Controlling light at the micro- and nanoscale opens up opportunities for a better understanding of the world and the development of technology. As modern electronics approaches the limits of its ...

Diffraction gratings are beautiful things, bending transmitted and reflected light and splitting it into its component wavelengths to create attractive iridescent rainbow patterns. It’s the same ...

Resonant effects in dielectric gratings were first clearly identified in the early 1990s 1 as having promise for applications in free-space optical filtering 2,3 and sensing 4,5. They typically occur ...

Claire is Lifehacker's Senior Food Editor. She has a B.S. in chemistry, a decade of food journalism experience, and a deep love for mayonnaise and MSG. Whether you get it off the block or grab ...

One of the coolest things about physics is that the same basic concept can pop up in several seemingly unrelated things: say, a CD, the seed shrimp’s antennae, certain fossils in the Burgess shale, ...

The diffraction grating of a spectrometer partially determines the optical resolution that can be achieved by the spectrometer and also determines the wavelength range. Selecting the correct grating ...