If you want to get the greatest benefit from a beam of light - whether to detect a distant planet or remedy an aberration in the human eye - you need to be able to measure its beam front information.

Figure 2: Atom interferometer and data analysis with it. (a) The China Space Station Atom interferometer. (b) Analysis of the dephasing of shearing fringes. (c) Calibration of the shearing angle.

Whether it's adjusting a telescope or focusing a laser beam to a small spot, wavefront sensing can help. Xavier Levecq explains the technique and the options available. Measuring the wavefront ...

A super compact interferometer will give scientists an unprecedented ability to fine tune even the quickest pulses of light for a host of applications, and could render traditional instruments for ...