Sally Johnson

New Hampshire

Science and Technology Journalist at Freelance

Science and tech journalist/physics ghostwriter

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Articles

Quantum ‘tornadoes’ experimentally shown within momentum space

1 week ago | laserfocusworld.com | Sally Johnson

A quantum “tornado” is a simplified term for an orbital vortex line, and work led by Maximilian Ünzelmann, a Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter (ct.qmat) postdoctoral researcher at the Universities of Würzburg and Dresden in Germany, experimentally demonstrated electrons form these vortices within the momentum space of quantum semimetal tantalum arsenide (TaAs). Momentum space describes electron motion in terms of energy and direction—not a precise physical position.
Researchers demo diamond-based Raman vortex beams

1 week ago | laserfocusworld.com | Sally Johnson

Inspired by the rapid evolution and broad applications of vortex beams, an international team of researchers from China, Japan, and Australia set out to address a few challenges of traditional population inversion lasers—namely limitations in wavelength scalability and power scaling. Drawing upon their earlier work with diamond-based lasers, the researchers realized diamond’s exceptional thermo-optical properties could offer a breakthrough solution.
Breathing soliton laser chaos?

3 weeks ago | laserfocusworld.com | Sally Johnson

New work on breathing soliton lasers by a team of scientists, including Professor Junsong Peng at the East China Normal University in Shanghai, recently led to the discovery of a novel route to chaos. Solitons are localized wave packets that propagate without changes in dispersive/diffraction mediums, thanks to balance between dispersion/diffraction and nonlinearity.
Quantum holograms via metasurfaces?

4 weeks ago | laserfocusworld.com | Sally Johnson

A new twist on metasurfaces by researchers from the University of Exeter in the U.K. and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology generates quantum holograms in which polarization and holographic information are entangled.
Light is ‘greener’ way to tune quantum dot bandgaps

1 month ago | laserfocusworld.com | Sally Johnson

A more environmentally sustainable technique to tune the optical properties of quantum dots via light recently developed by North Carolina State University researchers also speeds the process and improves their energy efficiency. Quantum dots are among the most impressive breakthroughs in modern materials science, thanks to their extraordinary versatility for optoelectronics applications—from advanced displays and lighting to quantum technologies and renewable energy.
Optically bistable nanocrystals?

2 months ago | laserfocusworld.com | Sally Johnson

Nonlinear luminescent nanocrystals are poised to enable faster and more energy-efficient data processing and artificial intelligence (AI) because of their superpower of “switching” from bright to dark states, which looks extremely promising for optical computing.
Germanium and gallium supply chain disruption escalates for U.S.

Jan 20, 2025 | laserfocusworld.com | Sally Johnson

Last November, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated we could see a $3.4B decrease in U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) if China decided to implement a total ban on exports of critical materials gallium and germanium (in response to U.S. bans of exports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment and technologies), which are critical materials for optics, photonics, semiconductors, and electronics.
Ultrabroadband UV frequency combs show promise for high-res atomic and molecular spectroscopy

Jan 15, 2025 | laserfocusworld.com | Sally Johnson

An ultrafast laser platform with a million comb lines developed by a team of researchers led by Konstantin Vodopyanov, an optics, photonics, and physics professor at the University of Central Florida’s College of Optics and Photonics, shows promise for enhancing high-resolution atomic and molecular spectroscopy. Optical frequency combs—essentially light rulers—emit thousands of equally spaced spectral lines.
Photonic time crystals reimagined

Jan 9, 2025 | laserfocusworld.com | Sally Johnson

New design work by researchers from Aalto University, the University of Eastern Finland, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and Harbin Engineering University—based on theoretical models and electromagnetic simulations—takes us a step closer to realistic photonic time crystals. This same team created two-dimensional (2D) photonic time crystal metasurfaces, a.k.a. a time-based version of conventional optical materials, back in 2023.
Thin-film polariton filters for better displays, sensors, and optical imaging?

Jan 5, 2025 | laserfocusworld.com | Sally Johnson

A team of researchers led by Malte Gather, director of the Humboldt Centre for Nano- and Biophotonics at the University of Cologne in Germany as well as a professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and Andreas Mischok, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cologne, recently figured out a way to design thin-film polariton filters that break the fundamental limit of angular dispersion.