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(Phys.org) -- “If you made a long distance phone call or sent an email today, or if you’re wearing clothes, then you are benefiting directly from our laser services,” says Marla Dowell, leader of PML’s Sources and Detectors Group, the nation’s keeper of a family of standards that now permit laser calibrations at power levels from nanowatts to hundreds of kilowatts and energy levels from femtojoules to megajoules.

In first-of-their-kind experiments performed at the American X-ray laser LCLS, a collaboration led by researchers from the Paul Scherrer Institute has been able to precisely follow how the magnetic structure of a material changes.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have demonstrated that a superconducting detector called a transition edge sensor (TES) is capable of counting the number of as many as 1,000 photons in a single pulse of light with an accuracy limited mainly by the quantum noise of the laser source.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Silicon is an ideal platform for integrated photonic circuits because the material is cheap and readily available. Silicon chips with an integrated laser source capable of emitting light at a specific wavelength are particularly useful in telecommunications. Unfortunately, silicon is a material with high optical loss, which often degrades the output power and performance of the laser source.

In a unique fusion of biology and physics, researchers have created the world's first living laser. Single cells containing a special protein that acts as an optical amplifier have been coaxed to emit green laser light, according to a new study. And, perhaps surprisingly, the cell survives its stint as part of the laser

QD Laser, Fujitsu Laboratories, and the Institute for Nano Quantum Information Electronics, the University of Tokyo today announced the world's first successful operation of a 1.3

This year's Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics will be awarded to Professor Orazio Svelto for his pioneering, long-lasting and innovative work in the fields of lasers and optics. Svelto is an internationally renowned laser and photonics scientist and one of the worldwide leaders of the scientific community in this field. The award, accompanied by EUR 5,000, will be presented on 24 May 2011 at the Laser World of Photonics Congress in Munich, Germany.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at Yale University have succeeded in building a new kind of laser based on the way brightly colored birds show their colors. Building on the new approach to creating laser beams, whereby holes are drilled in a material in such a way as to trap light inside for a long enough period of time to create the laser light they are after, researchers Hui Cao, Heeso Noh and their colleagues describe in a paper they've published in Physical Review Letters, how they've emulated the way birds use air holes to display their colors.

(PhysOrg.com) -- David D.