Scientists record broad spectra with close to one hundred thousand colors in almost complete darkness

Our eyes are sensitive to only three spectral color bands (red, green, blue), and people can no longer distinguish colors if it becomes very dark. Spectroscopists can identify many more colors by the frequencies of the light waves and can distinguish atoms and molecules by their spectral fingerprints. In a proof-of-principle experiment, Nathalie Picqué and Theodor Hänsch from the Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) and the Ludwig-Maximilian University (LMU) have now recorded broad spe...