Imagine pointing your smartphone at a salty snack you found at the back of your pantry and immediately knowing if its ingredients had turned rancid. Devices called spectrometers can detect dangerous chemicals based on a unique “fingerprint” of absorbed and emitted light. But these light-splitting instruments have long been both bulky and expensive, preventing their […]
Best Ever At Splitting Light, New Material Could Improve LEDs, Solar Cells, Optical Sensors
Place a chunk of the clear mineral Iceland spar on top of an image and suddenly you’ll see double, thanks to a phenomenon called double refraction—a result of a quality of the crystal material called optical anisotropy. Beyond just a nifty trick, materials with optical anisotropy are vital for a variety of devices such as […]