What happens when a wave passes through some opening? It diffracts - or you like, you could say "bends". If the size of the opening is comparable to the wavelength of the wave, the bending can be ...

Diffraction gratings separate different wavelengths of light using a periodic pattern embedded in the grating. The diffraction pattern can affect the amplitude and/or phase of the incident light as ...

Beneath the original 1912 office building of the Carnegie Observatories on Santa Barbara Street in Pasadena sits a ...

Today, astronomers seek to observe the faintest and most distant objects possible. Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs), with apertures in the order of several dozen meters, are the next generation ...

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a method for the production of wavy surfaces with nanometer precision. In the future this method could be used, for instance, to make optical components for ...

Researchers combine probabilistic X-ray diffraction analysis with LLM-based chemical reasoning to rank competing phase ...

Stars in the new images from the James Webb Space Telescope look sharper than they did before. And I’m not just talking about the image quality, which is astounding. I’m talking about the fact that ...

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, ...

X-ray techniques have been used for decades by authorities to prevent crime and keep people safe. Perhaps their most well-known use is for the detection of dangerous and banned items or substances, ...