Engineers Develop a Telescopic Contact Lens
In an effort to help improve the vision of patients suffering from eye disease, engineers from the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego…
Optics
New Adaptive Optics System GeMS Delivers Sharper Images of the Universe
A new adaptive optics system, called GeMS, uses a combination of multiple lasers and deformable mirrors to remove atmospheric distortions from ground-based images, providing astronomers…
New Wavelength Detector Could Improve Data Communications
In a new study, SLAC and Stanford scientists detail a new three-layer solid-state device can directly identify the wavelength of light that hits it. Researchers…
New Material Can Be Molded into Highly Conductive 3-D Structures
A new resin material that can be molded into highly conductive 3-D structures shows potential for making customized electrodes for fuel cells, batteries and biosensor…
Thermal Cloak Molds the Flow of Heat Around an Object
Scientists from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have constructed a micro-structured thermal cloak that molds the flow of heat around an object. By means of…
LED Streetlight Design Reduces Light Pollution, Saves Energy
In a new study, a team of researchers report the development of a new street lighting design that harnesses high-efficiency LEDs and ensures they shine…
Researchers Reveal the Cause of LED Efficiency Droop
A team of researchers have conclusively identified Auger recombination as the mechanism that causes LEDs to be less efficient at high drive currents. Santa Barbara,…
Cathodoluminescence Used to Probe Metamaterials
The phenomenon of cathodoluminescence gave geologists an easy way to identify quartz and other minerals in rock samples. Cathodoluminescence allows a piece of quartz to…
Spider Silk Could be Used to Manufacture Biodegradable Microchips
Silk is used by some insects and spiders to spin webs and cocoons, and now researchers have discovered a way to harness this supermaterial into…
Females Distinguish Colors Better While Men Excel At Tracking Fast Moving Objects
After having put young adults with normal vision through a battery of tests, scientists were able to conclude that females are better at discriminating among…
Development of Inkjet-Printable LC Lasers
Most lasers are made up of silicon wafers using expensive processes, similar to the ones used to make microprocessors. Scientists have designed a new way…
Fastest Laser Blast – 67 Quintillionths of a Second
Scientists have been able to generate the world’s fastest laser pulse with a beam shot for 67 attoseconds (0.000000000000000067 seconds). This breaks the previous record…
Twisting Affects Transmission Behavior of Photonic Crystal Fibers
Max Planck Institute scientists examined the transmission behavior of photonic crystal fibers when they were twisted, finding that the transmission of certain wavelengths becomes much…
Gamma Ray Lens Created Using Amplifying Effect of Virtual Electron-Positron Pairs
It was previously thought that making a lens out of highly energetic light, gamma rays, was impossible. Physicists have created such a lens and think…
First Universal Quantum Network Prototype Operational
Quantum physicists have constructed an elementary network for storing and exchanging quantum information. The network was setup with two all-purpose nodes, which can send, receive…
Laser Beams Used to Create Filament Paths Could Potentially Direct Lightning
Lasers beams have been used for the first time to trigger and divert lightning bolts. It was first postulated in the 1990s that lasers could…
NuSTAR’s 9,000 Mirrors are Only 200 Microns Thick
NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) has a total of 9,000 individual mirror segments that are only 200 microns thick and will be the first…
Giant Magellan Telescope Gets 7 28-Foot Mirrors and Adaptive Optics
The Giant Magellan Telescope is designed to employ a series of seven 28-foot mirrors, which will be arranged in a honeycomb pattern. It will be…
