Commentary

Could massive arrays of thousands of fibre lasers be the driving force behind next-generation particle accelerators? The International Coherent Amplification Network project believes so and is currently performing a feasibility study.

The opening of the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics in Glasgow will provide valuable and much-needed support for the photonics industry in the UK.

Confinement and enhancement of light by plasmonics allows a high density of independent subwavelength sensor elements to be constructed in micrometre-sized arrays. It is relatively straightforward to integrate those sensors into microfluidics chips, making plasmonic structures promising for use in next-generation modern biosensors.

The consortium that brought together laser research institutions from across Europe has been extended for three more years. The geographical expansion of the group, particularly in central and Eastern Europe and scientifically less well-developed countries, paints a picture for photonics in Europe.

Plasmonics can be used to enhance mid-infrared sources, sensors and detectors for applications such as chemical sensing, thermal imaging and heat scavenging. The challenge now is to integrate these technologies in cost-effective, compact and reliable platforms.

Ignorance and negligence are frequently causing solar cells to be mischaracterized, and invalid efficiency results have been reported in a number of journals. This problem can be greatly alleviated by employing a few simple precautions and guidelines.

Fractals, shapes comprised of self-similar parts, are not merely prescribed linear structures. A wide class of fractals can also arise from the rich dynamics inherent to nonlinear optics.

Low-cost manufacturing, high yields and seamless on-chip integration with electronics are often touted as the guaranteed benefits of silicon photonics, but is this really the case? Michael Hochberg and colleagues explain that the situation is much more complex in reality.

Plasmons are free-electron oscillations in a conductor that allow light to be manipulated at the nanoscale. The ability of plasmons to guide and confine light on subwavelength scales is opening up new design possibilities for solar cells.

Solar cells based on solution-processed semiconductor nanoparticles — colloidal quantum dots — have seen rapid advances in recent years. By offering full-spectrum solar harvesting, these cells are poised to address the urgent need for low-cost, high-efficiency photovoltaics.

Attosecond electron wave packets produced during the interaction between strong optical fields and atoms provide rich information about the quantum states of their parent ions, in the form of scattered electrons or emitted photons that have attosecond temporal resolution and ångström spatial resolution.

Scientists in Japan struggled in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake, radiation problems and power cuts. Nevertheless, they have now largely recovered from the desperate situation.

India has long been active in the field of photonics, dating back to famous scientists such as Raman and Bose. Today, India is home to numerous research groups and telecommunications companies that own a sizeable amount of the fibre-optic links installed around the globe.

Using projected light patterns to form virtual electrodes on a photosensitive substrate, optoelectronic tweezers are able to grab and move micro- and nanoscale objects at will, facilitating applications far beyond biology and colloidal science.

Optical tweezers have become one of the primary weapons in the arsenal of biophysicists, and have revolutionized the new field of single-molecule biophysics. Today's techniques allow high-resolution experiments on biological macromolecules that were mere pipe dreams only a decade ago.

Frequency combs — broadband phase-coherent optical sources — are finding an increasing number of new applications in the field of metrology.

This year celebrates the twentieth anniversary of frequency-resolved optical gating — the first and most general technique for measuring ultrashort laser pulses.

Ingenious techniques are needed to extend group IV photonics from near-infrared to mid-infrared wavelengths. If achieved, the reward could be on-chip CMOS optoelectronic systems for use in spectroscopy, chemical and biological sensing, and free-space communications.

Silicon photonic devices can be built using commercial CMOS chip fabrication facilities, or 'fabs'. However, nearly all research groups continue to design, build and test chips internally, rather than leveraging shared CMOS foundry infrastructure.

Could optical technology offer a solution to the heat generation and bandwidth limitations that the computing industry is starting to face? The benefits of energy-efficient passive components, low crosstalk and parallel processing suggest that the answer may be yes.