{
  "id": 6622243,
  "title": "Muscovite identified as a low-index building block for ultrathin van der Waals photonic components",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/10/muscovite-identified-as-a-low-index-building-block-for-ultrathin-van",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-09-10T19:00:03.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Phys.org",
    "slug": "phys-org",
    "url": "https://phys.org/news/2026-09-muscovite-index-block-ultrathin-van.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "Researchers have discovered that the mineral muscovite, commonly used in various industrial applications, can serve as a low-loss optical material for advanced nanophotonic components. A team from the Institute of Physics at Yerevan State University and the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials at National University of Singapore demonstrated that muscovite, a van der Waals mineral, possesses an unusually low refractive index and negligible optical losses across a wide spectral range from ultraviolet to near-infrared. By characterizing muscovite's anisotropic dielectric response, the researchers found that it maintains a low refractive index and minimal absorption throughout the investigated spectral region. The material's weak in-plane birefringence can be neglected in thin-layer configurations. The researchers combined muscovite with high-index van der Waals material molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) to create next-generation optical components, such as distributed Bragg reflectors and short-pass dichroic beam splitters, achieving remarkable thinness and high-performance functionality.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}