What is the purpose of light? How does light work? Why does light exist? This video explores the longstanding debate over ...

Slowing down light is not as easy as it sounds. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The phenomenon of light slowing down as it passes ...

Ultrathin structures that can bend, focus, or filter light, metasurfaces are reshaping how scientists think about optics. These engineered materials offer precise control over lights behavior, but ...

First predicted by Einstein more than a century ago, lasers have shaped our modern technological landscape. But how do they work? When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate ...

A spectrograph splits light ... Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of ...

Scientists have created the first real-time 3D simulations of how lasers alter the quantum vacuum. Using cutting-edge computational modeling, scientists from the University of Oxford, in collaboration ...

The 2023 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to three scientists who created pulses of light so short they can be used to watch the inner workings of atoms. Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and ...

Combining a quantum-inspired algorithm and quantum information processing technologies could enable researchers to measure ...

I first learned of this area of research as a graduate student in physical chemistry. My doctoral adviser’s group had a project dedicated to studying chemical reactions with attosecond pulses. Before ...

Some things we see in space appear to outpace light. Now we are learning to harness these bizarre optical illusions to ...