A team led by scientists and engineers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Southern California and Washington University in St. Louis, has created a unique, record-setting material that can bend one infrared ray of light in two directions.
For the second time in five years, the team created a crystal with the highest degree of what’s known as “double refraction” on earth. This time they beat their own record, and the new higher-performing crystal could lead to innovations in night vision, Lidar, chemical sensing, microscopy, and many other applications.
Read more here: https://engineering.wisc.edu/news/how-a-handful-of-stray-atoms-led-to-a-new-material-that-curves-light-in-a-record-setting-way/