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Researchers realized a magnet that can optically switch the polarization plane of light by 90 degrees. Nature Photonics asked Shin-ichi Ohkoshi how his group achieved this feat.
Black holes, gravitational lenses, turbulence, chaotic flow and rogue waves are just a few examples of complex physical phenomena that can be conveniently modelled using photonics.
Sustaining the ongoing revolution in optical microscopy will require gaining detailed insight into the optical fields in focal spots. Researchers have developed an elegant method for mapping the full electric vector field using just a metal nanosphere on a glass substrate.
DNA tethers guide the self-assembly of colloidal metal nanoparticles into three-dimensional optical metamaterials. The observation of epsilon-near-zero behaviour in nanoparticle-based materials indicates that bottom-up assembly may be a viable solution to current challenges in the manufacture of metamaterials.
Tuning the luminescence lifetimes of upconversion nanocrystals through lanthanide doping provides new opportunities for optical multiplexing in the time domain for applications in imaging and security marking.
This article reviews the underlying physical principles of radiation nanofocusing in metallic nanostructures, and the recent progress, future directions and potential applications of this subfield of nano-optics.
The use of a thin layer of zinc oxide nanoparticles as an electron-transport layer allows flexible perovskite solar cells to be fabricated with a power conversion efficiency as high as 15.7%.
Highly efficient perovskite solar cells have been fabricated by using room-temperature deposition processes. The cells are based on a layer of methylammonium lead iodide perovskite that is prepared by sublimation in a high-vacuum chamber and sandwiched between two thin organic charge-transport layers.
