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Eighteen months ago a massive fire ripped through the Optoelectronics Research Centre at Southampton University in the UK. Nadya Anscombe talks to David Payne about the lessons learned and the future of one of the world's largest photonics research groups.
Capturing images with a digital camera that has just a single pixel may sound implausible, but that's exactly what US researchers have achieved. Such devices may soon offer a memory-efficient alternative to conventional megapixel digital cameras.
Changing the polarization of tightly focused light could be important for future high-resolution imaging and data-storage applications. Researchers have now shown that a simple lens can do the task without the need for polarizers.
The optics field is booming, as reflected by the impressive turn out at Photonics West this year. The conference brought researchers and industry figures together to forge the latest light paths, and microelectromechanical systems technology featured strongly.
Optical technology is becoming smaller and smaller, and it doesn't get much smaller than nanophotonic devices and metamaterials. NANOMETA-2007 gave researchers the opportunity to gather together in the cold to discuss these hot topics.
Controlling light in optical systems quickly and easily is crucial for all-optical switching. An approach that does this by exploiting the condensation of gases in a porous structure could open up new avenues in the switching field.
Slow light has captured the imagination of physicists for over a decade. Although single light pulses have been slowed down in a variety of settings, a group at Rochester University has now managed to delay an entire image for the first time.
Despite two decades of work geared towards improving the nonlinear optical properties of organic molecules, practical organic light modulators have not yet reached the market in large numbers. New organic-inorganic hybrid approaches may revolutionize the field.
A Cambridge start-up company is opening a large manufacturing facility for organic electronic circuits. The news is expected to accelerate the deployment of electronic-paper displays.
Using quantum optics to process data could herald a new era of information technology. With the latest semiconductor source of photons, researchers are paving the way towards this enticing goal.
Lasers are a triumph of modern optics, and mirrors play a crucial role in the coherent light produced. A hi-tech reflector could make lasers a lot smaller and lead to their inclusion in an even wider range of optical devices.
Advances in laser-based fabrication technology have resulted in the construction of the first three-dimensional silicon photonic quasicrystals that operate in the infrared.
A new method for slowing down light pulses while minimizing pulse distortion could help create practical photonic devices that route bits of information in optical-telecommunication systems.
By adding a tiny hole into the solid-core of a photonic-crystal fibre, scientists have been able to beat the diffraction limit and confine and guide light in the subwavelength regime.
For optical devices to be truly useful, they must be able to control light of any polarization. A group at MIT has now made this possible, bringing us a step closer to unlocking the potential of on-chip optics.
