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The secrets behind a marine creature's defensive armor -- one that is exceptionally tough, yet optically clear -- have been revealed by scientists. The shells' unique properties emerge from a specialized nanostructure that allows optical clarity, as well as efficient energy dissipation and the ability to localize deformation, the researchers found.

Taking images through opaque, light-scattering layers is a vital capability and essential diagnostic tool in many applications. The research group of Prof. Mosk of U. Twente have started doing experiments shooting optical lasers into opaque materials in 2007, and for surprise of everyone, it turn out the light intensity after the opaque material in their experiments was orders of magnitude bigger than expected. Following these results they succeeded in taking non-invasive sharp pictures of objects hidden behind a screen of opaqueness, the so referred Super Vision in this Nature overview article.

very nice!!!

New optics based computer architecture

The Rayleigh criterion specifies the minimum separation between two incoherent point sources that may be resolved into distinct objects. Here, a strategy to break the limits of this criterion for the first time, some small allusion to telescopic systems.

Can it also be applied for infrared imagery?

The ALPHA collaboration reports the first ever measurement on the optical spectrum of an antimatter hydrogen atom. Optical transitions shown to be the same as for normal hydrogen. Paper at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaap/ncurrent/full/nature21040.html#affil-auth

:-)

Well, it's not yet confirmed... That error would be worse than the magnetic moment of the muon about 10 years ago. There, it was "at least" a conflict of conventions used in the computer codes!

In a statement based on an earlier press release from the OPERA collaboration, CERN said two possible "effects" may have influenced the anomalous measurements. One of them, due to a possible faulty connection between the fiber-optic cable bringing the GPS signals to OPERA and the detector's master clock, would have caused the experiment to underestimate the neutrinos' flight time, as described in the original story. The other effect concerns an oscillator, part of OPERA's particle detector that gives its readings time stamps synchronized to GPS signals. Researchers think correcting for an error in this device would actually increase the anomaly in neutrino velocity, making the particles even speedier than the earlier measurements seemed to show. CERN's statement says OPERA scientists are studying the "potential extent of these two effects" but doesn't indicate which source of error (if either) is likely to outweigh the other. However, Lucia Votano, director of the Gran Sasso laboratory, says the "main suspicion" focuses on the optical-fiber connection. She adds that OPERA researchers deserve credit for "having tenaciously followed this particular evidence via checks completed in the last few days." The two effects will get a new round of tests in May, when the two labs are scheduled to make velocity measurements with short-pulsed beams designed to give readings much more precise than scientists have achieved so far.

Multiplexed optical recording provides an unparalleled approach to increasing the information density beyond 1012 bits per cm3 (1 Tbit cm-3) by storing multiple, individually addressable patterns within the same recording volume. Although wavelength, polarization and spatial dimension have all been exploited for multiplexing, these approaches have never been integrated into a single technique that could ultimately increase the information capacity by orders of magnitude.

It is a very interesting projecto to easily perform quantum optics calculations.

"Our system of five clocks connects with an unprecedented consistency the optical and the microwave worlds." Interesting?

Short range chemical analysis methods exist already, but using new high power lasers one could extend the operation length to e.g aircraft.

Isabelle?

The optical setup is very simple and lightweight: a compact semi-conductor DFB laser source and an all optical fiber system for amplification and supercontinuum generation. Interesting for space applications!

Metasurfaces have been made, but the problem is that they usually are static and for quantum optic applications the question is how to make a rapidly configurable metasurface. for this Harvard has initiated a multidisciplinary team that involves theoretical physics, metamaterials, nanophotonic circuitry, quantum devices, plasmonics, nanofabrication, and computational modeling

Reading "wavefront engineering" in the title I thought it had to do with wave manipulation in the sea. Nothing to do though. As I read further in this article, Harvard thrives in forming multidisciplinarity groups. Their practice is to call the best team in each expertise they need to merge. Not one researcher from each discipline, but teams of experienced professors and a series of graduate students. Maybe we could discuss it in the retreat!

Some cheating involved

Reminds me a bit of optical tweezers - although the principle seems somewhat different. Could the optical tweezers principle be applied through sound? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers

They created a 50 times smaller optical beam splitter, which is certainly impressive in itself. Question remains how much does this actually bring us closer to optical chips?1% 50% 20% ?

Elon Musk is moving forward with space based internet service...

Facebook announced they are ready to test of of their High Altitude Platform element, a drone of the size of a Boeing 737. See the new here http://phys.org/news/2015-07-facebook-ready-giant-drone-internet.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=ctgr-item&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter. It seemed interesting for me that they are developing also a reliable optical communication between this element and scattered ground stations.

Nice link, that thing is huge and I would love to see a drone that size fly. Also, Facebook's Aerospace Team? :)

I think they are taking it a bit too far....

is my memory wrong or isn't this what you have already mentioned as theoretically possible a few years back when discussing this, Luzi?

Very well possible that I mentioned this. In fact I was one of the first who took spacetime transformations in transformation optics seriously. But first, my name is not Leonhardt and I don't work at Imperial, that's why nobody cites me and second I most probably found the idea too stupid to be published. You see the two reasons why I'm not successful in science...

The accuracy of these new clocks is insane. Hope there will be soon some of these in space :)

To keep you updated in the field of metamaterials. "Invisible sensors" are a hot topic at the moment. Of course, mainly due to military applications. Might be interesting to sense something while minimizing the perturbations due to the sensor.

And all seems to be allowed by transformation optics ..... mah