Nanowire gurus at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that, thanks to a special type of shell, produce five times higher light intensity than do comparable LEDs based on a simpler shell design. Ultraviolet LEDs are used in a growing number of applications such as polymer curing, […]
Displays
True Wearable Displays: Self-Powered, Washable and Wearable
Clothes are usually made of textiles and have to be both wearable and washable for daily use; however, smart clothing presents a challenge with its power sources and moisture permeability, which causes the devices to malfunction. This problem has now been overcome by a KAIST research team, who developed a textile-based wearable display module technology […]
Touchscreens Go 3-D with Buttons That Pulsate and Vibrate Under Your Fingertips
By pulsing or vibrating on demand, smartphone screens can help users navigate through a menu or can guide a user’s finger to virtual on-screen buttons that can be created or removed wherever and whenever needed. Professor Stefan Seelecke and his team at Saarland University have developed a film that gives touchscreens a third dimension. The […]
Breakthrough Could Enable Cheaper Infrared Cameras
There’s an entire world our eyes miss, hidden in the ranges of light wavelengths that human eyes can’t see. But infrared cameras can pick up the secret light emitted as plants photosynthesize, as cool stars burn and batteries get hot. They can see through smoke and fog and plastic. But infrared cameras are much more […]
Unlocking the Untapped Potential of Light in Optical Communications
Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology have fabricated a multiplexer/demultiplexer module based on a property of light that was not being exploited in communications systems: the optical vortex. Such devices will be crucial for improving optical networks, which are the backbone of today’s Internet, so that they can meet the traffic demands of tomorrow. In […]
Report Says Display Capex Headed for Downturn
The flat-panel display market has long been marked by a series of peaks and valleys, and a new report by market research firm DSCC says a downturn may be on the way. According to the firm, in 2018 display equipment spending fell 8 percent to $21.6 billion, the second highest result in the history of […]
The Coming Revolution in LED Lighting
A revolution in energy-efficient, environmentally-sound, and powerfully-flexible lighting is coming to businesses and homes, according to a paper in latest special energy issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal. The paper envisions the future of lighting—a future with widespread use of light emitting diodes (LEDs), which offer a number of obvious and subtle advantages over […]
Interactive Surfaces Enter a Whole New Dimension of Flexibility
An “interactive surface” refers to an interface whose input and output share a common surface that can be manipulated intuitively with the fingers. However, ordinary multi-touch displays, e.g., liquid crystal displays (LCD), can only provide two-dimensional information, limiting expressions and interactions with such displays to the surface. Novel three-dimensional display systems have been proposed to […]
New Machine Learning Approach Could Give a Big Boost to the Efficiency of Optical Networks
New work leveraging machine learning could increase the efficiency of optical telecommunications networks. As our world becomes increasingly interconnected, fiber optic cables offer the ability to transmit more data over longer distances compared to traditional copper wires. Optical Transport Networks (OTNs) have emerged as a solution for packaging data in fiber optic cables, and improvements […]
Quantum Optical Micro-Combs
Compact quantum devices could be incorporated into laptops and mobile phones, thanks in part to small devices called quantum optical micro-combs. Quantum optical micro-combs are devices that generate very sharp precise frequencies of light an equal distance apart – a bit like the teeth of a comb. They can enable ultrafast processes and could be […]