Photosynthetic cyanobacteria, when harnessed in a photobioreactor or solar collector, can convert atmospheric carbon dioxide and light energy into usable biofuels.
Dark plasmons, in contrast to emissive or bright plasmons with short lifetimes and broad linewidths greater than 50 nm, are nonradiative modes that enable subwavelength guiding...
Groups of single-emitter laser diodes in a mutual package, combined with innovative beam-combining technologies, provide an interesting new lower-cost approach to direct-diode...
A new photonic-crystal fabrication method creates high-aspect-ratio three-dimensional (3D) structures by removal of dielectric host material in an arbitrary fashion—a major step...
Aug. 1, 2011
(Courtesy of Netherlands Infrared Consulting and Modelling)
Infrared countermeasures (IRCM)—designed to prevent missiles from reaching their target—are standard equipment for military aircraft. Progress is also being made on deploying ...
Aug. 1, 2011
(Photo and graphic courtesy of Boston Micromachines Corp.)
Adaptive optics systems with MEMS deformable mirrors enable large ground-based telescopes to achieve diffraction-limited images by correcting for the light-distorting effects ...
Techniques for extending the spectral width of an optical pulse across an octave make it possible to compress pulse lengths to a single cycle of light. So far, erbium-doped fiber...
By combining the magnification capabilities of a microscope with the spectral analysis capabilities of a spectrophotometer, microspectrophotometers acquire transmission and reflectance...
None of the recent Internet IPO companies—Pandora and LinkedIn, and soon Facebook—is profitable. Maybe in the photonics market we should focus on creating something that's cool...
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University, the US Army Research Laboratory, and the University of Fribourg have developed a class of optically active metallosupramolecular...
Commercial optical fiber amplifiers such as erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) are phase-insensitive with a well-known 3 dB quantum-limited noise figure.
Accurate measurement of the position of a laser beam can be achieved in several ways, each with its strengths and weaknesses. A comparison of these has resulted in an active beam...
Aug. 1, 2011
(Courtesy of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Three-dimensional negative-index metamaterials (NIMs) have unusual properties that can make possible some very strange optics indeed, including those that produce an inverse Doppler...
Nearly all professional and backyard photographers have experienced the frustration of taking what they thought was the perfect shot, only to see later that the object of interest...
The James Webb space telescope—successor to the Hubble space telescope—may be in serious trouble. Last month the US House Committee on Appropriations approved a plan to slash ...
It's alive, and it lases! Single living cells genetically engineered to produce a fluorescent protein have operated as tiny living lasers when placed in a resonant cavity with...
![FIGURE 1. Nanotechnology can reproduce nature’s highly reflective structures [3]; that is, the wing structure of a Morpho blue butterfly (Morpho didius) shows an omnidirectional color, unlike a reflection from a grating structure.](https://img.laserfocusworld.com/files/base/ebm/lfw/image/2016/01/pennwell.web.450.169.png?auto=format,compress&fit=crop&q=45&h=139&height=139&w=250&width=250)
