Energy & Green Tech

With new solar modules, greenhouses run on their own energy

Plants use light waves from only a portion of the spectrum for photosynthesis—the remainder can be recovered and used to generate solar power. That's the idea behind the solar modules developed by EPFL startup Voltiris. ...

Engineering

How eye imaging technology could help robots and cars see better

Even though robots don't have eyes with retinas, the key to helping them see and interact with the world more naturally and safely may rest in optical coherence tomography (OCT) machines commonly found in the offices of ophthalmologists.

Telecom

Laser communications: Empowering more data than ever before

Launching this summer, NASA's Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) will showcase the dynamic powers of laser communications technologies. With NASA's ever-increasing human and robotic presence in space, missions ...

Telecom

Optical Wi-Fi allows for ultrafast underwater communications

EPFL spin-off Hydromea has developed a miniature optical modem that can operate down to 6,000 meters below the ocean's surface. It is sensitive enough to collect data at very high speeds from sources more than 50 meters away.

Engineering

High-security identification that cannot be counterfeited

Try whispering at one end of the Echo Wall in the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. People at the far end of the curved wall will hear you from 65 meters away. This is the whispering-gallery effect. Now, researchers from Japan ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

'One-way' electronic devices enter the mainstream

Waves, whether they are light waves, sound waves, or any other kind, travel in the same manner in forward and reverse directions—this is known as the principle of reciprocity. If we could route waves in one direction only—breaking ...

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Light

Light is electromagnetic radiation, particularly radiation of a wavelength that is visible to the human eye (about 400–700 nm, or perhaps 380–750 nm.) In physics, the term light sometimes refers to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength, whether visible or not.

Three primary properties of light are:

Light, which exists in tiny "packets" called photons, exhibits properties of both waves and particles. This property is referred to as the wave–particle duality. The study of light, known as optics, is an important research area in modern physics.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA