Jason Fleischer (right), a Princeton assistant professor of electrical engineering, and graduate student Dmitry Dylov have developed a new method for using nonlinear materials to reveal images of obscured objects.

Photo: Frank Wojciechowski

By adjusting an electrical voltage across a crystal of nonlinear material, the researchers recovered an image of lines and numbers that originally was hidden in noise (upper left). As they tuned the system (from left to right across each row from top to bottom), the image "stole" energy from the noise, first appearing and then degrading as they adjusted past the optimal voltage.

Image: Jason Fleischer/Dmitry Dylov