Mirrors normally reveal what is placed in front of them, even when their curvature distorts a reflection. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have introduced a different optical concept: a “lying mirror” that hides information carried by an input image and transforms it into a misleading, ordinary-looking pattern at the output. The […]

In a new Nature Physics study, researchers accelerated electrons to more than twice the energy predicted by the traditional dephasing limit for laser-plasma accelerators operating over the same distance. This was made possible by a specially engineered laser pulse called a flying focus, which counteracts a longstanding limitation known as “dephasing.”

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Measuring faint magnetic fields is useful in a number of areas, including mapping brain activity, monitoring hearts and probing fundamental physics. Typically, picking up such weak signals requires expensive or bulky equipment, such as liquid-helium cooling tanks or specially shielded rooms that block out Earth’s magnetic field.

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Using light to process quantum information is one of the most promising approaches to building future quantum computers. Light particles, known as photons, are excellent carriers of quantum information, but their lack of natural interactions has created a major challenge for researchers seeking to build systems capable of performing a full range of computations.

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Using a detector filled with nearly 9 metric tons of liquid xenon, researchers have delivered some of the most sensitive dark matter results ever recorded. In the latest analysis from the XENON collaboration, working at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, researchers carried out a “blind” test to avoid bias in measurements of the […]

Supercontinuum light sources—often called “white lasers” because they emit a broad, continuous rainbow of colors—are essential tools for everything from advanced medical imaging to environmental gas detection. However, researchers have historically faced a frustrating trade-off: A broad spectrum comes at the expense of high fluctuations, which has effectively limited their use.

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A KAIST research team led by professor Mooseok Jang from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering has developed a single-shot phase imaging technique that reconstructs a phase object—a transparent object such as glass, plastic film or a living cell, which produces almost no visible contrast under an ordinary camera but induces a subtle shift […]

Researchers have demonstrated a solid-state organic laser microcavity fabricated entirely by solution processing. The device operates in the strong light–matter coupling regime, where light and matter form hybrid states called polaritons. This makes the platform not only a new type of solution-processed laser but also a powerful way to study nonlinear polariton interactions. The paper […]