Modern IR-spectroscopic ellipsometry instruments and data analysis software provide accurate and repeatable thickness and optical property measurements of substrates and film samples.

Made with readily available group IV germanium and silicon materials, a CMOS-compatible waveguide-integrated avalanche photodiode offers a gain-bandwidth of 105 GHz, extending Ge/Si APDs to high-bandwidth chip-to-chip interconnects and high-sensitivity fiber-optic communications.

Removing astigmatism and coma with a variable optical null allows an aspheric stitching interferometer to measure surfaces with departures up to 1000 waves from the best-fit sphere.

Solar cell performance has been improving slowly for years. Now developers are exploring new designs and structures, which they hope can give a big boost to energy conversion efficiency.

Reflective optical systems can handle high power across a broad wavelength spectrum and may provide a less complex and lower-cost alternative to refractive systems.

A new version of a type of optofluidic system designed to be used with laser "tweezers" for 3D manipulation of biological cells under a microscope has been created by researchers at Technische Universitvät Ilmenau (Ilmenau, Germany).

With their lack of self-phase modulation and core optical absorption, hollow optical fibers are an excellent way to transmit high-peak-power optical pulses.

An optically pumped room-temperature vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL) developed by researchers at the Institut d'Electronique du Sud, Université Montpellier (Montpellier, France) and the Laboratoire de Photonique et Nanostructures (Marcoussis, France) reaches an output of 2.1 W of low-noise (37 kHz linewidth), single-frequency TEM₀₀ operation with a beam quality (M²) of 1.2 at a wavelength of 1015 nm.

In optical communications and other semiconductor-laser-based systems, testing the impact of laser linewidth at the source used to require purchase of several different lasers with varying linewidth parameters.

Researchers at the University of California–Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA), the University of Colorado at Boulder (Boulder, CO), and the University of North Texas (Denton, TX) have for the first time demonstrated ankylography–3D coherent x-ray diffractive imaging that could find applications in imaging thick or embedded structures where slicing for electron or confocal microscopy is not feasible.

Non-diffraction-limited hyperbolic metamaterials are not only finding applications as hyperlenses and photonic funnels but can also be used as highly efficient radiation absorbers, with nearly all incident light "sucked" into the metamaterial medium.

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

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) continues to be a powerful imaging tool at the nanometer scale and below.

The hunt for the next big thing–or small thing–in lithography could do away with photomasks in favor of holograms, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge (England).

Although many time-domain terahertz-wave detection techniques have been developed, high ambient-moisture absorption rules out "remote" terahertz sensing, shutting out a host of applications in homeland security, astronomy, and environmental monitoring.

An optical technique called "wavefront coding," invented by Ed Dowski and Thomas Cathey at the University of Colorado (Boulder, CO) in the mid-1990s, provides a simple, effective way to increase depth of focus in many imaging systems.

Just when you thought incandescent light bulbs were dead, researchers at Stanley Electric Corp. (Tsukuba, Japan), Osaka University (Osaka, Japan), Shizuoka University (Shizuoka, Japan), and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Tsukuba, Japan) have modified the blackbody radiation of an incandescent bulb, demonstrating the possibility of 95% electric power to visible-light conversion and paving the way for luminous efficiencies beyond 400 lm/W.