Atmospheric turbulence, arising from rapid fluctuations in temperature, humidity and wind in the Earth’s atmosphere, presents a formidable challenge for precise astronomical observations.

So, adaptive optics are designed to do just that: adapt to the changes in the atmosphere to essentially “undo” the turbulence and create sharp, undistorted images.

Such atmospheric turbulence generates local variations in the refractive index of the air, which means that light from a cosmic object is refracted many times as it travels through the Earth’s ...

More information: Tareq Jaouni et al, Predicting atmospheric turbulence for secure quantum communications in free space, Optics Express (2025). DOI: 10.1364/OE.546606 ...

For greater detail, see the original Gold Open Access article, “ Gigahertz-rate-switchable wavefront shaping through integration of metasurfaces with photonic integrated circuit,” Adv. Photon ...