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Electromagnetic fields in light waves are mainly transverse to propagation direction but actually also have longitudinal components, which may give rise to unexpected optical phenomena involving the angular momentum of light, such as transverse spin and optical torques.
Scintillators used in X-ray detectors typically require the use of heavy metal atoms to efficiently harvest ionizing radiation. Now the use of halogens is shown to yield efficient, metal-free organic scintillators.
