Browse Articles

Researchers have demonstrated the generation and control of subfemtosecond pulse pairs from a two-colour X-ray free-electron laser and conducted pump–probe experiments in core-ionized molecules.

This Review discusses the physics of nonreciprocal radiation and Kirchhoff’s law generalization in the context of nanophotonics-enabled nonreciprocal thermal applications.

Researchers reveal that naturally emerging epsilon-near-zero conditions in BaTiO₃ can be exploited to drive permanent all-optical switching of ferroelectric polarization. The general nature of the epsilon-near-zero regime means that the approach could be used to switch spontaneous order parameters in other systems.

Researchers demonstrate a germanium/silicon avalanche photodiode gain–bandwidth product over 1 THz operating at 1,550 nm wavelength. The findings have implications for future high-speed optoelectronic devices in next-generation optical interconnects.

An optical fibre-fed superconducting electro-optic modulator with gigahertz bandwidth and attojoule per bit electric power consumption offers a fast, efficient means to connect superconducting circuits to the room temperature environment.

Ultrasound-induced luminescence in trianthracene derivative-based nanoparticles enables tumour imaging and immunological profiling in a variety of in vivo models.

A non-common-path interferometric scheme enables holographic detection of single proteins of mass 90 kDa and estimation of single-protein polarizability.

A common direct-bandgap semiconductor has been found to host optically addressable spins, opening the door to scalable quantum sensor manufacturing.

The strong dispersion of surface phonon polaritons in silicon carbide films is exploited to tailor the orbital angular momentum of phonon polaritons, achieving reconfigurable polaritonic optical vortices that are attractive for orbital-angular-momentum-enabled light–matter interactions at mid-infrared frequencies.

Microring-based vortex combs with each comb line carrying a distinct orbital angular momentum generate light springs with time-varying orbital angular momenta.

Nonlinear microring resonators can generate a vortex soliton microcomb, that is, a frequency comb with each comb line carrying a distinct orbital angular momentum.

A versatile cloud-accessible single-photon-based quantum computing machine is developed, which shows a six-photon sampling rate of 4 Hz over weeks. Heralded generation of a three-photon Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger state—a key milestone toward measurement-based quantum computing—is implemented.

Chiral materials and related mechanisms are reviewed, with a focus on applications for circularly polarized light-emitting diodes.

Researchers focused hard X-rays from a free-electron laser down to transverse dimensions of ~7 nm × 7 nm, enabling a two-order increase in intensity of photons and yielding access to the elusive 10²² W cm⁻² regime. Such intense, short-wavelength electromagnetic radiation may probe atomic, molecular and optical physics with extremely high resolution.

Kerr resonators can support a new form of parametrically driven temporal cavity soliton (and associated optical frequency comb), with potential performance advantages that include background-free operation and the possibility of very high pump-to-comb conversion efficiencies.

Time-resolved lightwave-driven scanning tunnelling spectroscopy is developed to investigate how the spin–orbit-split energy levels of a selenium vacancy within a WSe₂ monolayer shift under phonon displacement. Ultrafast snapshots of the electronic tunnelling spectra reveal transient energy shifts up to 40 meV.

Holographic microscopy with independent control of the signal and reference fields enables the holographic imaging of a single protein with mass below 100 kDa and estimation of their polarizability.

The frequency of coherent terahertz waves radiated from a single superconducting emitter can be electronically modulated on a chip with up to 40 GHz bandwidth, paving the way for high-data-rate and ultrafast terahertz wireless communications.