In 1935 Erwin Schrödinger formulated a thought experiment designed to capture the paradoxical nature of quantum physics. The crucial element of this gedanken experiment is a cat that is simultaneously dead and alive. Since Schrödinger proposed his “cat paradox, physicists have been thinking about ways to create such superposition states experimentally. A group of researchers…
Lasers Send Audible Messages to Specific People
Researchers have demonstrated that a laser can transmit an audible message to a person without any type of receiver equipment. The ability to send highly targeted audio signals over the air could be used to communicate across noisy rooms or warn individuals of a dangerous situation such as an active shooter. In The Optical Society…
Molecules Teeter in a Laser Field
When molecules interact with the oscillating field of a laser, an instantaneous, time-dependent dipole is induced. This very general effect underlies diverse physical phenomena such as optical tweezers, for which Arthur Ashkin received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, as well as the spatial alignment of molecules by a laser field. Now scientists from…
Lasers Create and Cool Neutral Plasma
Rice University physicists have created the world’s first laser-cooled neutral plasma, completing a 20-year quest that sets the stage for simulators that re-create exotic states of matter found inside Jupiter and white dwarf stars. The findings are detailed in the journal Science and involve new techniques for laser cooling clouds of rapidly expanding plasma to…
Satellites Use Laser-pointing System to Transmit Data to Earth
A new laser-pointing platform developed at MIT may help launch miniature satellites into the high-rate data game. Since 1998, almost 2,000 shoebox-sized satellites known as CubeSats have been launched into space. Due to their petite frame and the fact that they can be made from off-the-shelf parts, CubeSats are significantly more affordable to build and…
Laser Light Traps Atoms to Understand Superconductors
Using laser light to trap atoms in a checkerboard-like pattern, a team led by Princeton scientists studied how resistance — the loss of electrical current as heat — can develop in unconventional metals. The results may help explain how certain types of superconductors made from copper oxides are able to conduct electricity so efficiently. The…
Tiny Light-guiding Structures Improve Biomedical Devices, Wearables
For the first time, researchers have fabricated light-guiding structures known as waveguides just over one micron wide in a clear silicone commonly used for biomedical applications. The tiny, flexible waveguides can be used to make light-based devices such as biomedical sensors and endoscopes that are smaller and more complex than currently possible. “To the best…
Laser Technology Maps Minerals Deep in the Ocean
Marine mineral resources have been attracting a lot of attention lately, thanks to the rising demand for raw materials that are used in smart electronics, medical sciences and renewable energy products. With depleting land-based deposits for metals such as copper, nickel, manganese, zinc, lithium and cobalt, seabed mining is seen as an opportunity to increase…
Innovative Laser Technology Boosts Microchip-size Chemical Sensors
“Frequency combs” are optimally suited for chemical sensors. A revolutionary technology developed at TU Wien (Vienna) now produces these laser frequencies in a much easier and more robust way. Most lasers have only one color. All the photons it emits have exactly the same wavelength. However, there are also lasers whose light is more complicated.…
Terahertz Laser Upgrades its Sensing and Imaging Capabilities
A terahertz laser designed by MIT researchers is the first to reach three key performance goals at once — high constant power, tight beam pattern, and broad electric frequency tuning — and could thus be valuable for a wide range of applications in chemical sensing and imaging. The optimized laser can be used to detect…
Revolutionary Plasma Mirror Technique Developed
When a dense sheet of electrons is accelerated to almost the speed of light, it acts as a reflective surface. Such a “plasma mirror” can be used to manipulate light. Now an international team of physicists from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, LMU Munich, and Umeå University in Sweden have characterized this plasma-mirror…
Bone Implants Get a Fancy Coat
Scientists from the European project Laser4Surf are currently developing a multi-beam optical module to treat the metallic surfaces of dental implants to achieve the best cell adhesion and antibacterial properties. “Surface treatment allows either a bigger surface in contact between the implant and the bone or a better affinity regarding the chemical interaction between the…
Lasers Examine How Plants Use Sunlight
Plants protect themselves from intense sunlight by rejecting much of it as heat — sometimes far more than needed to prevent damage. Engineering plants to be less cautious could significantly increase yields of biomass for fuel and crops for food, but exactly how the photoprotection system turns on and off has remained unclear. MIT researchers…
Lasers Reduce Risk of X-rays
Whether it’s cutting, drilling, removing, or structuring, industrial material processing should be as quick and as cost-effective as possible. Pulse lasers have established themselves as an “all-round work tool” suitable for various machining methods. From glass and steel to complex composite systems, they are used for numerous materials. Ultrashort laser pulses are also being used…
Experimental Atomic Clocks Set New Records
Experimental atomic clocks at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have achieved three new performance records, now ticking precisely enough to not only improve timekeeping and navigation, but also detect faint signals from gravity, the early universe and perhaps even dark matter. The clocks each trap a thousand ytterbium atoms in optical lattices,…
Lasers Give Boost to 3D Printing
Cars that go more than 1,000 miles on a single fill-up and smartphones that can run for days without recharging are among the possibilities that could come out of a new Clemson University research project that brings together 3D printing and laser processing. Jianhua “Joshua” Tong and his team are working on a new 3D-printing…
Lasers and Chill
Yale University scientists have discovered that laser light can be used to cool traveling sound waves in a silicon chip. Their findings appear in the Nov. 27 online edition of the journal Physical Review X. In the last several decades, the ability to cool clouds of atoms using laser light has revolutionized atomic physics, leading…
Crystal Clear Battery Research
Scientists at Tokyo Tech examined the mechanisms behind the resistance at the electrode-electrolyte interface of all-solid-state batteries. Their findings will aid in the development of much better Li-ion batteries with very fast charge/discharge rates. Designing and improving lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries is crucial for extending the limits of modern electronic devices and electric vehicles because Li-ion…
Light Undergoes Trapping and Tweezing
Laser-driven Electron Accelerator Fits on a Chip
Electrical engineers in the accelerator physics group at TU Darmstadt have developed a design for a laser-driven electron accelerator so small it could be produced on a silicon chip. It would be inexpensive and with multiple applications. The design, which has been published in Physical Review Letters, is now being realized as part of an…
Special Nanocontainers Control Bacterial Metabolism
Researchers from ITMO University developed special nanocontainers that can translate the light signal into metabolic changes in bacteria. The containers consist of titanium dioxide nanoparticles coated with silver and polymers. Once the particles are heated with laser irradiation, the polymer conformation changes and the container opens, releasing the contents. Scientists tested the new system’s performance…
Racing Electrons Get Under Control
Being able to control electronic systems using light waves instead of voltage signals is the dream of physicists all over the world. The advantage is that electromagnetic light waves oscillate at petaherz frequency. This means that computers in the future could operate at speeds a million times faster than those of today. Scientists at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität…
Laser Nanotechnology Offers Non-viral Ocular Gene Therapy Breakthrough
In January 2009, the life of engineer Michel Meunier, a professor at Polytechnique Montréal, changed dramatically. Like others, he had observed that the extremely short pulse of a femtosecond laser (0.000000000000001 second) could make nanometer-sized holes appear in silicon when it was covered by gold nanoparticles. But this researcher, recognized internationally for his skills in…
Immune Cells Light Up from Tiny Lasers
A team of researchers from the School of Physics at the University of St Andrews has developed tiny lasers that could revolutionize our understanding and treatment of many diseases, including cancer. The research, published in Nature Communications, involved developing miniscule lasers, with a diameter of less than a thousandth of a millimeter, and inserting them…
Building Powerful Computers that Run Error-free
Sebastian Krinner is the first winner of the Lopez-Loreta Prize at ETH Zurich. The physicist has a clear goal: he wants to build a quantum computer that is not only powerful, but also works without errors. “Here, at the very bottom of this white container, are the circuits,” explains Sebastian Krinner with evident pride, after…