When people look into a mirror, they see an image of themselves behind the glass. That image results from light rays encountering the shiny surface and bouncing back, or reflecting, providing a ...

The photonic spin Hall effect (SHE) in the reflection and refraction at an interface is very weak because of the weak spin-orbit interaction. Here, we report the observation of a giant photonic SHE in ...

In my previous Photography Snapshot, I discussed the importance of light and how it bounces to create images. We discovered that the most primitive form of photography was the camera obscura, which ...

Light energy travels in straight lines and in waves. Light energy travels in straight lines and in waves. When light strikes a plane or a flat surface, it reflects in a manner that is predictable. For ...

Exploiting a novel technique called phase discontinuity, researchers have induced light rays to behave in a way that defies the centuries-old laws of reflection and refraction. The discovery has led ...

Katherine Butler is a journalist who covers science and culture. She is also a copywriter, branding writer, and television writer. Strictly defined, a rainbow is a band of colors formed by the ...