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The manipulation of the quantum properties of light involves its technically challenging strong interaction with matter. Now, an experiment shows that when light propagates through a waveguide it only takes a weakly coupled line of atoms to single out its photons, or bunch them together, unveiling and controlling its quantum nature.
A method to control the topological properties of two-dimensional (2D) materials on few-femtosecond timescales is proposed. By controlling the sub-cycle structure of non-resonant driving fields, it may be possible to coherently write, manipulate and read selective valley excitation.
Ultrafast lightwave sampling based on scanning tunnelling microscopy is developed to resolve near fields with sub-picosecond time resolution and sub-nanometre spatial resolution. Parameter-free quantitative measurement is achieved by using a single-molecule switch.
An ytterbium sublattice in an erbium-sensitized multilayer core–shell structure enables photon upconversion from lanthanide ions under 1,530 nm irradiation.
A silicon-germanium integrated homodyne detector with a footprint of 0.84 mm2 is fabricated to enhance the speed performance of quantum light measurement. It can measure the spectrum of squeezing from 100 MHz to 9 GHz of a squeezed light source.
The first lasing results at SwissFEL, an X-ray free-electron laser, are presented, highlighting the facility’s unique capabilities. A general comparison to other major facilities is also provided.
Unexpected multimode solitary waves can be formed spontaneously in hollow-core fibres, hinting at a vast world of exciting nonlinear optics, with applications for generating few-cycle, ultra-intense pulses.
By combining a photoinduced effective χ(2) nonlinearity with resonant enhancement and perfect phase matching in a silicon nitride microring resonator, second-harmonic generation with milliwatt-level output powers with up to 22 ± 1% power conversion efficiency is demonstrated.
Sculpting and focusing femtosecond cylindrical vector vortex pulses by a slit allows the controllable transformation of the photon’s orbital angular momentum into spin angular momentum, which can be characterized in situ by a strong-field ionization experiment.
Direct acousto-optic modulation within complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor compatible silicon photonic waveguides using electrically driven surface acoustic waves is demonstrated. Non-reciprocal operation bandwidths of >100 GHz and insertion losses of <0.6 dB are obtained.
GaAs-based terahertz quantum cascade lasers emitting around 4 THz are demonstrated up to 250 K without a magnetic field. To elevate the operation temperature, carrier leakage channels are reduced by carefully designing the quantum well structures.
The formation of multidimensional solitary states through the nonlinear propagation of high-energy pulses in a molecular gas-filled large-core hollow-core fibre is demonstrated, offering new opportunities for studying multimodal spatiotemporal dynamics in the high-energy regime.
Facilities generating coherent X-rays tend to be large scale and costly. Now researchers have demonstrated a parametric and coherent laboratory-scale X-ray source by passing moderately energetic electrons through van der Waals heterostructures.
Directly modulated membrane distributed reflector lasers are fabricated on a silicon carbide platform. The 3 dB bandwidth, four-level pulse-amplitude modulation speed and operating energy for transmitting one bit are 108 GHz, 256 Gbit s−1 and 475 fJ, respectively.
Photonic-chip-based microcomb solitons driven by Pockels nonlinearity—the quadratic χ(2) effect—instead of the Kerr soliton are demonstrated in an aluminium nitride microring resonator with a conversion efficiency of 17%.
Inhomogeneity of the photogenerated carrier spacetime distribution enables transient symmetry breaking in a metasurface. As a result, broadband transient dichroism is demonstrated.