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Volume 4 - January-March 2009

• Story 1 - 21/1/2009 - THE VIEWPOINT by Niek van Hulst

  Many Photons get More out of Diffraction

  Nanoscopy, optical microscopy with 10-30 nm detail, has become a reality; in fact it has been chosen “Method of the year 2008” by Nature Methods [1]. We are all aware of the wave nature of light and the ensuing diffraction limit for resolution. So have the rules of physics been broken? What’s the trick and where’s the catch?
• Story 2 - 29/1/2009

  Asking Twice, Yet Knowing Nothing

  Have you ever been confused by an answer? Usually answers increase our knowledge, but latest experiments now show that asking two weak questions can leave us with less information than asking only one.
• Story 3 - 9/2/2009

  Twisting the Knob of Light

  Tuning nano-antennas may soon become as simple as tuning a radio to our favorite station — this is the new promise of nano-photonics.
• Story 4 - 2/3/2009

  Pouring Oil on Troubled Light-Momentum

  What happens when light enters a medium? Does it gain or lose momentum? More than 100 years after its initial formulation, this dilemma is now being revitalized by new experiments.
• Story 5 - 16/3/2009

  Squeezing the Most out of Photons

  Science relies on precise measurements. But how precise can a measurement be in principle? A new experiment shows a surprising new limit, together with a way around that limit.
• Story 6 - 25/3/2009

  Images Worth a Thousand... Birefringent Molecules

  An image is worth a thousand words when describing complex physical phenomena such as temperature distributions, air flows and brain waves; a recently developed technique can now help us actually picture birefringent fluids at the nanoscale.

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