light

Shrinking Light: The optical breakthrough at the nanoscale unlocks a world of quantum possibilities

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The light is extremely confined to a nanoslit in a pair of bonded nanowires

The light is extremely confined to a nanoslit in a pair of bonded nanowires. Credit: Zhejiang University Nanophotonics Group led by Limin Tong The waveguide scheme allows for highly confined subnanometer optical fields. Researchers have pioneered a new method for confining light to sub-nanometer scales. This development offers promising potential for advances in areas such … Read more

Shrinking light: The waveguide pattern allows for highly narrowed subnanometer optical fields

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Shrinking light: Optical innovation at the nanoscale

The light is extremely confined to a nanoslit in a pair of bonded nanowires. Credit: Zhejiang University Nanophotonics Group Imagine shrinking light to the size of a tiny water molecule, unlocking a world of quantum possibilities. This has been a long-held dream in the realms of light science and technology. Recent advances have brought us … Read more

The universe could be twice as old if light were tired and physical constants changed

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Universe Today

When the James Webb Space Telescope began collecting data, it gave us an unprecedented view of the distant cosmos. The faint red-shift galaxies seen by Hubble as mere smudges of light have been revealed as objects of structure and shape. And astronomers were faced with a small problem. Those early galaxies seemed overdeveloped and too … Read more

Unleashing Photon Serpent States: A New Era of Light Perception

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Concept art of photon serpent states

Researchers from UPV, UPC and ICFO have discovered the states of the photon snake, marking a significant advance in the study of light and its manipulation. The discovery, published in Nature Photonics, opens up new possibilities in the formation of frequency combs and paves the way for advanced applications in fields such as communication, spectroscopy, … Read more

5 amazing new discoveries about light

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In the body image

YOne might think that after centuries of studying light, we know just about everything about it. It’s true that we’ve had breakthrough after breakthrough in using it, from enlightenment to communication, from examining the micro and macro universes to scanning our own bodies. We understand that light is an electromagnetic wave, thanks to James Clerk … Read more

Colliding black holes could be hiding in the light of superluminous quasars

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Collisions between stellar-mass black holes can occur in the violent environments created around their larger, feeding counterparts, according to a new study. Supermassive black holes, found at the heart of most, if not all, galaxies can reach masses millions or even billions of times greater than the sun. Some of them are surrounded by disks … Read more

The first light that will flood the universe can help unravel the history of the cosmos. that’s how

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Just as Charles Darwin once used the fossil record to tell the story of the evolution of life on Earth, astronomers are using the first light to shine in the universe to understand the events that shaped the cosmos. This early light is called the “Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB),” leftover radiation that spreads almost uniformly … Read more

Exploring the universe’s first light with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope

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NASA's Webb Space Telescope

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Northrup Grumman After[{” attribute=””>James Webb Space Telescopes first year in service, astronomers are awash in new observations that illuminate the oldest stars and galaxies. In its first year on the job, NASAs James Webb Space Telescope has performed in ways that can only … Read more

The jewelry industry has urged to see the light on sustainability

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The jewelry industry has urged to see the light on sustainability

If attendees at last month’s Future of the Jewelry Industry Summit were initially unsure of their role in tackling climate change and inequality, the massive successes of Harvard University and MIT left no doubt. First, the keynote speaker, Dan Schrag, professor of geology, environmental sciences and engineering, as well as public policy, at Harvard, where … Read more

First light on orbitronics as a valid alternative to electronics

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First light on orbitronics as a valid alternative to electronics

Nearly two decades ago, physicists detected a phenomenon known as the Spin Hall effect1,2, in which an electric field separates electrons in a material based on their intrinsic angular momentum, or spin. This discovery stimulated the field of spintronics, which is a branch of electronics that uses spin and electric charge to transfer and store … Read more