For years, researchers have pursued a strange phenomenon: When you hit an ultra-thin magnet with a laser, it suddenly de-magnetizes. Imagine the magnet on your refrigerator falling off. Continue reading “Lasers make magnets behave like fluids”
High-performance quantum dot mode-locked laser on silicon
Ten years into the future. That’s about how far UC Santa Barbara electrical and computer engineering professor John Bowers and his research team are reaching with the recent development of their mode-locked quantum dot lasers on silicon. It’s technology that not only can massively increase the data transmission capacity of data centers, telecommunications companies and network hardware products to come, but do so with high stability, low noise and the energy efficiency of silicon photonics. Continue reading “High-performance quantum dot mode-locked laser on silicon”
Laser physics: Attosecond photoelectron spectroscopy accelerated
Laser physicists have succeeded in reducing the acquisition time for data required for reliable characterization of multidimensional electron motions by a factor of 1000. Continue reading “Laser physics: Attosecond photoelectron spectroscopy accelerated”
Laser blasting antimatter into existence
Antimatter is an exotic material that vaporizes when it contacts regular matter. If you hit an antimatter baseball with a bat made of regular matter, it would explode in a burst of light. It is rare to find antimatter on Earth, but it is believed to exist in the furthest reaches of the universe. Amazingly, antimatter can be created out of thin air — scientists can create blasts of matter and antimatter simultaneously using light that is extremely energetic. Continue reading “Laser blasting antimatter into existence”
New way to make light interact with matter
A new way of enhancing the interactions between light and matter, developed by researchers at MIT and Israel’s Technion, could someday lead to more efficient solar cells that collect a wider range of light wavelengths, and new kinds of lasers and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that could have fully tunable color emissions. Continue reading “New way to make light interact with matter”
Modern laser science brightened by 2,300-year-old technology
An active field of research, laser optical trapping works to control the movement and position of particles of different sizes and shapes. The ability to move small particles in a precise and controlled manner is important to both basic and applied science. For example, the ability to control the movement of single atoms can be used to realize quantum computing, and the research also contributes to the study of biological specimens and pollutants. Continue reading “Modern laser science brightened by 2,300-year-old technology”
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