The first images released from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope show the sun’s surface in unprecedented detail. Such imaging is possible because of ultra-low thermal expansion glass-ceramic mirrors, which are used in numerous large-scale telescope projects around the globe.
Read More
Why give your Valentine chocolate when you could give them shimmery chocolate? Researchers at ETH Zurich found a way to imprint a special structure on the surface of chocolate to create a targeted color effect.
Read More
High-entropy materials present significant potential for numerous applications due to their unique chemistries, but such materials’ optical properties have not been studied fundamentally yet. Two researchers at Alfred University begin to fill this knowledge gap by investigating a transparent high‐entropy fluoride laser ceramic.
Read More
Metalenses, or flat surfaces that use nanostructures to focus light, are poised to revolutionize cameras, sensors, and displays—if the lenses can be mass produced. Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences found deep-ultraviolet projection lithography can solve this production challenge.
Read More
It is challenging to effectively monitor seismic quakes deep in the ocean. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers and colleagues, who previously used optical fibers to monitor earthquakes on land, tested using optical fibers to monitor earthquakes undersea.
Read More
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, targeted to begin operations in October 2022, is currently under construction in Chile. Funded through the National Science Foundation, LSST will contain both the largest convex mirror and largest optical lens ever made.
Read More
Transparent ceramics offer advantages over conventional glass and single-crystal technologies—could transparent nanoceramics be even more advantageous? Researchers show how pressureless glass crystallization could offer an easier way to synthesize transparent nanoceramics.
Read More
Researchers from Notre Dame, Missouri S&T, and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory developed a fused filament fabrication method that uses optical fibers as a feedstock. Their method could help create devices ideal for optical applications.
Read More
A research collaboration achieved ferroelectric domain reversal in single-crystal-architecture-in-glass (SCAG) optical fibers, in spite of the crystals being constrained inside glass. Their research could revolutionize optical data transmission technology.
Read More
A team of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers showed “dark fibers,” unused fiber-optic cables that crisscross the United States underground, could be co-opted to serve as sensors in earthquake monitoring systems.
Read More