Thomas Young, born 250 years ago this week, was a polymath who made seminal contributions in fields from physics to Egyptology. But perhaps his most enduring legacy is proving Isaac Newton wrong about ...

Tokyo, Japan – One of the simplest and most beautiful naturally occurring patterns can be observed when light is shined through a pair of slightly misaligned periodic structures. This phenomenon, ...

For over 100 years, quantum physics has taught us that light is both a wave and a particle. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have performed a daring experiment using ...

I learned in October 2022’s Breakthrough that the spikes of stars in high-power photos are called diffraction spikes. Why do they appear as two crosses at 45 degrees to each other? The diffraction ...

In a paper published in Nature Photonics, the research team from the Center for Quantum Information and Communication – Ecole polytechnique de Bruxelles of Université libre de Bruxelles, has found an ...

Changing light's polarization can reverse the structure of a patterned light field, opening a new way to control geometry and information in optics. (Nanowerk Spotlight) Light can be bent, focused, or ...

Physicists confirm that light has two identities that are impossible to see at once. (Nanowerk News) MIT physicists have performed an idealized version of one of the most famous experiments in quantum ...

Using a trapped-ion quantum computer, the research team witnessed the interference pattern of a single atom caused by a 'conical intersection'. Conical intersections are known throughout chemistry and ...

"These single atoms are like the smallest slits you could possibly build." When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. For over 100 years, ...