Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Advances in silicon photonics, compound III–V semiconductor technology and hybrid integration now mean that powerful, programmable optical integrated circuits could be within sight.
Reconfigurable optical chips made from 2D meshes of connected waveguides could pave the way for programmable, general purpose microwave photonics processors.
Methods to improve the transmission distance of quantum communication, to combat channel loss and to implement an optical Ising machine were just some of the topics discussed at QCrypt 2015 in Tokyo, Japan.
Extracting a single photon from a light pulse is deceptively complicated to accomplish. Now, a deterministic experimental implementation of photon subtraction could bring a host of opportunities in quantum information technology.
Scientists propose and experimentally demonstrate a new architecture for dual-comb spectroscopy based on all-fibre tunable frequency comb sources using standard telecommunication fibre optics components, opening the way for practical dual-comb spectroscopy.
Using a controllably small and local optomechanical perturbation introduced by a focused lithium-ion beam it is now possible to map five modes of a silicon microdisk resonator (Q ≥ 20,000) with high spatial and spectral resolution.
Perovskite crystals are shown to be highly efficient materials for optical refrigeration, supporting cooling of up to 58 K when exposed to laser light.
A metasurface composed of pixels of optically switchable phase change material yields a photonic platform that can be configured on demand to perform a variety of optical tasks.
Scientists demonstrate an experimental method that allows them to locate and track moving targets that are hidden from the direct line of sight, for example, by a wall or an obstacle, with only a few seconds acquisition time and centimetre precision.
Two-photon Rabi oscillations are observed in He on a timescale of 10 fs by utilizing the strong-field phenomenon known as Freeman resonance. The importance of ponderomotive shifts of both the Rydberg states and the ionization limit is highlighted.