An organic optically pumped solid-state laser called a vertical external-cavity surface-emitting organic laser, developed at the Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers at Université Paris, produces a high-quality beam at a conversion efficiency of 43%.

Femtosecond and attosecond light pulses are now allowing scientists to deeply explore the workings of atoms, molecules, and nanoparticles.

Large-area photoconductive emitters with high conversion efficiency and the generation of intense terahertz radiation without biasing based on the photo-Dember effect overcome the limits of available photoconductive-antenna-based terahertz sources.

Nonlinear optics can generate new lines from semiconductor lasers by harmonic generation and frequency mixing, but it requires high power, good beam quality, and narrow linewidth.

Chirally coupled core fiber enables scaling of single-mode fiber core size—essential for the high peak power laser operation needed in high-precision materials processing applications.

Zinc oxide and its alloy MgZnO are emerging as promising UV-sensing candidates due to their direct wide bandgap and the ability to tailor their electronic, magnetic, and optical properties.

Developers are exploring new solar cell designs and structures, which they hope can give a big boost to energy conversion efficiency.

Methods for early and accurate cancer diagnosis are finally emerging from the laboratory, thanks to the latest optical and photonic innovations.

System integrators are combining a variety of image sensors and robots to speed industrial automation tasks.

In image processing, various methods and algorithms are used to perform detail-oriented operations on zoomed digital images.

Using a variety of CCD and CMOS imagers, linescan cameras are tackling high-speed web applications with increased accuracy.

A lens can only focus at a single distance; a relatively large depth of focus allows objects to appear sharp across a range of distances from the system.

New capabilities such as in-band OSNR and wider dynamic range are expanding the potential of OSAs in next-gen networks and extending them to other applications.