Fibre optic sensors really do shine. No, I don't just mean when you pass light down one end and see it come out of the other, I mean they can be made to perform some pretty clever tasks, often triumphing over their electronic rivals. A fibre sensor fabricated by splicing together three different types of optical fibre and capable of measuring temperatures up to 1000°C, has recently been demonstrated by scientists in South Korea^†.

President-elect Barack Obama has nominated Steven Chu, a Nobel prize winning experimental physicist and the current director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to be the next US Energy Secretary.

A novel approach to harvesting the energy of the sun is described in a recent paper in the Journal of Applied Physics, which reports on one of the key components in the system: a solar powered laser¹.
 
 

The advances in optically controlled micromanipulation are continuing at a rapid pace. A recent paper published in Applied Physics Letters describes an optically-driven rotor^†, which could be the precursor to nanopumps, miniature mechanical pumps that could drive suspended particles around circuits in microfluidic applications.

Researchers in Germany and the UK have devised a new method for the optical manipulation of microscopic particles and demonstrated it by rotating biological cells under a microscope^†.
 
 

It has been likened to an optically driven snowblower for microscopic particles and could see practical use for the sorting of micrometre sized particles. Researchers from the University of Saint Andrews in the UK have reported on their work using Airy beams for particle clearing, in an advance online publication for Nature Photonics^†.

In the race to make solar photo-voltaics (PV) an economically viable source of alternative energy, conventional cells built on silicon wafers may soon have to step aside. Researchers in the UK are devising ways of producing PV films that can be painted onto the side of buildings, which would not only offer a cheaper alternative, but that might also be more suited to less than ideal weather conditions.

Wasted food amounts to loss of earnings if you're a retailer selling produce. Damaged or rotting fruits and vegetables are routinely thrown out when they can no longer be sold. It is therefore imperative that the retailer buys produce with a good shelf life. But knowing which ones will stay fresh the longest is not always apparent from a visual inspection. Bruised fruit may show no signs of damage on the surface but will be the first to rot.

Precious stones are an enduring fascination for mankind and for centuries they've been traded and given as gifts, either as polished stones or embedded in jewelery. In so doing, they have traversed the planet, sometimes ending far from the source from which they were mined. Apparently a gem's origin is not only a matter of curiosity but can in fact have a significant bearing on its value. Scientists from New Mexico State University in the US have proposed a way of extracting information about a gem's origin from its chemical composition by using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS)¹.

As the old saying goes, there are many ways to skin a cat. Similarly, there are a plethora of ways to perform high-speed photography, many of which could no doubt provide detailed information on the most rapid and effective means of liberating that proverbial cat of its furry pelt. A new concept in high-speed photography provides both high speed and high image quality. The technique, recently demonstrated by researchers in Jordan and the United States, relies on the precise timing of dual-cavity lasers and dual-frame cameras, and the ability of each camera to record images at only selected wavelengths. Their system can record multiple, high resolution frames at rates up to 200 MHz¹.