Thin, simple diffractive lenses are notorious for their blurry images, so they have never been used in astronomical observatories. But if you could improve their clarity, using diffractive lenses ...

Astronomers have discovered more than 5,000 planets outside of the solar system to date. The grand question is whether any of these planets are home to life. To find the answer, astronomers will ...

A team of physicists at ETH Zurich has created a tiny metalens that can half the wavelength of incident light. They have achieved this using a special metal-oxide lens material called lithium niobate ...

We've learned about light and how to bend it to our will. But what can we LEARN from it? Light is everywhere … but it’s not as predictable as you might think. It’s a wave that travels in straight ...

Researchers developed a new ultra-thin planar (flat) "metalens" that can potentially replace the stacked, bulky lenses used in telescopes, microscopes, smartphones, cameras and other gadgets. Despite ...

Astronomers have discovered more than 5,000 planets outside of the solar system to date. The grand question is whether any of these planets are home to life. To find the answer, astronomers will ...

The endeavor to detect life on exoplanets is presently constrained by the limitations and logistical complexities inherent in building larger, more sensitive mirror-based space telescopes. A novel ...