A mutant seedling revealed how plant tissues scatter incoming light, allowing plants to sense its direction and move toward it. On a shelf lined with terra cotta pots, herbs bend their stems toward ...

Today I would like to present the turbine-powered optical isolator, a steampunk-sounding bit of hardware that only allows light to pass in one direction. That, I must admit, is a sentence I never ...

Scientists have engineered a type of artificial optical material -- a metamaterial -- with a particular three-dimensional structure such that light exhibits a negative index of refraction upon ...

Researchers have identified key structures in photosensitive plant tissue that allow them to determine the direction of light, leading to positive phototropism. A recent research collaboration between ...

Researchers fabricated an optical element that uses a forest of tiny, antenna-like nanorods, seen here, that together create a metamaterial able to control the spin of light. The metamaterial nanorods ...