Interview

A new method for designing aperiodic volume optical elements will offer researchers more degrees of freedom in the design of optical devices. Rafael Piestun explained to Nature Photonics how this method may lead to a myriad of applications in beam-shaping and imaging.

Generating 3D light packets that propagate without dispersing in time or space is not an easy task. Andy Chong from Cornell University told Nature Photonics how he and his co-workers came up with a simple and versatile approach to this problem.

Few-cycle light pulses are important for attosecond science and extremely nonlinear optics. Alfred Leitenstorfer from the University of Konstanz spoke to Nature Photonics about how erbium-doped fibre laser technology can generate single-cycle pulses at telecommunications wavelengths.

John Warlaumont, vice president of advanced technologies at SEMATECH, a consortium of the world's chip manufacturers, talks to Nadya Anscombe about the future of optical lithography.

Quantum optics has come a long way since its birth at the beginning of the 1900s. Nature Photonics spoke to Anton Zeilinger to gain some perspective on its progress.

Photonics currently lacks a way of amplifying terahertz pulses in time-domain spectroscopy. Nathan Jukam from the École Nomale Supérieure in France spoke to Nature Photonics about how his group has achieved a semiconductor-based terahertz amplifier that gives a greatly improved amplification factor.

Although the machine vision industry is being affected by the global recession, Mats Gökstorp, president of the European Machine Vision Association, explains to Nadya Anscombe why he is optimistic about the industry's future.

The discovery that the eye of a particular mantis shrimp has an achromatic quarter-waveplate that is superior to modern-day devices could be a source of inspiration to those designing optical components. Nature Photonics spoke to Nicholas Roberts, one of the researchers involved in the study.

Until now, excitonic devices have only been realized at temperatures of 1.5 K. Nature Photonics spoke to Leonid Butov from the University of California in San Diego about his group's recent demonstration of excitonic switches operating at 125 K.

How can entangled photons be put to good use? When will quantum computing become feasible? Nature Photonics spoke to Alain Aspect to find out.

Illumination of a congruent lithium niobate crystal with blue or green light can improve its optical damage threshold dramatically. Nature Photonics spoke to Karsten Buse, who explained that this could result in far cheaper nonlinear crystals for a wide variety of photonic applications.

The organic photonics industry has come of age in the past few years. Nadya Anscombe speaks to Marc Baldo from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, about the advances that have been made and the challenges that remain.

Hong Tang from Yale University spoke to Nature Photonics about how attractive and repulsive optical forces in nanophotonic waveguides could help advance integrated photonics and optomechanical systems.

Nature Photonics spoke to Carl Brown from Nottingham Trent University about the creation of a voltage-programmable liquid-oil surface that can rapidly switch and deflect light beams.

Advanced imaging techniques have evolved to see beyond the diffraction limit. W. E. Moerner spoke to Nature Photonics about the techniques involved.

Light is often thought to reflect from a flat surface at the same angle at which it is incident. Nature Photonics spoke to Han Woerdman about the observation of angular deviations of reflected beams.

Swiss company Synova is commercializing an innovative materials processing technique that uses a water-guided laser beam to allow 'cold laser cutting'. Nadya Anscombe talks to the company's chief technical advisor, Alexandre Pauchard, to find out more.

A prototype display technology that electromechanically transports colourful aqueous dispersed pigments over the surface of mirror-like pixels is a promising new approach to making electronic paper with high reflectivity and contrast. Nature Photonics spoke to Jason Heikenfeld to learn more.

Magnetic hard disk technology is approaching its limits. Nature Photonics spoke to William Challener, Ed Gage and Mark Re from Seagate about their demonstration of heat-assisted magnetic recording.

Powerful lightning strikes pose a significant threat to buildings and people, but imagine if it were possible to control and direct them with a laser beam. Nature Photonics spoke to Jérôme Kasparian, a researcher from the University of Geneva and co-ordinator of the Teramobile project, about the idea.