Image credit: Yury Zap/Shutterstock.com
We detail the commercial offerings from some of the main players in optical mirrors
An artist's conception of JWST in space. Credit: NASA
The JWST is an example of the culmination of years of work in technology development and research into advancing photonics technologies
Credit: NASA
The EU-funded PULSAR project aimed to create a fully autonomous robotic assembly system that could construct the primary mirror of a telescope from separate parts in orbit
Advances in laser technology have paved the way for the development of powerful, ultrafast lasers with pulse lengths as short as 10fs or less. Building such systems has come with many challenges for the precision optics community. Ultrafast systems therefore require low group delay dispersion (GDD) components to access and maintain femtosecond pulse durations.
Keely Portway looks at some of the latest developments in optical mirrors – including a trend for larger sizes – and how the technology may develop further
The European Extremely Large Telescope project is well underway, and is stretching the capabilities of the optical industry, as Matthew Dale discovers
Organoid imaged with Andor’s desktop confocal microscope system, the BC43. Credit: Andor
As microscopes become ever more powerful, a growing band of businesses are racing to make the latest technologies more accessible and more affordable, reports Rebecca Pool
Illustration of a three-dimensional crystal with various types of confining centres. (a) Crystal with four confining centres, each trapping waves (yellow) in all three dimensions simultaneously. (b) Crystal with a linear confining centre where waves can propagate in one dimension, analogous to an optical fibre. (c) Crystal with a planar confining centre where waves can propagate in two dimensions, analogous to a 2D electron gas. (Image: Vos et al.)
Newly discovered fundamental rules have been embedded into software to dramatically optimise the design of photonic integrated circuits
