Volume 10 Issue 1, January 2016

Compact monochromatic X-ray sources based on graphene plasmons may soon become a reality.

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.

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.

Various optical schemes that can detect single molecules without the need of fluorescence are discussed.

A single photon is deterministically extracted from a light pulse due to the interaction of the pulse with a single ⁸⁷Rb atom coupled to a nanofibre-coupled microresonator. The extraction mechanism is insensitive to pulse shape and timing.

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.

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.

Lead sulphide colloidal nanocrystals offer a solid-state answer for infrared-to-visible upconversion.

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.

Direct measurements of silver spheres with sub-monolayer concentrations of dye-molecules reveal shifts and broadening of molecular resonances.

Scientists theoretically show infrared to X-ray sources that can be implemented on-chip by scattering high-energy electrons with graphene plasmons and predict that they are capable of producing tunable radiation.

Hot carriers in perovskites experience slow cooling.

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.