Optics

Researchers have developed a new type of adaptive liquid lens that changes its focal distance when a voltage is applied. Made with an electrically responsive fluid, the lens is lightweight and could be easily manufactured for use in smartphones.

Princeton and the University of Washington researchers have developed a camera the size of a grain of salt that can snap sharp, full-color images. It’s made with a metasurface that captures light and could be scaled up to turn entire surfaces into sensors.

For now, quantum computers are mostly limited to labs and big experimental setups. But Japanese researchers have now made a step towards more accessible quantum computing devices, finding a way to “twist” light at room temperature.

The record for fastest internet speed has been shattered with a data transmission rate of 319 Terabits per second through optical fibers. The record was set over more than 3,000 km of fibers, and is compatible with existing infrastructure.

A quantum internet could one day allow quantum computers to team up and tackle some gigantic problems. Researchers at Toshiba are a step closer, demonstrating quantum communications sent over a record-breaking 600 km (373 miles) of optic fiber.

Engineers at Stanford have created a new optical device that can easily manipulate light into basically any color desired. The system uses a series of modulators to fine-tune the frequencies of individual photons to change their color.

Clouds or sugar cubes block light because they’re disordered media that scatter light waves. Now scientists have found a way to manipulate light waves to pass through, projecting an image on the other side as clearly as if the obstacle wasn’t there.

An advanced microscopy technique has snapped “super-resolution” 3D images inside the brains of living mice. The method is so precise it imaged the tiny twigs on the branches of neurons, and could watch how they changed over the course of a few days.

Usually optical coatings either reflect or transmit a given color of light, but now researchers at the University of Rochester have developed a new class of optical coating that can both transmit and reflect the same wavelengths at the same time.

Sci-fi has been promising holograms for decades, but they always feel out of reach. Now Samsung has made strides towards realistic holograms, with a prototype thin-panel device that can display 3D images in 4K resolution with a wide viewing angle.

An Alphabet X innovation lab project has been working on a high-speed wireless optical communications network that uses beams of light instead of cables or radio waves, and folks in Kenya will be the first to benefit from the fruits of these labors.

Researchers have developed a kind of electronic “invisible ink” that can alert users to unauthorized tampering with a device. When the chip is exposed to light it will erase information printed on it, making it clear that someone’s opened the box.