Browse Physics

A theoretical model finds that atoms can organize themselves into a regularly spaced row when trapped between a pair of nanosized optical fibers.

Intense light pulses that can precisely sculpt solid materials also generate dazzling rainbow patterns that reveal information about the surface.

Thin filaments of intense laser light have many potential uses but are unstable. Experiments demonstrate that they can be stabilized by sending them through glass whose properties vary periodically in space.

Theorists explain how a new generation of laser tractor beams can manipulate nanoparticles with unprecedented dexterity and precision.

Researchers measure the complex “shape” of individual photons, which could lead to new ways of encoding information.

Simulations show that a new technique can control the wavelength of a random laser—a type of laser that lacks mirrors and whose output has been impossible to control.

A semiconductor chip that generates entangled photon pairs is friendlier to integration with other chip-based quantum components than any previous device.

Light passing through a pair of adjacent glass strips generates a slight bending in the material, causing the light to concentrate into narrow tracks. The technique works for all wavelengths of light.

A sheet of tiny structures, such as nanoscale graphene disks, can absorb all incident light of a specific wavelength coming from any direction, theory suggests.

Infrared spectroscopy can detect trace gases and potentially provide an alternative carbon dating technique.

Radiation pressure from an ordinary, DVD-scale laser can make a dimple on a liquid’s surface.

A laser that emits visible light using atomic nuclei, rather than electrons, could be made from a thorium alloy. It could be a first step toward a gamma-ray laser.

A wave “diode” could use a nonlinear medium to allow light to travel in only one direction.

Theorists can mathematically construct waves that propagate on straight-line paths through environments with many obstacles that would ordinarily cause scattering.

Researchers have designed the first emitter of circularly polarized light made from a stand-alone semiconductor device.

In the early 1960s the first lasers to operate continuously, rather than in pulses, were invented, and they were based on gases rather than solids. They are now used widely in science and technology.

High-intensity laser pulses in air can undergo a phase transition between two different states, according to simulations.

Two research teams used a ring-like probe to directly characterize the magnetic field of infrared light in a small cavity.

A property of light called orbital angular momentum can be directly measured by sending the beam through a triangular aperture and counting the spots that appear in the diffraction pattern.

The first semiconducting laser was built in 1962. Its direct descendants made DVD players and a wide variety of other devices possible.