POHANG, South Korea, Sept. 5, 2023 — Researchers from Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) have developed optical sensor technology to aid patients with limited mobility during their rehabilitation. The sensor integrates computer vision technology to help track muscle movements. Wearable devices such as smartwatches, smart eyewear, and, to an extent, smartphones can be vital for tracking health. Many have built-in functions like step counters and heart-rate monitors. Other devices, like wearable robots,

JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 4, 2023 — Photocatalysts show the potential to be used in energy generation and environmental detoxification applications. This is an intriguing quality, since reducing energy use in bulk industrial processes can create a trade-off between efficiency and...

NANJING, China, Aug. 31, 2023 — According to the World Health Organization, 17.9 million people die annually due to cardiovascular diseases. Soft wearable devices are well suited for monitoring physiological signals from electrocardiogram, phonocardiogram, and pulse wave....

ZHEJIANG, China, Aug. 30, 2023 — Electro-optic modulators (EOMs) are critical elements in the optical communication networks that control the amplitude, phase, and polarization of a light via external electric signals. Aiming to realize ultracompact and high-performance EOMs, most...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Aug. 29, 2023 — An approach to quantum light emitters developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory stacks two different atomically thin materials to realize a source that generates a stream of circularly polarized single photons that can be used for a variety of...

LEUVEN, Belgium, Aug. 28, 2023 — Engineers at imec have integrated a pinned photodiode (PPD) structure in thin-film image sensors. According to the researchers, the addition of a pinned-photogate and a transfer gate into the thin-film image sensor architecture exploits the superior...

CHANGCHUN, China, Aug. 25, 2023 — Raman spectroscopy is a useful tool for identifying microplastics — plastic particles smaller than 5 mm — although conventional point confocal Raman methods are limited to single-point detection, limiting the detection speed. A line-scan...

WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 24, 2023 — Although 3D imaging techniques are useful for studying thick biological samples, the challenge to achieve both high-speed acquisition and high resolution of 3D images persists. Intensity diffraction tomography (IDT), a label-free phase tomography...

SHANGHAI, Aug. 23, 2023 — As the large-scale, commercial use of 5G networks has grown, so has the need for broader bandwidth to accommodate high-speed communications. To meet the resource needs of the post-5G and 6G eras, researchers at Fudan University are exploring visible...

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 22, 2023 — A research team led by professor Aydogan Ozcan at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) developed a deep-learning-based approach to designing spatially incoherent, diffractive optical processors. The method provides a way to build...

EXETER, England, Aug. 21, 2023 — A thin-film, amplitude-only spatial light modulator made from phase-change-based material was developed by researchers at the University of Exeter and the Institute of Optics in Madrid. The device operates in reflection and modulates the amplitude...

HAIFA, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023 — Researchers at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology developed an atomic-scale, spin-optical laser. To do so, they incorporated a WS2 monolayer into a heterostructure microcavity that supported high-Q photonic spin-valley resonances. The...

NOMI, Japan, Aug. 15, 2023 — A research group from Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) developed light-activatable, liquid metal (LM) nanoparticles for cancer diagnosis and treatment via photoimmunotherapy. The LM nanoparticles can target and destroy...

GUANGZHOU, China, Aug. 14, 2023 — Researchers from Sun Yat-sen University and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have made progress in the use of interferometry to decipher orbital angular momentum (OAM) spectrum information. Lightwaves with OAM...

BOCHUM, Germany, Aug. 10, 2023 — To build a flexible sensor for optically detecting a range of viruses and bacteria, a group of researchers from Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems (IMS), and ETH Zurich used...

BOSTON, Aug. 10, 2023 — Diffuse in vivo flow cytometry (DiFC), an optical technique developed at Northeastern University, enables fluorescence detection of tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream. It is a promising technique for detecting cancer that has metastasized....

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Aug. 8, 2023 — Heat-Assisted Detection and Ranging (HADAR), a patent-pending thermal imaging technology from Purdue University, combines infrared (IR) imaging, machine learning, and thermal physics to visualize target objects in the dark as if it were broad...

DAVIS, Calif., Aug. 7, 2023 — Researchers at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) are developing a strategy to boost the light absorption of thin silicon films. The team demonstrated silicon-based photodetectors with light-trapping micro- and nano-surface structures,...

OTTAWA, Ontario, Aug.3, 2023 — Tens of millions of people around the world suffer from corneal diseases, with only a small fraction eligible for corneal transplantation. In a recent study, researchers at the University of Ottawa showed that biomimetic materials activated with...

TIANJIN, China, Aug. 3, 2023 — Researchers at Hefei University of Technology have demonstrated the use of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) to automatically identify, classify, and subclassify recyclable waste in real time. The resource re-use application enabled the...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 1, 2023 — Researchers from MIT have demonstrated a photonics-based computing system that could lead to machine-learning programs several orders of magnitude more powerful than the one behind ChatGPT. The researchers reported a greater than 100-fold...

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Aug. 1, 2023 — University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) researchers led by John Bowers have developed a quantum-dot (QD) mode-locked laser that allows amplitude-modulated (AM) and frequency-modulated (FM) combs to be generated independently from the same...

TOULOUSE, France, July 31, 2023 — Researchers from the University of Toulouse have developed a method to fabricate a microlens that could enable more effective portable gas sensing technologies. The researchers used two-photon-polymerization 3D printing to fabricate a microlens that...

BARCELONA, Spain, July 31, 2023 — Researchers from the Institute of Optics of CSIC and the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO, Spain) have developed and demonstrated an approach to generating single photons along well-defined directions. The advancement avoids the need for...

PASADENA, Calif., July 27, 2023 — Perovskite solar cells are providing a team at Caltech’s Heritage Medical Research Institute with an efficient power source for wearable sweat sensors that monitor a host of biomarkers associated with disease diagnostics and fitness levels....