Browse Physics

Design ideas for making new optical devices borrow from supersymmetry, a candidate theory in particle physics.

A demonstration of photon-pair generation from visible to telecom wavelengths may speed the development of quantum networks.

Plasmonic nanostructures can be used to generate optical vortices with varying amounts of angular momentum.

Ultrathin screens made of metamaterials can bend or reshape a wave transmitted through them without generating any reflection.

Thousands of coupled lasers offer a new way to study how frustrated systems behave.

Experiments demonstrate the possibility of engineering stable, nanometer-scale magnetic structures in thin magnetic films by firing laser pulses at them.

Femtosecond laser spectroscopy can identify otherwise inaccessible precursors in photoinduced chemical reactions.

Optical experiments let researchers fully characterize the quantum transformations corresponding to photon creation and annihilation operators.

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

Laser light scattered from a single atom undergoes large optical phase shifts that may be useful in imaging and quantum information transmission.

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

The use of optical tweezers in a high-pressure experiment allows a more direct measurement of water viscosity in extreme conditions.

By measuring the inertial forces that act on a laser system, researchers have been able to increase the stability of frequency emission by an order of magnitude over previous methods.

A new experiment reveals the different dynamics of particles and holes in ultracold fermionic gases in an optical lattice, opening the way to investigate condensed matter transport phenomena such as photoconductivity via quantum optical systems.

Microparticles suspended in an optical cavity may be a new way to detect gravity waves.

Plasmons on a patterned surface can enhance the production of bright electron beams.

In a crystal with an undulating lattice deformation, geometric phase-shift effects allow better control of x-ray propagation.

Metamaterials offer a way to enhance light-induced forces in waveguide-based optomechanical devices.

A zero refractive index at optical frequencies, as demonstrated in a new nanoscale waveguide, enables opportunities for better control and enhancement of light propagation in waveguides, as well as development of photonic nanocircuits.

The demonstration of a single-particle interferometer opens the door to a number of applications, from investigations of gravity to surface impact physics.