NIF wakes up - p177

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.30

The first step towards the goal of nuclear fusion triggered by laser beams has been taken with the construction and test firing of the National Ignition Facility in the United States.

Full Text - NIF wakes up | PDF (270 KB) - NIF wakes up

A bright future for synchrotron imaging - p179

C. Petibois, G. Déléris, M. Piccinini, M. Cestelli-Guidi & A. Marcelli

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.31

Full Text - A bright future for synchrotron imaging | PDF (107 KB) - A bright future for synchrotron imaging

Prospects for LED lighting - pp180 - 182

Siddha Pimputkar, James S. Speck, Steven P. DenBaars & Shuji Nakamura

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.32

More than one-fifth of US electricity is used to power artificial lighting. Light-emitting diodes based on group III/nitride semiconductors are bringing about a revolution in energy-efficient lighting.

Full Text - Prospects for LED lighting | PDF (532 KB) - Prospects for LED lighting

A new twist to tuning lasers - pp183 - 184

Duncan Graham-Rowe

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.33

Self-organizing liquid crystals could spawn a new breed of extremely useful and cheap tunable lasers. Such lasers may ultimately prove to be useful for creating flat-screen displays with better colours, enhanced sensors and compact medical instruments. Duncan Graham-Rowe takes a closer look.

Full Text - A new twist to tuning lasers | PDF (281 KB) - A new twist to tuning lasers

Our choice from the latest literature - pp186 - 187

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.34

Full Text - Our choice from the latest literature | PDF (232 KB) - Our choice from the latest literature

Data storage: Heat-assisted magnetic recording - pp189 - 190

Liang Pan & David B. Bogy

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.40

By using light to assist the recording process, hard disk drive capacity could potentially be increased by two orders of magnitude. The idea is to heat the magnetic medium locally, thus temporarily lowering its resistance to magnetic polarization.

Full Text - Data storageHeat-assisted magnetic recording | PDF (169 KB) - Data storageHeat-assisted magnetic recording

Nonlinear optics: Silicon gets the green light - pp190 - 192

Toshihiko Baba

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.39

Third-harmonic generation enhanced by slow-light pulses in a photonic crystal waveguide offers a way to generate green light emission from silicon.

Full Text - Nonlinear opticsSilicon gets the green light | PDF (574 KB) - Nonlinear opticsSilicon gets the green light

Nanophotonics: Nanoscale colour detector - p192

Rachel Won

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.35

Full Text - NanophotonicsNanoscale colour detector | PDF (243 KB) - NanophotonicsNanoscale colour detector

Silicon photonics: Slot machine - pp193 - 194

Tom Baehr-Jones & Michael Hochberg

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.37

Ultrafast all-optical computation with silicon photonic devices is still a dream. New research, which combines organic nonlinear polymers with silicon waveguides, is now bringing that dream closer to reality.

Full Text - Silicon photonicsSlot machine | PDF (119 KB) - Silicon photonicsSlot machine

Photovoltaics: Solar-assisted cars - p195

David Pile

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.36

Full Text - PhotovoltaicsSolar-assisted cars | PDF (126 KB) - PhotovoltaicsSolar-assisted cars

Image transmission: Looking into a self-distorting world - pp195 - 197

Mordechai Segev & Demetrios N. Christodoulides

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.38

Imaging through linear media is straightforward, but light beams propagating through nonlinear media become heavily distorted, rendering all usual imaging techniques practically useless. Now, scientists have found a way to recover images transmitted through nonlinear media — by using back-propagation simulations.

Full Text - Image transmissionLooking into a self-distorting world | PDF (254 KB) - Image transmissionLooking into a self-distorting world

Magneto-optics: Hot atoms rotate light rapidly - pp197 - 199

Robert Löw & Tilman Pfau

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.41

The ability to harness the Faraday effect on a short timescale in an ensemble of hot atoms may prove useful as a read-out tool for quantum information based on microscale vapour cells.

Full Text - Magneto-opticsHot atoms rotate light rapidly | PDF (825 KB) - Magneto-opticsHot atoms rotate light rapidly

Optomechanics of deformable optical cavities - pp201 - 205

Ivan Favero & Khaled Karrai

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.42

Resonant optical cavities such as Fabry–Perot resonators or whispering-gallery structures are subject to radiation pressure pushing their reflecting 'walls' apart. Deformable optical cavities yield to this pressure, but in doing so they in turn affect the stored optical energy, resulting in an optical back-action. For such cavities the optics and the mechanics become strongly coupled, making them fascinating systems in which to explore theories of measurements at the quantum limit. Here we provide a summary of the current state of optomechanics of deformable optical cavities, identifying some of the most important recent developments in the field.

Full Text - Optomechanics of deformable optical cavities | PDF (645 KB) - Optomechanics of deformable optical cavities

Green light emission in silicon through slow-light enhanced third-harmonic generation in photonic-crystal waveguides - pp206 - 210

B. Corcoran, C. Monat, C. Grillet, D. J. Moss, B. J. Eggleton, T. P. White, L. O'Faolain & T. F. Krauss

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.28

The use of slow light for enhancing a nonlinear optical process in a two-dimensional silicon photonic-crystal waveguide is demonstrated. More specifically, green emission by third-harmonic generation is obtained, highlighting yet another functionality of silicon photonics chips.

Abstract - | Full Text - Green light emission in silicon through slow-light enhanced third-harmonic generation in photonic-crystal waveguides | PDF (488 KB) - Green light emission in silicon through slow-light enhanced third-harmonic generation in photonic-crystal waveguides

Subject Categories: Lasers, LEDs and light sources | Fundamental optical physics | Nonlinear optics

See also: News and Views by Baba

Imaging through nonlinear media using digital holography - pp211 - 215

Christopher Barsi, Wenjie Wan & Jason W. Fleischer

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.29

Imaging through a nonlinear medium can be difficult because signals distort as they propagate through it owing to intensity-dependent phase changes. Here, digital reconstruction of optical spatial beams propagating in a nonlinear medium is presented, which could help the understanding of coupled-wave dynamics and suggest new image-processing techniques.

Abstract - | Full Text - Imaging through nonlinear media using digital holography | PDF (1,006 KB) - Imaging through nonlinear media using digital holography

Subject Categories: Imaging and sensing | Fundamental optical physics

See also: News and Views by Segev & Christodoulides

All-optical high-speed signal processing with silicon–organic hybrid slot waveguides - pp216 - 219

C. Koos, P. Vorreau, T. Vallaitis, P. Dumon, W. Bogaerts, R. Baets, B. Esembeson, I. Biaggio, T. Michinobu, F. Diederich, W. Freude & J. Leuthold

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.25

A silicon–organic hybrid slot waveguide with a strong optical nonlinearity is demonstrated to perform ultrafast all-optical demultiplexing of high-bit-rate data streams. The approach could form the basis of compact high-speed optical processing units for future communication networks.

Abstract - | Full Text - All-optical high-speed signal processing with silicon–organic hybrid slot waveguides | PDF (717 KB) - All-optical high-speed signal processing with silicon–organic hybrid slot waveguides

Subject Categories: Nonlinear optics | Fibre optics and optical communications

See also: News and Views by Baehr-Jones & Hochberg

Heat-assisted magnetic recording by a near-field transducer with efficient optical energy transfer - pp220 - 224

W. A. Challener, Chubing Peng, A. V. Itagi, D. Karns, Wei Peng, Yingguo Peng, XiaoMin Yang, Xiaobin Zhu, N. J. Gokemeijer, Y.-T. Hsia, G. Ju, Robert E. Rottmayer, Michael A. Seigler & E. C. Gage

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.26

Using a near-field transducer with efficient optical energy transfer, researchers demonstrate proof-of-principle heat-assisted magnetic recording with multi-track data density of 375 Tb m^-2.

Abstract - | Full Text - Heat-assisted magnetic recording by a near-field transducer with efficient optical energy transfer | PDF (952 KB) - Heat-assisted magnetic recording by a near-field transducer with efficient optical energy transfer | Supplementary information

Subject Categories: Optical data storage | Nanophotonics | Plasmonics

See also: News and Views by Pan & Bogy

A gigahertz-bandwidth atomic probe based on the slow-light Faraday effect - pp225 - 229

Paul Siddons, Nia C. Bell, Yifei Cai, Charles S. Adams & Ifan G. Hughes

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.27

By applying a magnetic field to an atomic vapour, it is shown that the large bandwidth of off-resonance slow-light media can be combined with the Faraday effect to realize a high-bandwidth dispersive probe for atomic systems. This will open up the possibility of probing atomic dynamics on a nanosecond timescale.

Abstract - | Full Text - A gigahertz-bandwidth atomic probe based on the slow-light Faraday effect | PDF (731 KB) - A gigahertz-bandwidth atomic probe based on the slow-light Faraday effect

Subject Categories: Imaging and sensing | Fundamental optical physics

See also: News and Views by Löw & Pfau

Ultrashort pulse characterization - pp230 - 232

Neil Savage

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.43

Pulse measurement equipment is now easier to use than ever before, with many devices offering easy-to-align solutions and plug-and-play computer operation, reports Neil Savage.

Full Text - Ultrashort pulse characterization | PDF (245 KB) - Ultrashort pulse characterization

Practical plasmonics - p236

Interview with Edward Gage, William Challener & Mark Re

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.44

Magnetic hard disk technology is approaching its limits. Nature Photonics spoke to William Challener, Ed Gage and Mark Re from Seagate about their demonstration of heat-assisted magnetic recording.

Full Text - Practical plasmonics | PDF (141 KB) - Practical plasmonics