Yu Chen

Two light beams run side by side along silicon tracks narrower than a human hair. One oscillates up and down, the other left and right. The task is to separate them into different outputs without losing a drop of power. Engineers built a device just 20 micrometers long — roughly a quarter of the thickness of a sheet of paper.

A huge pool of clear liquid is hidden deep underground. Inside, there is nothing but a pristine 'broth' that flashes with faint light when an invisible particle flies through. This is the JUNO detector—20,000 tons of liquid scintillator built to hunt for neutrinos. The main enemy of such a hunt is not darkness but its own noise.