Optics

Woman sees true color of flowers for first time

Glass research helps colorblind people see true colors for the first time

By Faye Oney / April 18, 2017

Colorblind people are now able to see true colors—thanks to the efforts of glass research scientists at EnChroma, a company that makes glasses for individuals with color vision deficiency.

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High heat and pressure help researchers fabricate first samples of transparent silicon nitride

By April Gocha / March 23, 2017

By processing samples of silicon nitride under high pressure and heat, researchers at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron have converted an originally opaque hexagonal crystal structure into optically transparent cubic silicon nitride.

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Video: Nanorod-connected quantum dots create two-way LEDs that could integrate smart displays into our future

By April Gocha / February 15, 2017

A team at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, and Dow Electronic Materials has developed two-way LEDs that can both emit and harvest light—and may enable next-gen, smart touchless displays.

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Single-layer ‘super material’ semiconductor shows promise as novel light source

By Stephanie Liverani / October 28, 2016

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (or TMDCs) are particularly promising single-layer materials. And researchers at the University of Würzburg in Germany say TMDCs are actually capable of generating light when supplied with energy.

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Video: Panasonic debuts OLED-embedded transparent glass TV

By April Gocha / October 12, 2016

Televisions have drastically evolved since their cathode ray tube beginnings, and they are still going places—and if Panasonic is any prognosticator, the TVs of the future will be nearly invisible in our homes.

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Diatoms serve as tiny silica scaffolds for inexpensive and scalable growth of molybdenum disulfide flakes

By April Gocha / September 26, 2016

Researchers at the University of Manchester in the U.K. have devised a strategy that gives new use to diatom shells, using the silica shells as scaffolds for building atomic sheets of molybdenum disulfide.

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Magnifying the possibilities: Spider silk is star material in world’s first bio superlens

By Stephanie Liverani / August 23, 2016

For the first time ever, scientists at Bangor and Oxford Universities in the U.K. are using spider silk as a superlens to increase magnification potential, opening up new possibilities to explore structures currently invisible to modern microscopes.

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Tech innovation roundup: See-through circuitry, wi-fi from lasers, and liquid metals propel next-gen electronics

By Stephanie Liverani / August 16, 2016

In the past couple weeks alone, significant innovations in next-generation electronic devices have made news. Check out these recent buzzworthy developments in tech research that are helping transform electronics as we know them.

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New liquid light switch could boost power of smaller electronic devices

By Stephanie Liverani / August 12, 2016

Scientists at the University of Cambridge in England are taking an in-depth look at the way in which information is processed and transmitted in electronic devices. They’ve developed a miniature electro-optical switch that they say can boost the power and efficiency of small electronics.

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Ceramic-based laser cuts into tissues, composites

By April Gocha / July 26, 2016

Scientists at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the company IRE-Polus have developed a ceramic-based laser that can has just the right wavelength to cut its way into key industries.

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