With the #OpticaFoundation Challenge grant, recipients will develop technologies to rapidly monitor nanoplastics in soil and water and detect greenhouse gases. With critical environmental issues worldwide, researchers Justus Ndukaife, Vanderbilt University, USA, and Yicheng Wang, Ruhr-Universität-Bochum, are creating light-based solutions. Ndukaife's work will improve screening for nanoplastics using plasmonic nanotweezers, which will trap and analyze microscopic and nanoscopic plastic particles. Wang is working to employ a new sensor to detect greenhouse gases in the 2-micron wavelength region to pinpoint gas emissions on a granular level. vanderbiltu ruhrunibochum