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An artist’s illustration depicts the interior of a low-mass star. Such stars have different interior structures than our Sun, so they are not expected to show magnetic activity cycles. However, astronomers have discovered that the nearby star Proxima Centauri defies that expectation and shows signs of a seven-year activity cycle. Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

In August astronomers announced that the nearby star Proxima Centauri hosts an Earth-sized planet (called Proxima b) in its habitable zone. At first glance, Proxima Centauri seems nothing like our Sun. It’s a small, cool, red dwarf star only 1/10 as massive and 1/1000 as luminous as the Sun. However, new research shows that it is sunlike in one surprising way: it has a regular cycle of starspots.

Starspots (like sunspots) are dark blotches...

Ultrathin plasmonic metasurface holograms made of subwavelength nanoslits for reconstructing both two- and three-dimensional full-color holographic images

Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology are creating a new approach to reconstruct 3D full-color holographic images by using just one layer of nanoscale metallic eg Aluminium film. This work has a huge potential to change our daily lives by equipping our cell phones with 3D floating displays and printing 3D security marking onto credit cards.

The researchers’ metasurface hologram is one 35-nm thick aluminum film punctured with tiny rectangular holes of 160 nm by 80 nanometers with different orientation angles created by a microfabrication process known as focused ion beam milling.

Experimenting with the interplay of ...

I. Photograph and scanning electron microscope characterizations of a black cicada wing (Cryptympana atrata Fabricius). II. Synthesis process of biomorphic TiO2 with ordered nano-nipple array structures. III. Counter map angle-dependent antireflection of biomorphic TiO2 and non-templated TiO2, respectively. Credit: Shanghai Jiao Tong University

A team of Shanghai Jiao Tong University researchers has used the shape of cicada wings as a template to create antireflective structures fabricated with one of the most intriguing semiconductor materials, titanium dioxide (TiO2). The antireflective structures they produced are capable of suppressing visible light – 450 to 750 nanometers – at different angles of incidence.

Why cicada wings? The surfaces of the insect’s wings are composed of highly or...