Researchers have developed a fluorescence microscopy approach that significantly improves image resolution by acquiring three views of a sample at the same time. Their new method is particularly useful for watching the dynamics of biological processes, which can provide insights into how healthy cells work and what goes wrong when diseases occur.

Live 3D imaging is one of the hottest topics in optics today, transforming medical imaging capabilities and delivering the immersive experience behind AR and VR. During The Optical Society's Light the Future centennial program in Heidelberg, Germany on 26 July, Dr. Joseph Izatt of Duke University and Microsoft's Bernard Kress gave an insider's look at how these technologies are advancing medicine and changing the future of how we intera...

Scientists have sought to increase the efficiency of photovoltaics by creating "multi-junction" solar cells, made from several different semiconductor materials that absorb at varying wavelengths of light. The problem is, such multi-junction cells are expensive to make. Broadband solar absorption previously has been achieved using metal-insulator-metal (or MIM) resonators, which consist of an insulator sandwiched between a thick bottom and a...

A paper published in the journal Optics Express, from The Optical Society (OSA), describes a type of portable, field-friendly, mid-infrared detector that operates at room temperature. Room-temperature operation, notes Andreas Harrer of the TU-Wien Center for Micro- and Nanostructures, Austria and the first author of the paper, "is essential for detectors to be energy-efficient enough for portable and handheld applications.

  In a paper published in Biomedical Optics Express, from The Optical Society (OSA), Stefan Musolino of the University of Adelaide and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, Australia, and his colleagues describe an optical fibre-based probe capable of making pinpoint brain temperature measurements in moving lab animals. 

Today's high-speed wired communication networks use lasers to carry information through optical fibers, but wireless networks are currently based on radio frequencies or microwaves. In an advance that could one day make light-based wireless communications ubiquitous, researchers from Facebook Inc.'s Connectivity Lab have demonstrated a conceptually new approach for detecting optical communication signals traveling through the air.

The angular resolution of a telescope is the smallest angle between two objects that still can be resolved as separate things; in a telescope with high angular resolution, those objects can be very close together and yet still appear distinct. In a paper published in the journal Optics Letters, from The Optical Society (OSA), a research team now proposes a way around the diffraction limit of telescopes—one that could potentially e...

  Researchers have improved upon a camera technology that can image at speeds about 100 times faster than today's commercial cameras while also capturing more image frames. The technology opens a host of new possibilities for studying extremely fast processes such as neurons firing, chemical reactions, fuel burning or chemicals exploding.

Researchers have developed a enhanced DNA imaging technique that can probe the structure of individual DNA strands at the nanoscale. Since DNA is at the root of many disease processes, the technique could help scientists gain important insights into what goes wrong when DNA becomes damaged or when other cellular processes affect gene expression. The imaging method builds on a technique called single-molecule microscopy by adding information about...

Researchers have created an optical lens that is flat, rather than curved like traditional glass lenses. The unique optical properties available from the flat lens could help reduce the size of computer hard drives and create exceptionally small microscopes, among other applications. "We've shown a new way to control light," said Ruben Maas, who carried out the research in Albert Polman's research group at the Center for Nanophotonics, FOM Instit...

GPS-based navigation, communication systems, electrical power grids and financial networks all rely on the precise time kept by a network of around 500 atomic clocks located around the world. In The Optical Society's journal for high impact research, Optica, researchers present a way to use optical clocks for more accurate timekeeping than is possible with today's system of traditional atomic clocks. The researchers also measured an optical clock...

Researchers have demonstrated 3D printing of micron-scale optics with unprecedented performance and reproducibility. Their approach can be used to create almost any type of integrated optical element on a micron or smaller scale, which could help miniaturise instruments and devices used in applications from sensing to telecommunications.

A team of researchers from Changchun University of Science and Technology, China, have developed a novel method for the rapid and maskless fabrication of bio-inspired hierarchical structures, using a technique called laser interference lithography. Specifically, the researchers use the interference pattern of three-and four-beam lasers to fabricate ordered multi-scale surface structures on silicon substrates, with the pattern of hierarchical stru...

Researchers have demonstrated, for the first time, that laser light can be used to manipulate a glass optical fiber tapered to a sharp point smaller than a speck of dust, in the middle of an optical fiber with a hollow core. Optical forces cause the sharp point, or "nanospike," to self-align at the center of the hollow core, trapping it more and more strongly at the core center as the laser power increases.

If you’ve ever experienced a bad sunburn, you know the damage that UV light can cause to living cells (like your skin). Out in space, where the level of radiation from the sun can be even higher, it can damage sensitive electronics aboard in-flight spacecraft.

Researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands have developed a photoacoustic mammoscope, a prototype imaging device, which aims to be a valuable tool in detecting breast cancer at its earliest stages. With breast cancer being the most common form of cancer deaths amongst women, this new device aims to detect cancer when it is at its most treatable stage.

A string of fiber-optic sensors running along a 36-km stretch of high-speed commuter railroad lines connecting Hong Kong to mainland China has taken more than 10 million measurements over the past few years in a demonstration that the system can help safeguard commuter trains and freight cars against accidents. Attuned to the contact between trains and tracks, the sensors can detect potential problems like excessive vibrations, mechanical defects...