Spectral Bytes

Highlights

Jeff 720
Commentary

Materials for metamaterials

Dec. 9, 2013
In an invited talk December 2, 2013, at the Fall Materials Research Society meeting in Boston, Vladimir Shalaev of Purdue University quoted the father of metamaterials, Sir John...
Jeff 720
Commentary

Nondestructive photon detection

Nov. 20, 2013
Gerhard Rempe's group at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics has devised an ingenious way to detect photons without destroying them.
Jeff 720
Commentary

Celebrating first Hubble repair mission

Nov. 5, 2013
December 2013 marks the 20th anniversary of what may be the most dramatic rescue in the history of astronomy: the first space shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Jeff 720
Commentary

Progress at NIF, but no 'breakthrough'

Oct. 9, 2013
Press reports claiming a breakthrough in laser fusion at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in late September 2013 are exaggerated.
Jeff 720
Commentary

Integrating graphene detectors with silicon photonics

Sept. 18, 2013
Graphene could bridge a key gap in the development of silicon photonics for the fiber transmission band.
Jeff 720
Commentary

Silicon micro-Raman laser

June 28, 2013
A micrometer-scale silicon Raman laser described in the June 27, 2013 Nature could lead to some interesting possibilities on a longer time scale.
Jeff 720
Commentary

Deep-UV LEDs preserve strawberries

June 14, 2013
CLEO can be a great place to come upon unexpected applications of photonics. One that caught my eye this year was the use of deep-ultraviolet LEDs to lengthen the storage lifetime...
Jeff 720
Commentary

Quantum dot television

May 29, 2013
Quantum dots are now lighting up televisions with fuller, richer colors than flat-panel screens could previously deliver.
Jeff 720
Commentary

Zapping rockets with 10 kW

May 13, 2013
At first glance, the demonstration of the Area Defense Anti-Munitions (ADAM) ground-based laser weapon by Lockheed Martin might sound like just another big aerospace company jumping...