Photonics & Imaging

Robotic Skin Allows Tiny Robots to Navigate Complex, Fragile Environments

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed a soft robotic skin that enables vine robots that are just a few millimeters wide to navigate convoluted paths and fragile environments. Read on to learn more.

How Metasurfaces Can Act as Quantum Upgrades

Optics researchers in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences created specially designed metasurfaces — flat devices etched with nanoscale light-manipulating patterns — to act as ultra-thin upgrades for quantum-optical chips and setups. Read on to learn more.

Color Filtering Software Enhances Material Strain Analysis

Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have developed a technology that can isolate a single direction of tensile strain in biaxially woven material. This is accomplished using traditional digital image correlation (DIC) techniques in combination with custom red-green-blue (RGB) color filtering software. Read on to learn more.

Entangled-Photon Pairs Secure Optical Communications

NASA's Glenn Research Center has developed a method of using entangled-photon pairs to produce highly secure mobile communications that require mere milliwatts of power. Read on to learn more.

3D LiDAR for Improved Rover Traversal and Imagery

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has developed a Space Qualified Rover LiDAR (SQRLi) system that will improve rover sensing capabilities in a small, lightweight package. The new SQRLi package is developed to survive the hazardous space environment and provide valuable image data during planetary and lunar rover exploration. Read on to learn more about it.

The U.K.’s First Long-Distance, Quantum-Secured Video Call and More

Researchers have successfully demonstrated the U.K.’s first long-distance ultra-secure transfer of data over a quantum communications network, including the U.K.’s first long-distance quantum-secured video call. Read on to learn more.

New App Performs Real-Time, Full-Body Motion Capture With a Mobile Device

Northwestern engineers have developed a new system for full-body motion capture — and it doesn’t require specialized rooms, expensive equipment, bulky cameras, or an array of sensors. Instead, it requires a simple mobile device. Read on to learn more.

Better Images for Humans and Computers

Maksym Kovalenko and his team have proposed a novel solution that allows them to utilize every photon of light for color recognition. For nearly a decade, they have been researching perovskite-based image sensors. In a new study published in Nature, they show that their new technology works. Read on to learn more.

Meet SMSPDs: Superconducting Microwire Single-Photon Detectors

Plans are underway to create more powerful particle accelerators, whose collisions will unleash large subatomic storms. How will researchers sift through the chaos? Read on to find out.

AI Boosts Super-Resolution Microscopy

Researchers have provided a new open-source algorithm called Conditional Variational Diffusion Model (CVDM). Based on generative AI, this model improves the quality of images by reconstructing them from randomness. In addition, the CVDM is computationally less expensive than established diffusion models — and it can be easily adapted for a variety of applications. Read on to learn more.

Novel Flexible Terahertz Camera Can Inspect Objects with Diverse Shapes

A team of researchers from Tokyo Tech, led by Associate Professor Yukio Kawano, has designed a flexible and free-standing THz sensor array that can be used to image blind ends of irregularly shaped objects. Read on to learn more about it.

Fiber Optic Sensing Technologies

Known as FOSS (for fiber optic sensing system), NASA’s technology portfolio combines advanced sensors and innovative algorithms into a robust package that accurately and cost-effectively monitors a host of critical parameters in real time. Read on to learn more.

Noninvasive Imaging Method Can Penetrate Deeper Into Living Tissue

Metabolic imaging is a noninvasive method that enables clinicians and scientists to study living cells using laser light, which can help them assess disease progression and treatment responses. But light scatters when it shines into biological tissue, limiting how deeply it can penetrate and hampering the resolution of captured images. Now, MIT researchers have developed a new technique that more than doubles the usual depth limit of metabolic imaging. Read on to learn more.

A Technological Breakthrough for Ultra-Fast and Greener AI

AI systems like ChatGPT are notorious for being power-hungry. To tackle this challenge, a team from the Centre for Optics, Photonics and Lasers has come up with an optical chip that can transfer massive amounts of data at ultra-high speed. As thin as a strand of hair, this technology offers unrivaled energy efficiency. Read on to learn more.

Chiral Photonic Device Combines Light Manipulation with Memory

As fast as modern electronics have become, they could be much faster if their operations were based on light, rather than electricity. Fiber optic cables already transport information at the speed of light, but to do computations on that information without translating it back to electric signals will require a host of new optical components. Researchers have now developed such a device. Read on to learn more.

Sensitive Yet Tough Photonic Devices Are Now a Reality

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have achieved a long-sought milestone in photonics: creating tiny optical devices that are both highly sensitive and durable — two qualities that have long been considered fundamentally incompatible. Read on to learn more.

Tunable Laser Light

Researchers have invented a new type of tunable semiconductor laser that combines the best attributes of today’s most advanced laser products, demonstrating smooth, reliable, wide-range wavelength tuning in a simple, chip-sized design. Read on to learn more about it.

Twisted Moiré Photonic Crystals

Researchers have developed an on-chip twisted moiré photonic crystal sensor that uses MEMS technology to control the gap and angle between the crystal layers in real time. The sensor can detect and collect detailed polarization and wavelength information simultaneously. Read on to learn more.

Advanced Thermal Inspection with Pulsed Light Emitting Diodes (PLED) Technology

Engineers at NASA Langley Research Center have developed a cutting-edge thermal inspection technology that enhances defect detection on low-emissivity surfaces by eliminating false readings caused by infrared reflections. Read on to learn more.

A New Computer Vision Method Enables Faster Screening of Electronic Materials

A new computer vision technique developed by MIT engineers significantly speeds up the characterization of newly synthesized electronic materials. The technique automatically analyzes images of printed semiconducting samples and quickly estimates two key electronic properties for each sample. Read on to learn more.

Ferroelectric Material Adapts to Light Stimuli by Reorganizing Atomic Connectivity

With this groundbreaking discovery of time-dependent changes in networked nanodomains, developers are on the path to building adaptive networks for information storage and processing. Read on to learn more.

Robotic System for Infrastructure Reconnaissance

Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have developed a robotic system whose primary structural platform, or “orb,” can be injected into a pipe network and perform reconnaissance of piping infrastructure and other interior volumes. When deployed, this technology uses throttled fluid flow from a companion device for passive propulsion. Read on to learn more.

Noninvasive Imaging Method Can Penetrate Deeper Into Living Tissue

Metabolic imaging is a noninvasive method that enables clinicians and scientists to study living cells using laser light, which can help them assess disease progression and treatment responses. But light scatters when it shines into biological tissue, limiting how deeply it can penetrate and hampering the resolution of captured images. Now, MIT researchers have developed a new technique that more than doubles the usual depth limit of metabolic imaging. Read on to learn more.

New Study Showcases 3D Photonics with Record Performance for AI

Artificial intelligence systems promise transformative advancements, yet their growth has been limited by energy inefficiencies and bottlenecks in data transfer. Researchers at Columbia Engineering have unveiled a groundbreaking solution: a 3D photonic-electronic platform that achieves unprecedented energy efficiency and bandwidth density, paving the way for next-generation AI hardware. Read on to learn more.

Revolutionizing Dynamic Facial Projection Mapping: A Leap Forward in Augmented Reality

Augmented reality has become a hot topic in the entertainment, fashion, and makeup industries. Though a few different technologies exist in these fields, dynamic facial projection mapping is among the most sophisticated and visually stunning ones. Read on to learn more about it.

Ultra-Broadband Photonic Chip Boosts Optical Signals

Researchers have developed a photonic chip-based traveling wave parametric amplifier that achieves ultra-broadband signal amplification in an unprecedentedly compact form. Read on to learn more about it.

Researchers Pave the Way for a New Era in Medical Imaging

New technology developed by researchers at the University of Houston could revolutionize medical imaging and lead to faster, more precise and more cost-effective alternatives to traditional diagnostic methods. Read on to learn more.

Scientists Use Distant Sensor to Monitor American Samoa Earthquake Swarm

Residents of the Manu’a Islands in American Samoa were feeling the earth shake, raising concerns of an imminent volcanic eruption or tsunami. Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey used machine learning and a technique called template matching on shaking data recorded from a single seismic sensor located 250 kilometers away to locate the source of the shaking. Read on to learn more.

Scientists Propose Laser Scalpel with a ‘Curved’ Blade

Changing the shape of the blade will expand the possibilities of using the laser in medicine.