light Control
More precise control of light could be on the horizon, prompting advances in solar photovoltaics, detectors for telescopes and microscopes, and privacy filters for display screens.

Researchers from MIT have developed the first system that allows light of any wavelength to pass through from a specific direction and that reflects all light coming from other angles.

“It is a very fundamental building block in our ability to control light,” said researcher Marin Soljacic, a professor of physics at MIT.

In this angular-selective sample, a beam of white light passes as if through transparent glass. The red beam comes at a different angle and is reflected away, like a mirror. Courtesy of MIT.
Alternating a stack of...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/System_Pushes_Better_Light_Control/p5/a56004 A56004 Thu, 27 Mar 2014 00:00:00 GMT
Microstructures Improve Data Transfer
Electrical engineers at the University of Utah, using an inkjet printer, developed a new technique that controls electrical conductivity within such microstructures. This could rapidly produce superfast components in electronic devices, according to the researchers.

Using an inexpensive printer and two color cartridges (one silver and one carbon), the team printed 10 different plasmonic structures with a periodic array of 2,500 holes of different sizes and spacing on a 2.5-in.2 plastic sheet. Until now, expensive equipment has been necessary to create plasmonic...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Microstructures_Improve_Data_Transfer/p5/a55947 A55947 Wed, 12 Mar 2014 00:00:00 GMT
Seeing the puck in strobe
The buzzer sounds. The crowds cheer. Twelve angry hockey players fly out onto the ice, blades clicking, to test their reflexes, brute force and balance. It’s pandemonium. Chaos. And in the middle of it all, each player is hunting for a tiny, wily puck. Any training tool that offers the upper hand is invaluable, even if it sounds counterintuitive.

One such instrument is a piece of special eyewear that improves player performance by only allowing snippets of action to be seen by the wearer – much like a strobe light. The lenses of the Nike SPARQ Vapor Strobe quickly switch between transparency and opaqueness, producing stroboscopic visual conditions that improve on-ice skills by 18 percent, according to a recent study.

...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Seeing_the_puck_in_strobe/p5/a55918 A55918 Thu, 06 Mar 2014 00:00:00 GMT
Light Alters Interaction of Organic Molecules
A new platform enables emissions from organic molecules to be manipulated when the molecules are suspended on top of a photonic crystal surface. The finding could have implications for bio-imaging and biomolecular detection, OLEDs, and investigations involving Raman scattering or quantum dots.

Organic molecules (shown as yellow spheres) are suspended on a photonic crystal slab (shown as a gray substrate) supporting macroscopic resonances. Scientists at MIT discovered that when molecules are within 100 nm of the slab surface, they send light of the same wavelengths into specific directions (depicted by the light cones). Courtesy of Yan Liang and Bo Zhen
The same team from MIT published work last month demonstrating that a photonic...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Light_Alters_Interaction_of_Organic_Molecules/p5/a54589 A54589 Wed, 07 Aug 2013 00:00:00 GMT
Moon-Shaped Metamaterial Broadens Manipulatable Bandwidths
A new engineered broadband material crafted from artificial atoms more than doubles the range of light wavelengths that can be manipulated by such metamaterials, a development that could lead to perfect microscope lenses or invisibility cloaks.

Metamaterials — man-made materials that exhibit properties not found in the natural world, such as a negative refractive index — have revolutionized optics in the past decade; so far, however, they have failed to reach their full potential because of their inability to function over broad bandwidths. Designing such a material that works across the entire visible spectrum remains a considerable challenge.

All natural materials have a positive index of refraction — the...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Moon-Shaped_Metamaterial_Broadens_Manipulatable/p5/a53852 A53852 Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT
An ‘Epic’ Plan: Student Outreach Program Takes the Long View
As a student, I learned a lot of science facts that seemed to have no connection to what I might do in the future. The EPIC Adopt a Classroom project is notable for industry support of education, a growing necessity as education budgets shrink. But even more important is that it says to students, “You are important to us because you are the future of our industry. What you learn today will help us be successful in the future.”

In most physics textbooks, the study of light doesn’t begin until after 20 or more chapters of Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics, and electricity and magnetism. Teachers often must rush through the light chapter, if they have time to cover it at all. The words “optics” and...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/An_Epic_Plan_Student_Outreach_Program_Takes/p5/a53481 A53481 Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT
Quantum mystery of light revealed
A unique setup involving an integrated photonic quantum chip in a quantum beamsplitter is helping to answer one of the most fundamental questions in physics: Is light made of waves or particles?

Debates on the particle-wave theories of light have raged since the earliest days of science, with notable advocates on both sides of the issue. But the debate changed dramatically in 1905, when Albert Einstein showed that it was possible to explain the photoelectric effect using the idea that light is made of particles called photons. This discovery affected physics, greatly contributing to the development of quantum mechanics.

Findings by University of Bristol physicists and quantum theorists comprise one of two research projects to...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Quantum_mystery_of_light_revealed/p5/a52933 A52933 Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT
Synthetic magnetic field directs photons
A photonic crystal device that tames the flow of free-moving photons with synthetic magnetism could enable scientists to precisely steer light in any direction.

The process breaks a key law of physics known as the time-reversal symmetry of light. Breaking that law introduces a charge on the photons that reacts to an effective magnetic field the way an electron would to a real magnetic field. The discovery could yield an entirely new class of devices that use light instead of electricity for applications ranging from accelerators and microscopes to speedier on-chip communications.

“This is a fundamentally new way to manipulate light flow,” said Shanhui Fan, an electrical engineering professor at Stanford University...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Synthetic_magnetic_field_directs_photons/p5/a52943 A52943 Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT
Clemson Partners with OFS on Optics Lab
Clemson University’s Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies (COMSET) has teamed with OFS Laboratories, a Furukawa Electric company, to create a fiber optics laboratory for research and teaching.

The OFS Laboratories Optics Industry Lab will be located in Clemson’s Advanced Materials Research Laboratory.

Clemson University’s Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies has teamed with OFS Laboratories to create a fiber optics laboratory for research and teaching. College of Engineering and Science Dean R. Larry Dooley shakes hands with Paul Dickinson, director of cable and connectivity sales for OFS Laboratories. Courtesy of Clemson University.
"COMSET's...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Clemson_Partners_with_OFS_on_Optics_Lab/p5/a52473 A52473 Wed, 05 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT
Photons Observed as Particles, Waves Simultaneously
It is well-known that photons can act like waves or particles, depending on how they are measured experimentally. But they have never been seen exhibiting both behaviors at the same time — until now.

Artist's impression of the behavior of single photons when passing through an interferometer having a quantum beamsplitter at its output. In the back of the picture, sinusoidal oscillations are observed, indicating single-photon interference, and therefore a wavelike phenomenon.


In the front of the picture, no oscillations are observed, which is the signature of particle behavior. Between these two extremes, the single photons' behavior is continuously morphed from wavelike to particlelike, indicating superposition of these...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Photons_Observed_as_Particles_Waves/p5/a52250 A52250 Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT
Physics Billboard 'Enlightens' Travelers
A vital but little-known physics equation that has led to much of the technological development of the modern world is piquing the curiosity of travelers as they make their way through West London.

Two large illuminated billboards displaying Austrian theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s equation offer motorists and pedestrians a little roadside enlightenment. The artwork appears as a troupe of white dancing characters against a backdrop of deep blue.

The Schrödinger equation beams down on Ladbroke Grove, London. Courtesy of Geraldine Cox.
“I wanted to create something that was highly visual and simple, yet at the same time said something deeper about the world in which we live – something...]]>
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Physics_Billboard_Enlightens_Travelers/p5/a52248 A52248 Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT