Optics

"T-rays", pulses of terahertz radiation, could let art historians see murals hidden beneath coats of plaster or paint in centuries-old buildings in much the same way X-rays let doctors see through…

It isn't time to rewrite the Corpus Hermeticum just yet but a University of Rochester optical scientist has come close - he has used a tabletop laser to turn pure aluminum gold. And blue. And gray.…

Dark-field images provide more detail than ordinary x-ray radiographs and could be used to identify explosives in hand luggage, diagnose the onset of breast cancer or Alzheimer’s disease and pinpoint…

Broadband access has transformed the economic potential of the internet but the ADSL technology that delivers broadband to homes over traditional copper telephone wires is reaching its limit of…

Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, an international team of astronomers [1] has discovered a stunning rare case of a triple merger of galaxies. This system, which astronomers have dubbed 'The Bird' -…

As a step towards designing tomorrow's super-fast optical communications networks, a Duke University-led research team has demonstrated a way to transfer encoded information from a laser beam to…

A Princeton-led research team has created an easy-to-produce material from the stuff of computer chips that has the rare ability to bend light in the opposite direction from all naturally occurring…

A tiny galaxy,SDSSJ0737+3216 (lens redshift 0.3223, source redshift 0.5812), nearly halfway across the universe and the smallest in size and mass known to exist at that distance, has been identified…

A plant-like micro-organism mostly found in oceans could make the manufacture of products, from iridescent cosmetics, paints and fabrics to credit card holograms, cheaper and ‘greener’. The tiny…

The brand-new Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona has a gotten off to an astronomical start, helping an international team of astronomers learn that a recently discovered tiny companion galaxy…