{"id":242833,"date":"2026-08-18T01:25:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T06:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/scientists-reprogram-how-light-travels-in-just-74-femtoseconds"},"modified":"2026-08-18T01:25:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T06:25:41","slug":"scientists-reprogram-how-light-travels-in-just-74-femtoseconds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/scientists-reprogram-how-light-travels-in-just-74-femtoseconds","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Reprogram How Light Travels in Just 74 Femtoseconds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-reprogram-how-light-travels-in-just-74-femtoseconds2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>An ultrathin silicon surface can steer and reshape light in just 74 femtoseconds, opening a path toward a new generation of high-speed optical technology.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A pulse of light can cross the width of a human hair in roughly 74 femtoseconds. In that same vanishingly brief interval, a new device developed at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) can change the direction and shape of another light beam.<\/p>\n<p>The experimental technology could point toward optical systems that respond far faster than today\u2019s beam steering hardware. Such control is important in cameras, sensors, communication networks, scientific instruments, and emerging forms of photonic computing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An ultrathin silicon surface can steer and reshape light in just 74 femtoseconds, opening a path toward a new generation of high-speed optical technology. A pulse of light can cross the width of a human hair in roughly 74 femtoseconds. In that same vanishingly brief interval, a new device developed at the California Institute of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,1694],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-electronics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}