New experiments are pushing our understanding of light and optics to the limit and are also opening up new areas of physics and novel applications. (Picture credit: Photodisc) Optics has always been ...

Light usually travels in straight lines, but what if it could twist, spiral, and ...

Can light behave like a whirlwind? It turns out it can—and such "optical tornadoes" have now been created in an extremely ...

A course offered at the University of Wisconsin has long been connecting seemingly unrelated fields — the sciences and arts — into an interdisciplinary education. Physics 109 — Physics in the Arts — ...

Quantum optics is a branch of physics that studies the behavior of light and its interactions with matter at the quantum level. It explores phenomena that arise from the quantum nature of light and ...

Two Americans and a German won the Nobel Prize in physics for optics research that is improving the accuracy of such ...

With an applied physics: optics degree, you’ll gain specialized expertise in optics, preparing you for diverse career opportunities in technology, research, and academia. Become who you’re meant to be ...

Detecting a single particle of light is hard; detecting a single microwave photon is even harder. Microwave photons, the tiny packets of electromagnetic radiation used in current technologies like ...

The ability to stop light in its tracks by passing it through a cloud of ultracold atoms could lead to new techniques for optical storage Slow coach: Lene Hau with the laser system that her group uses ...