With the development of photonic chips and nano-optics, the old ground glass lenses can't keep up in the race toward miniaturization. In the search for a suitable replacement, a team from the ...

A pulse of light sets the tempo in the material. Atoms in a crystalline sheet just a few atoms thick begin to move—not ...

DigiLens, of Sunnyvale, California, US, has developed a liquid crystal-based lens that provides customized diffraction gratings depending on which of its layers are 'switched on'. The application ...

Imagine snapping a photo where every detail, near and far, is perfectly sharp—from the flower petal right in front of you to the distant trees on the horizon. For over a century, camera designers have ...

Flat lenses offer a way to minimize the optical aberrations and astigmatisms that conventional spherical lenses can be prone to, and can potentially open up new applications that traditional lens are ...

A discovery could have a major impact on advancing smaller, cheaper, laser-driven particle accelerators -- and their potential applications. A discovery by University of Strathclyde researchers could ...

Conventional curved lenses, which direct light by refraction in glass or plastic, are often bulky and heavy, offering only limited control of light waves. Metasurfaces, in contrast, are flat and ...

Two become one: various diffraction patterns showing Rayleigh's criterion. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Spencer Blevin) Scientists have long believed that diffraction limits the minimum distance that ...

Lenses are almost as old as civilization itself. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Babylonians all developed lenses made from polished quartz and used them for simple magnification. Later, ...