A small add-on to existing gravitational wave detectors could reveal what happens to matter as it becomes a black hole, a process like the big bang in reverse.
Light is key to ultrasensitive chemical sensors.
Kwanchai Lerttanapunyaporn/EyeEm via Getty Images
An optical sensor that can detect individual molecules promises early detection of diseases and environmental contamination.
Section of a tumor observed with an optical microscope. The two white forms with brown borders are blood vessels. Inside, gold nanoparticles accumulate against their walls.
Mariana Varna-Pannerec (ESPCI)
Gold can be used to make jewelry, but also to fight cancer. Several clinical trials are currently underway in the United States where patients are being treated with gold nanoparticles.
A basic design of a light-based chip.
Arnab Hazari
As electronic transistors get tinier, they approach a point at which they won’t be able to get smaller. How can we keep shrinking our devices, and making them more powerful at the same time? Light.
Nanophotonics uses photons to do amazing things.
Shutterstock
Nanophotonics deals with photons at the nanometre scale, and it’s set to transform everything from internet speeds to turning your smartphone into a portable science lab.
It’s just your average corner, but a far from average camera.
Gariepy et al./Heriott-Watt
Using fluorescent dye, researchers figured out how to turn cells into lasers – with applications for cell tagging and tracking as well as medical diagnoses and therapies.
The concept of “digital metamaterials” – a simple way of designing metamaterials with bizarre optical properties that could hasten the development of devices such as invisibility cloaks and superlenses…
Min Gu, Swinburne University of Technology and Mark Turner, Swinburne University of Technology
When scientists look for keys to unlock problems such as quantum teleportation or faster internet speeds, answers can sometimes be found in the natural world. Controlling light at the nanoscale is necessary…