Category Technology/Electronics

Single GeV center in diamond. (left) Fluorescence mapping and (right) atomic structure model. Credit: Tokyo Institute of Technology Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-diamond-bright-luminescence-quantum-crypotography.html#jCp

Germanium defects in a diamond crystal lattice act as a reliable source for single photons. Pure diamonds are naturally colorless, but gaps in the crystal structure or impurities of other elements can create colors and even emit fluorescence. Recently, researchers have shown that the fluorescent lattice defects could be useful as single photon sources for quantum cryptography and as bright luminescent makers in living cells.

Now a new type of diamond crystal defect that fluoresces to produce single photons in a narrow, high energy wavelength band has been demo...

PQED consists of a Brewster window (left) protecting the detector elements from impurities, adjustable bellows and the detector chamber itself. In order to further decrease uncertainties in measurement, the window was removed and the detector was protected from impurities using nitrogen flow.

Researchers at Aalto University and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have succeeded in developing a method which helps to improve the relative uncertainty in measuring the luminous efficacy of LEDs from the approximate 5% of today to 1% in the future.

“Thus far, solutions based on incandescent lamps have been used in photometry, i.e. in measuring light detected by the human eye,” explains Tomi Pulli, alto University...

This image shows a 3-D illustration of a metasurface skin cloak made from an ultrathin layer of nanoantennas (gold blocks) covering an arbitrarily shaped object. Light reflects off the cloak (red arrows) as if it were reflecting off a flat mirror. Credit: Image courtesy of Xiang Zhang group, Berkeley Lab/UC Berkeley

It conforms to the shape of an object and conceal it from detection with visible light. Although this cloak is only microscopic in size, the principles behind the technology should enable it to be scaled-up to conceal macroscopic items as well.

Working with brick-like blocks of gold nanoantennas, the Berkeley researchers fashioned a “skin cloak” barely 80nm in thickness, that was wrapped around a 3D object about the size of a few biological cells and arbitrarily shaped with mul...

Scientists developed an adaptive system to accurately extract 3D data while maintaining the ability to capture a full-resolution 2D image without a dramatic system change, such as switching out a lens. Credit: © Artur Marciniec / Fotolia

A team of engineers has discovered how to harness the image stabilization and focus modules of a modern, digital camera to unlock new 3D imaging capabilities: ie repurposing its existing components. This new capability was successfully demonstrated in a proof-of-concept laboratory experiment using a small deformable mirror -a reflective surface that can direct and focus light.

The purpose of the experiment was to extract depth-of-field information from a “single shot” image – rather than traditional 3D imaging techniques that require multiple images- with...