Schematic diagram and microscopic observation of an optical fiber doped with rare-earth atoms. The fluorescence from the entire optical fiber can be seen. (b) Schematic diagram and microscopic ...

You are watching a long-standing assumption in physics and engineering quietly fall apart. Researchers at Northwestern ...

Light can be sculpted into countless shapes. Yet building optical devices that can simultaneously manipulate many different ...

Patients who remain in bed for long periods of time may develop pressure sores, which can in turn become potentially life-threatening chronic skin ulcers. A new sensor could help keep that from ...

Imagine supercomputers that think with light instead of electricity. That s the breakthrough two European research teams have made, demonstrating how intense laser pulses through ultra-thin glass ...

It’s a rare person who can pick up a cheap laser pointer and not wield it like a lightsaber or a phaser, complete with sound effects. There’s just something about the “pew-pew” factor that makes ...

In a discovery that blurs the line between biology and technology, scientists have found that heart-shaped clams use fiber optic–like structures to channel sunlight through their shells in much the ...

Why not take the same strands of light that already power the world’s fiber-optic cables and let them travel freely through ...