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light

Physics

Bizarre test shows light can actually cast its own shadow

With the help of a ruby cube and two laser beams, researchers made one ray of light cast a shadow when illuminated by the other

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Physics

Cloud-inspired material can bend light around corners

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Physics

Tiniest 'ruler' ever measures distances as small as an atom's width

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Light effects

Physics

Quantum holograms can send messages that disappear

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Liquid crystals could improve quantum communication devices

Physics

Liquid crystals could improve quantum communication devices

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How materials that rewind light can test physics' most extreme ideas

Physics

How materials that rewind light can test physics' most extreme ideas

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Physics

Doughnut-shaped swirls of laser light can be used to transmit images

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light-trapping device

Physics

Quantum forces used to automatically assemble tiny device

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Chemistry

Gold flecks make super-transparent glass fully opaque from one side

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Schematic image of GaN hollow nanowires on a sapphire substrate.

Technology

Lasers smaller than a human hair emit doughnut-shaped light

Incredibly thin, hollow wires made from gallium and nitrogen can produce laser beams that are hollow with a ring-shaped cross-section, and that could be used to create optical fibres out of thin air

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abstract image of light

Physics

Einstein may be wrong about how mirrors travelling at light speed work

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The new design could be used on contact lenses

Technology

Spiral scratches on contact lenses can turn them into multifocals

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Chemistry

Light-sensitive molecules could make carbon capture more efficient

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Space

Galaxy smash-ups may explain strange light from early universe

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