Optics and photonics articles within Nature

Featured

  • Research Briefing |

    Quantum information in superconducting processors is stored as low-energy microwave photons, but transmitting this information over long distances to build a quantum network requires conversion of low-energy photons to high-energy optical photons. Laser-cooled rubidium atoms now enable conversion between photons with vastly different energies.

  • News & Views |

    Particles that self-assemble from nanoribbons into bow-tie-shaped structures can be tailored to change the degree of their twist. A search for how best to quantify this twist homes in on a measure of how the bow ties respond to light.

    • Bart Kahr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A frequency-tunable laser based on a hybrid silicon nitride and lithium niobate integrated photonic platform has a fast tuning rate and could be used for optical ranging applications.

    • Viacheslav Snigirev
    • , Annina Riedhauser
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article |

    By using new on-chip terahertz spectroscopy techniques to measure the absorption spectra of a graphene microribbon as well as the energy waves close to charge neutrality, hydrodynamic collective excitations are observed.

    • Wenyu Zhao
    • , Shaoxin Wang
    •  & Feng Wang

  • Technology Feature |

    Automated microscopes that adapt to each sample’s quirks can capture elusive biological phenomena at high resolution.

    • Jyoti Madhusoodanan

  • Article |

    We report full-colour, vertically stacked µLEDs that achieve exceptionally high array density (5,100 pixels per inch) and small size (4 µm) via a 2D material-based layer transfer technique, allowing the creation of full-colour µLED displays for augmented and virtual reality.

    • Jiho Shin
    • , Hyunseok Kim
    •  & Jeehwan Kim

  • Article |

    Chiral metasurfaces have been produced, with experimental observation of intrinsic chiral bound states in the continuum, which may lead to applications in chiral light sources and detectors, chiral sensing, valleytronics and asymmetric photocatalysis.

    • Yang Chen
    • , Huachun Deng
    •  & Cheng-Wei Qiu

  • Article |

    A van der Waals crystal, niobium oxide dichloride, with vanishing interlayer electronic coupling and considerable monolayer-like excitonic behaviour in the bulk, as well as strong and scalable second-order optical nonlinearity, is discovered, which enables a high-performance quantum light source.

    • Qiangbing Guo
    • , Xiao-Zhuo Qi
    •  & Andrew T. S. Wee

  • Article |

    A study demonstrates full energy–momentum matching, and enhanced interaction, between free electrons and photons through a continuum of flatband resonances, realized in a silicon-on-insulator photonic crystal slab.

    • Yi Yang
    • , Charles Roques-Carmes
    •  & Marin Soljačić

  • Article |

    Ultrasmall monodisperse perovskite quantum dots are synthesized in situ on a substrate via ligand structure regulation, yielding the highest external quantum efficiency blue perovskite LEDs reported so far.

    • Yuanzhi Jiang
    • , Changjiu Sun
    •  & Mingjian Yuan

  • Research Briefing |

    When circularly polarized light hits an array of chiral gold nanoparticles, it generates polarized electric and magnetic waves across the surface of the nanoparticles. Chiral molecules can alter these resonances, providing a highly sensitive method to determine and quantify molecular chirality, even at very low concentrations.

  • Article |

    An array of 2D crystals of isotropic, 432-symmetric chiral gold nanoparticles is shown to exhibit collective resonances with a strong and uniform chiral near field, allowing enantioselective detection by the collective circular dichroism.

    • Ryeong Myeong Kim
    • , Ji-Hyeok Huh
    •  & Ki Tae Nam

  • Article |

    By using Si3N4 photonic integrated circuits on a silicon chip, a continuous-travelling-wave parametric amplifier is shown to yield a parametric gain exceeding both on-chip propagation loss as well as fibre–chip–fibre coupling losses.

    • Johann Riemensberger
    • , Nikolai Kuznetsov
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article |

    A terrestrial networked positioning system based on a hybrid optical–wireless telecommunication infrastructure and that is independent of global navigation satellite systems is demonstrated for urban environments with decimetre-level accuracy. 

    • Jeroen C. J. Koelemeij
    • , Han Dun
    •  & Christian C. J. M. Tiberius

  • Research Highlight |

    Photons trapped inside a special ring must travel two laps before reaching their starting state.

  • Research Briefing |

    Perovskites are promising candidates for use in next-generation light-emitting diode (LED) displays that are vivid and have high colour quality. LEDs made from particles with a perovskite nanocrystal core and an acidic shell are efficient and bright, and have a long operational half-life.

  • News & Views |

    Shining a laser on an iron wire generates fast-moving electrons that boost the electromagnetic waves created by the light interacting with the wire. This way of making laser-like light could surpass existing methods that use electrons.

    • Nicholas Rivera

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A meta-imaging sensor detects an extra-fine 4D light field distribution using a vibrating microlens array, enabling high-resolution 3D photography up to a gigapixel with fast aberration correction, demonstrated on a telescope aimed at the Moon.

    • Jiamin Wu
    • , Yuduo Guo
    •  & Qionghai Dai

  • News & Views Forum |

    COVID-19 broadened the use of pulse oximeters for rapid blood-oxygen readings, but it also highlighted the fact that skin pigmentation alters measurements. Two groups of researchers analyse this issue, and its effects on people with dark skin.

    • Matthew D. Keller
    • , Brandon Harrison-Smith
    •  & Mohammed Shahriar Arefin

  • Research Briefing |

    Frequency-comb lasers are measuring sticks of the optical world and are used in metrology and sensing applications owing to their rigid, comb-like light spectra and metronomic pulsed output. A frequency comb with time-programmable pulses breaks this rigid mould and, in a demonstration of its utility, measures distances at the quantum limit of precision.

  • Article |

    By forcing electron–hole pairs onto closed trajectories attosecond clocking of delocalized Bloch electrons is achieved, enabling greater understanding of unexpected phase transitions and quantum-dynamic phenomena.

    • J. Freudenstein
    • , M. Borsch
    •  & R. Huber

  • Article |

    By introducing a further modal dimension to transform a two-dimensional photonic waveguide array, a photonic topological insulator with protected topological surface states in three dimensions, enabled by a screw dislocation, is demonstrated.

    • Eran Lustig
    • , Lukas J. Maczewsky
    •  & Mordechai Segev

  • News & Views |

    An experimental platform that uses two different tools for controlling neutral atoms with laser light combines speed with scalability. The approach provides a crucial step towards realizing innovative quantum algorithms and simulations.

    • Giulia Semeghini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A fluorescent molecule is described that does not follow Hund’s rule and instead shows singlet and triplet excited states with inverted energy levels, leading to high-efficiency OLEDs with potential implications for optoelectronic devices.

    • Naoya Aizawa
    • , Yong-Jin Pu
    •  & Daigo Miyajima

  • News & Views |

    Precise optical experiments reveal that quantum excitations in semiconductors share similarities with a host of growing interfaces. The parallels inspire a fresh approach to studying the dynamics of diverse systems in a controllable way.

    • Sebastian Diehl

  • Article |

    Experiments show that the dynamics of phase fluctuations  in a one-dimensional polariton condensate falls in the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang universality class, and theoretical analysis supports this finding revealing the key signatures of this universality class.

    • Quentin Fontaine
    • , Davide Squizzato
    •  & Jacqueline Bloch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rabi dynamics between the ground state and an excited state in helium atoms are generated using femtosecond extreme-ultraviolet pulses from a seeded free-electron laser, which may allow ultrafast manipulation of coherent processes at short wavelengths.

    • Saikat Nandi
    • , Edvin Olofsson
    •  & Jan Marcus Dahlström

  • Nature Index |

    From nano-filters for tackling water pollution to protein fingerprinting that treats disease, these researchers are making their mark on the field.

    • Gemma Conroy
    •  & Benjamin Plackett

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Slow nonlinearities of a free-running microresonator-filtered fibre laser are shown to transform temporal cavity solitons into the system’s dominant attractor, leading to reliable self-starting oscillation of microcavity-solitons that are naturally robust to perturbations.

    • Maxwell Rowley
    • , Pierre-Henry Hanzard
    •  & Alessia Pasquazi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stochastic cooling at optical frequencies is demonstrated in an experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory’s Integrable Optics Test Accelerator, substantially increasing the bandwidth of stochastic cooling compared with conventional systems.

    • J. Jarvis
    • , V. Lebedev
    •  & A. Valishev

  • Research Briefing |

    Microscopic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have applications ranging from augmented-reality displays to large-screen products, but their brightness typically decreases as their size is reduced. A solution to this problem has now been found and used to manufacture bright blue nanoscale LEDs.

  • Article |

    Using a sol–gel passivation method, the fabrication of blue InGaN nanorod-LEDs with the highest external quantum efficiency value ever reported for LEDs in the nanoscale is demonstrated.

    • Mihyang Sheen
    • , Yunhyuk Ko
    •  & Changhee Lee

  • Research Briefing |

    Tuning the resonances of an object is crucial in many settings, from musical instruments to ultrasensitive detectors for electromagnetic and gravitational waves. This task might seem straightforward but its mathematical description has been shown to involve rich topological structures known as knots and braids.

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Optics and photonics across other nature.com journals