Articles in 2023

A field trial in the Swiss mountains demonstrating that an intense laser beam can guide lightning discharge over tens of metres gives hope for the development of a new form of mobile lightning protection.

Researchers use pulse front curvature and temporal chirp to control the group velocity of a soft X-ray laser pump beam, resulting in improved energy extraction and reduced pulse duration.

We demonstrate plasmonic micro-racetrack modulators for intensity-modulated transmission at 408 Gbps and 12.3 femtojoules per bit. The modulators offer wide bandwidth and the devices show improved temperature stability over conventional approaches.

Single-crystal perovskite LEDs exhibit reduced ion migration and Auger recombination and increased device lifetime. Perovskite single-crystals-based LEDs exhibit a maximum brightness of 86,000 cd m⁻², a peak EQE of 11.2% and T₅₀ lifetime of 12,500 h at an initial luminance of 100 cd m⁻².

The plasma absorption effect is demonstrated to enhance the performance of silicon ring modulators.

Mordechai (Moti) Segev spoke with Nature Photonics about the fascinating topic of photonic time crystals — materials with a refractive index that is periodically modulated in time on ultrafast timescales — and their inspiring future ahead.

Researchers decreased the recombination rate in lead-halide perovskite thin films by using plasmonic mirrors and hyperbolic metamaterials. The findings led to a 250% photodetector photoresponsivity increase and may have implications for other optoelectronic devices.

From biophotonics to chiral behaviour, research into organic LEDs is thriving and expanding into new areas.

A continuous string of indistinguishable photons entangled in a cluster state is generated on demand from an InAs/GaAs quantum dot. The confined heavy-hole spin is used as an entangler. Under an externally tuned magnetic field, an optimized characteristic entanglement decay length of about ten photons is obtained.

Centimetre-sized formamidinium-caesium lead bromide (FACsPbBr₃) single crystals were grown at high yield from low-purity precursors. High (84%) charge collection efficiency and energy resolution (2.9% for 662 keV ¹³⁷Cs) for γ-rays were demonstrated.

A scheme for converting qubits between two different representations, discrete and continuous variables, paves the way for more-efficient quantum networks.

Enhancement of laser energy conversion into X-rays is obtained using a target made by entwined carbon nanotubes.

The near-field chirality of a single-symmetry achiral object enables polarization-dependent unidirectional photocurrent generation, and the vectorial output paves a way for a new family of geometric photodetectors.

Researchers use zinc-doped CuInSe₂ nanocrystals as an alternative to lead chalcogenides for near-infrared upconversion. Upconversion to yellow with an external quantum efficiency reaching 16.7% is achieved, which can also be merged with photoredox catalysis for rapid solar synthesis.

A prototype integrated Ti:Sa laser is demonstrated by bonding the Ti:Sa gain medium on silicon nitride microring resonators. Lasing is demonstrated between 730 nm and 830 nm with a threshold power as low as 6.5 mW.

Photothermal relaxation localization microscopy allows super-resolution imaging of non-fluorescent targets by leveraging spatial-dependent heat dissipation in photothermal microscopy. Individual lipid droplets and their distribution in living cells are imaged at spatial resolutions down to 120 nm.

A hyperspectral camera based on a random array of CMOS-compatible Fabry–Pérot filters is demonstrated. The hyperspectral camera exhibits performance comparable with that of a typical RGB camera, with 45% sensitivity to visible light, a spatial resolution of 3 px for 3 dB contrast, and a frame rate of 32.3 fps at VGA resolution.

The combination of optical phase conjugation and light amplification enables wavefront shaping with simultaneously optimized operational speed, number of control degrees of freedom and energy of the focused wavefront. Shaping with a 10 μs latency time over about 10⁶ control modes and energy gain approaching unity is demonstrated.