Researchers can now accurately measure the emergence and damping of a plasmonic field

This is crucial for renewable energy and other technologies

13-May-2024 - An international research team led by Universität Hamburg, DESY, and Stanford University has developed a new approach to characterize the electric field of arbitrary plasmonic samples, like e.g. gold nanoparticles. Plasmonic materials are of particular interest due to their extraordinary ...

“Optical fingerprints” on an electron beam

Researchers observe non-linear optical processes in the electron microscope

17-Jan-2024 - The precise control of electron beams in so-called transmission electron microscopes (TEM) makes it possible to analyze materials or molecules at the atomic level. Combined with short light pulses, these devices can also be used to analyze dynamic processes. Researchers from Göttingen and ...

Milestone: Miniature particle accelerator works

Researchers succeed for the first time in accelerating electrons using a nano device

20-Oct-2023 - Particle accelerators are crucial tools in a wide variety of areas in industry, research and the medical sector. The space these machines require ranges from a few square meters to large research centers. Using lasers to accelerate electrons within a photonic nanostructure constitutes a ...

Innovations through hair-thin optical fibres

Study shows what miniaturised optical filters make possible

22-Jan-2021 - Scientists at the University of Bonn have built hair-thin optical fibre filters in a very simple way. They are not only extremely compact and stable, but also colour-tunable. This means they can be used in quantum technology and as sensors for temperature or for detecting atmospheric gases. The ...

Electric current at record speed

Scientists have generated the fastest electric current that has ever been measured inside a solid material

27-Oct-2016 - In the field of electronics, the principle 'the smaller, the better' applies. Some building blocks of computers or mobile phones, however, have become nearly as small today as only a few atoms. It is therefore hardly possible to reduce them any further. Another factor for the performance of ...

Single electrons at top speed

Physicists control currents ten thousand times faster than high-speed electronics

22-Sep-2016 - At the University of Konstanz, the Chair for Ultrafast Phenomena and Photonics succeeded in controlling the movement of single electrons on attosecond timescales. One attosecond is the billionth part of a billionth second. The electric field of ultrashort light pulses in this process determines ...

A signal boost for molecular microscopy

Cavity-enhanced Raman-scattering reveals information on structure and properties of carbon nanotubes

14-Jul-2016 - Carbon nanotubes can be produced with a variety of shapes and properties and are therefore of much interest for widespread applications in fields as diverse as electronics, photonics, nanomechanics, and quantum optics. Hence it is important to have a tool at hand that allows to determine these ...

Laser-based molecular fingerprinting

24-Sep-2015 - Researchers and regulators in many fields often need to detect and measure levels of specific substances in a sea of irrelevant molecules, and infrared light offers an ideal tool for this task. Infrared radiation is invisible to the human eye, but molecules react with mid-infrared light in ways ...

Pushing the limits of lensless imaging

23-Sep-2015 - Using ultrafast beams of extreme ultraviolet light streaming at a 100,000 times a second, researchers from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, have pushed the boundaries of a well-established imaging technique. Not only did they make the highest resolution images ever achieved with ...

A new Concept in Microscopy: Self-reconstructing Laser Beams

Researchers at the University of Freiburg are developing a microscope with illuminating beams that actively refocus in a light-scattering medium

14-Oct-2010 - It’s a familiar situation for all car drivers. In the autumn, when the roads are foggy, visibility drops below 50 metres. The light of the car’s headlights are scattered by the drops of fog, meaning we can’t see objects further away because the light can’t reach them. This everyday example ...