For the first time, researchers have successfully 3D printed chalcogenide glass, a unique material used to make optical components that operate at mid-infrared wavelengths. The ability to 3D print this glass could make it possible to manufacture complex glass components and optical fibers for new types of low-cost sensors, telecommunications components and biomedical devices. In The…
Levitating Water Droplets With Sound Waves To Improve Contaminant Detection
In a new study, researchers showed that using sound waves to levitate droplets of water in midair can improve the detection of harmful heavy metal contaminants such as lead and mercury in water. Detecting small amounts of heavy metals in water is important because these contaminants are harmful to human health and the environment. The…
Lightweight Hyperspectral Imagers Bring Sophisticated Imaging Capability To Drones
In a new study, researchers used 3D printing and low-cost parts to create an inexpensive hyperspectral imager that is light enough to use onboard drones. They offer a recipe for creating these imagers, which could make the traditionally expensive analytical technique more widely accessible. Hyperspectral imagers produce images like a traditional color camera but detect…
IBM Reveals Novel Energy-Saving Optical Receiver With a New Record of Rapid Power-On/Off Time
SAN DIEGO—With the increasing popularization of datacenters and other bandwidth hungry interconnect applications, today’s bandwidth growth of short-distance optical networks demands data transmission speeds of more than 100 Gb/s, calling for the development of energy-efficient, multi-channel optical links with fast data transfer rates. Based on complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (COMS) technology—a standard low-cost, high-volume chip manufacturing technique…
New Use For Telecommunications Networks: Helping Scientists Peer Into Deep Space
For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that a stable frequency reference can be reliably transmitted more than 300 kilometers over a standard fiber optic telecommunications network and used to synchronize two radio telescopes. Stable frequency references, which are used to calibrate clocks and instruments that make ultraprecise measurements, are usually only accessible at facilities…
The Mars 2020 Rover Features New Spectral Abilities With Its New SuperCam
As the NASA Curiosity rover roams the surface of Mars, its ChemCam captures the chemical makeup of its surroundings with a specially designed laser system. It is the most powerful laser to operate on the surface of another planet. The burst of infrared light it fires lasts only a few billionths of seconds, but it is powerful enough to…
Seeing the Forest Through the Trees with a New LiDAR System
Shortly after lasers were first developed in the 1960s, LiDAR — whose name originated as a combination of “light” and “radar” — capitalized on the newly unique precision they offered for measuring both time and distance. LiDAR quickly became the standard method for (3-D) land surveys and is now used in a multitude of sensing…
Breakthrough Curved Sensor Could Dramatically Improve Digital Camera Image Quality
If you’ve ever tried to take a picture in a dark restaurant, you know that it is difficult to get a clear, quality image. In the future, cameras might not struggle under these conditions thanks to a newly developed method for spherically curving the flat image sensors found in today’s digital cameras. “Our approach to…
Optimizing Data Center Placement and Network Design to Strengthen Cloud Computing
Telecommunication experts estimate the amount of data stored “in the cloud” or in remote data centers around the world, will quintuple in the next five years. Whether it’s streaming video or business’ database content drawn from distant servers, all of this data is — and will continue in the foreseeable future to be – accessed…
Low-Cost Imaging System Detects Natural Gas Leaks in Real Time
Researchers have developed an infrared imaging system that could one day offer low-cost, real-time detection of methane gas leaks in pipelines and at oil and gas facilities. Leaks of methane, the primary component of natural gas, can be costly and dangerous while also contributing to climate change as a greenhouse gas. “Despite methane gas being…
Ultra-Small Nanocavity Advances Technology for Secure Quantum-Based Data Encryption
Researchers have developed a new type of light-enhancing optical cavity that is only 200 nanometers tall and 100 nanometers across. Their new nanoscale system represents a step toward brighter single-photon sources, which could help propel quantum-based encryption and a truly secure and future-proofed network. Quantum encryption techniques, which are seen as likely to be central…
Innovative Technique To Curtail Illegal Copying Of Digital Media
In today’s digital world it can be challenging to prevent photos, videos and books from being illegally copied and distributed. A new light-based technique is making it more practical to create secure, invisible watermarks that can be used to detect and prosecute counterfeiting. “In our research, we use a complex pattern of light, or diffraction…
Ultra-Sensitive, Vibration-Tolerant Gas Sensor Makes Field Apps More Practical
Nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant released by cars and fossil fuel burning power plants, can irritate the lungs, contribute to smog formation, and lead to premature deaths in cities around the world. A recent study, conducted at Kings College, London, UK, for example, found that more than 5,000 premature deaths in London annually could be attributed…
Invisibility Cloaks Move Into Real-Life Classroom
Who among us hasn’t wanted to don a shimmering piece of fabric and instantly disappear from sight? Unfortunately, we non-magical folk are bound by the laws of physics, which have a way of preventing such fantastical escapes. Real-life invisibility cloaks do exist, in a manner of speaking: researchers have engineered systems that bend light around…
Light-Powered Gyroscope Is World’s Smallest
A pair of light waves – one zipping clockwise the other counterclockwise around a microscopic track – may hold the key to creating the world’s smallest gyroscope: one a fraction of the width of a human hair. By bringing this essential technology down to an entirely new scale, a team of applied physicists hopes to…
Chameleon-Like Artificial ‘Skin’ Shifts Color on Demand
Borrowing a trick from nature, engineers from the University of California at Berkeley have created an incredibly thin, chameleon-like material that can be made to change color – on demand – by simply applying a minute amount of force. This new material-of-many-colors offers intriguing possibilities for an entirely new class of display technologies, color-shifting camouflage,…
Flexible Films for Touch Screen Applications Achieve Longer Lasting Display
Today, touch screens are everywhere, from smart phones and tablets, to computer monitors, to interactive digital signage and displays. Many touch screens are made of layered thin (billionths of a meter thick) films of indium-tin oxide, an inorganic material that is electrically conductive, which allows electrical signals to travel from the “touch” to the edges…
Predicting Landslides with Light
Optical fiber sensors are used around the world to monitor the condition of difficult-to-access segments of infrastructure — such as the underbellies of bridges, the exterior walls of tunnels, the feet of dams, long pipelines and railways in remote rural areas. Now, a team of researchers in Italy are expanding the reach of optical fiber…
Wearable Device for the Early Detection of Common Diabetes-Related Condition
Hooked onto glasses, new optical device may be able to detect diabetic autonomic neuropathy sooner, leading to better treatment outcomes Washington, July 28, 2014—A group of researchers in Taiwan has developed a new optical technology that may be able to detect an early complication of diabetes sooner, when it is more easily treated. If the…
Step Closer to a Photonic Future
Engineers build cutting-edge photonic devices using standard chip-making process Washington, Feb. 19, 2014–The future of computing may lie not in electrons, but in photons – that is, in microprocessors that use light instead of electrical signals. But these so-called photonic devices are typically built using customized methods that make them difficult and expensive to manufacture. …
First 3-D Movies of Living Sperm
New video tracking system could someday help in vitro fertilization clinics select most viable sperm Washington, Feb. 11, 2014—To improve their chances of success, in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics need to assess the viability of the sperm they use. Now doctors may soon have a new technique to help them sort the good sperm cells…