Condensed-matter physics articles within Nature Photonics

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• News & Views | 26 April 2024

  Sub-cycle photonics in correlated materials

  Sub-cycle confinement and control of phase transitions in strongly correlated materials are theoretically demonstrated, potentially providing a way to investigate electron dynamics on timescales previously unattainable with these materials.

  • Eleftherios Goulielmakis

• Article | 23 April 2024

  Direct observation of Landau levels in silicon photonic crystals

  Photonic Landau levels are demonstrated via a strain-induced pseudomagnetic field in a silicon photonic crystal slab.

  • Maria Barsukova
  • , Fabien Grisé
  •  & Mikael C. Rechtsman

• Article | 09 April 2024

  Epsilon-near-zero regime enables permanent ultrafast all-optical reversal of ferroelectric polarization

  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.

  • M. Kwaaitaal
  • , D. G. Lourens
  •  & A. Kirilyuk

• Article
  02 February 2024 | Open Access

  A high-efficiency programmable modulator for extreme ultraviolet light with nanometre feature size based on an electronic phase transition

  A reflective spatial light modulator for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) or soft X-ray light is demonstrated in an electronic Wigner crystal material with a sub-90-nm feature size. The diffraction grating imprinted by sub-picosecond EUV beams is rewritable. The projected efficiency according to the modelling exceeds 1%.

  • Igor Vaskivskyi
  • , Anze Mraz
  •  & Dragan Mihailovic

• Article | 26 January 2024

  Optical readout of the chemical potential of two-dimensional electrons

  An optical readout technique for the chemical potential of an arbitrary two-dimensional material is realized using a monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductor sensor whose optical response sharply depends on the chemical potential.

  • Zhengchao Xia
  • , Yihang Zeng
  •  & Kin Fai Mak

• Article
  24 January 2024 | Open Access

  Sub-cycle multidimensional spectroscopy of strongly correlated materials

  Nonlinear multidimensional spectroscopy that can image the sub-cycle dynamics of strongly correlated systems on the sub-femtosecond timescale is demonstrated by using the carrier–envelope-phase dependence of the correlated multielectron response to decode the complex interplay between different many-body states.

  • V. N. Valmispild
  • , E. Gorelov
  •  & O. Smirnova

• News & Views | 29 September 2023

  Spin-selective transitions between quantum Hall states

  Platforms enabling control over strong light–matter interactions in optical cavities provide a challenging but promising way to manipulate emergent light–matter hybrids. Spin selectivity of transitions has now been demonstrated in a two-dimensional hole gas microcavity system, paving the way towards the study of new spin physics phenomena in hybrid excitations.

  • Hrvoje Buljan
  •  & Zhigang Chen

• Article | 28 September 2023

  Electric quadrupole second-harmonic generation revealing dual magnetic orders in a magnetic Weyl semimetal

  Optical second-harmonic waves are generated from the electric quadrupole contribution in a centrosymmetric magnetic Weyl semimetal Co₃Sn₂S₂. Two magnetic orders and phase transitions are explored in temperature-dependent rotational anisotropy measurements by second-harmonic generation.

  • Youngjun Ahn
  • , Xiaoyu Guo
  •  & Liuyan Zhao

• Article | 24 August 2023

  Field-driven attosecond charge dynamics in germanium

  Attosecond transient reflectivity spectroscopy, in combination with extensive time-dependent density functional theory calculations, is used to study field-driven carrier injection in germanium in the time window of few femtoseconds around pulse overlap, paving a route towards achieving full optical control over charge carriers in semiconductors.

  • Giacomo Inzani
  • , Lyudmyla Adamska
  •  & Matteo Lucchini

• Article | 03 July 2023

  Spin-selective strong light–matter coupling in a 2D hole gas-microcavity system

  Strong coupling of a 2D hole gas in the quantum Hall state dressed with a microcavity mode is studied, showing that tuning the strength of the magnetic field, and therefore the density of states in the system, can select specific spin-dependent light–matter coupling.

  • D. G. Suárez-Forero
  • , D. W. Session
  •  & M. Hafezi

• Article | 23 March 2023

  Onset of vortex clustering and inverse energy cascade in dissipative quantum fluids

  The turbulent dynamics of a 2D quantum fluid of exciton–polaritons is measured in a planar AlGaAs microcavity after a pulsed optical excitation. Clear evidence of both the onset of vortex clustering and inverse energy cascade is provided.

  • R. Panico
  • , P. Comaron
  •  & D. Ballarini

• Article | 09 January 2023

  Terahertz cyclotron emission from two-dimensional Dirac fermions

  Two-dimensional massive and massless Dirac fermions in HgTe/CdHgTe quantum wells yield terahertz Landau emission. The emission frequency is continuously tunable with magnetic field or carrier concentration, over the range from 0.5 to 3 THz.

  • S. Gebert
  • , C. Consejo
  •  & F. Teppe

• Article | 17 October 2022

  Excitonic resonances control the temporal dynamics of nonlinear optical wave mixing in monolayer semiconductors

  Researchers show that resonant coupling of light pulses with excitonic transitions affects the optimal time difference between pulses for sum-frequency generation and four-wave mixing in monolayer WSe₂.

  • Jonas M. Bauer
  • , Lijue Chen
  •  & Kai-Qiang Lin

• Letter | 18 August 2022

  Probing topological phase transitions using high-harmonic generation

  Researchers demonstrate a method based on circularly polarized laser-field-driven high-harmonic generation for probing non-trivial and trivial topological phases in a three-dimensional topological insulator.

  • Christian Heide
  • , Yuki Kobayashi
  •  & Shambhu Ghimire

• Letter | 16 June 2022

  Few-photon all-optical phase rotation in a quantum-well micropillar cavity

  Giant effective photon–photon interactions are achieved by hybridizing light with excitons in an InGaAs-based quantum well micropillar cavity. Cross-phase modulation of up to 3 mrad per polariton is observed at the laser intensity below the single-photon level.

  • Tintu Kuriakose
  • , Paul M. Walker
  •  & Dmitry N. Krizhanovskii

• Article | 26 May 2022

  Spontaneous-polarization-induced photovoltaic effect in rhombohedrally stacked MoS₂

  It is shown that rhombohedral stacked MoS₂ can enable scalable photovoltaic effects induced by spontaneous polarization throughout few-micrometre-sized exfoliated flakes. This is exploited in a graphene–MoS₂-based photovoltaic device.

  • Dongyang Yang
  • , Jingda Wu
  •  & Ziliang Ye

• Article | 31 March 2022

  Room-temperature superfluorescence in hybrid perovskites and its origins

  Superfluorescence—the collective emission of fluorescent light—is observed at temperatures up to 330 K in lead halide perovskite thin films. This finding suggests an intrinsic mechanism for protecting the electronic coherence in these materials.

  • Melike Biliroglu
  • , Gamze Findik
  •  & Kenan Gundogdu

• Article | 24 March 2022

  Cavity-enhanced linear dichroism in a van der Waals antiferromagnet

  Researchers use spin-charge coupling and FePS₃ crystals to induce large in-plane optical anisotropy and near-unity linear dichroism in the visible–near-infrared range.

  • Huiqin Zhang
  • , Zhuoliang Ni
  •  & Deep Jariwala

• Article | 14 February 2022

  Spatiotemporally controlled room-temperature exciton transport under dynamic strain

  Researchers exploit Rayleigh waves and associated dynamic strains to control exciton transport in the weak coupling regime at room temperature. The findings may pave the way for new types of excitonic device for applications ranging from communications to energy.

  • Kanak Datta
  • , Zhengyang Lyu
  •  & Parag B. Deotare

• Article
  23 December 2021 | Open Access

  Real-space subfemtosecond imaging of quantum electronic coherences in molecules

  By combining scanning tunnelling microscopy and attosecond technologies, the coherent electronic motion generated in molecules by carrier-envelope-phase-stable laser pulses is visualized at ångström-scale spatial resolution and subfemtosecond temporal resolution.

  • M. Garg
  • , A. Martin-Jimenez
  •  & K. Kern

• Article | 02 August 2021

  Slow carrier relaxation in tin-based perovskite nanocrystals

  Tin-based perovskite nanocrystals with slower than usual relaxation dynamics holds promise for superior lead-free perovskite optoelectronic devices.

  • Linjie Dai
  • , Zeyu Deng
  •  & Neil C. Greenham

• Article | 19 July 2021

  Quantum transport in fractal networks

  Quantum transport in fractal networks is experimentally investigated by performing continuous-time quantum walks in fractal photonic lattices. Contrarily to classical fractals, anomalous transport governed solely by the fractal dimension is observed.

  • Xiao-Yun Xu
  • , Xiao-Wei Wang
  •  & Xian-Min Jin

• Letter | 21 June 2021

  High-temperature superfluorescence in methyl ammonium lead iodide

  A collective coherent quantum many-body phase, namely superfluorescence, is observed in CH₃NH₃PbI₃ at 78 K. The excitation fluence dependence of the spectroscopic features and the population kinetics confirm all its well-known characteristics.

  • Gamze Findik
  • , Melike Biliroglu
  •  & Kenan Gundogdu

• Article | 13 May 2021

  Subcycle contact-free nanoscopy of ultrafast interlayer transport in atomically thin heterostructures

  Subcycle nano-videography of charge-transfer dynamics in WSe₂/WS₂ heterostructures is obtained by using a terahertz near-field microscopy. The central idea is to probe the local polarizability of electron–hole pairs with evanescent terahertz fields.

  • M. Plankl
  • , P. E. Faria Junior
  •  & R. Huber

• Article | 08 April 2021

  Room-temperature electron spin polarization exceeding 90% in an opto-spintronic semiconductor nanostructure via remote spin filtering

  An electron spin polarization of 90% is achieved in a non-magnetic nanostructure at room temperature without magnetic field. This is accomplished by remote spin filtering of InAs quantum-dot electrons via an adjacent tunnelling-coupled GaNAs spin filter.

  • Yuqing Huang
  • , Ville Polojärvi
  •  & Weimin M. Chen

• Article | 02 November 2020

  High-power portable terahertz laser systems

  GaAs-based terahertz quantum cascade lasers emitting around 4 THz are demonstrated up to 250 K without a magnetic field. To elevate the operation temperature, carrier leakage channels are reduced by carefully designing the quantum well structures.

  • Ali Khalatpour
  • , Andrew K. Paulsen
  •  & Qing Hu

• Article | 13 July 2020

  Dynamics of the Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless transition in a photon fluid

  A topological transition in a nonlinear photonic lattice results in new vortex dynamics and a change from photonic fluid behaviour to that of a plasma-like gas.

  • Guohai Situ
  •  & Jason W. Fleischer

• Comment | 17 June 2020

  In memory of Philip W. Anderson

  Philip Warren Anderson is one of the founding fathers of modern condensed-matter physics. With his death on 29 March 2020, we have lost one of the most influential physicists of the twentieth century.

  • Diederik S. Wiersma
  • , Bart A. van Tiggelen
  •  & Ad Lagendijk

• Article | 17 February 2020

  Dynamics and efficient conversion of excitons to trions in non-uniformly strained monolayer WS₂

  The photoluminescence spectrum of WS₂ is modified under strain applied by an atomic force microscope probe. The free carrier redistribution yields conversion of excitons to trions with conversion efficiency approaching 100%.

  • Moshe G. Harats
  • , Jan N. Kirchhof
  •  & Kirill I. Bolotin

• Letter | 20 January 2020

  High-efficiency organic solar cells with low non-radiative recombination loss and low energetic disorder

  An organic solar cell designed with minimal energetic disorder exhibits very low energy loss due to non-radiative recombination and highly efficient operation.

  • Sha Liu
  • , Jun Yuan
  •  & Yong Cao

• Article | 20 January 2020

  Attosecond spectral singularities in solid-state high-harmonic generation

  High-harmonic waves are generated from a MgO crystal under experimental conditions where the simple semi-classical analysis fails. High-harmonic generation spectroscopy directly probes the strong-field attosecond dynamics over multiple bands.

  • Ayelet Julie Uzan
  • , Gal Orenstein
  •  & Nirit Dudovich

• Letter | 17 June 2019

  Photonic quadrupole topological phases

  A higher-order topological phase is demonstrated, manifesting as robust, topologically protected corner modes in a silicon photonics system.

  • Sunil Mittal
  • , Venkata Vikram Orre
  •  & Mohammad Hafezi

• Article | 06 May 2019

  Josephson vortices induced by phase twisting a polariton superfluid

  All-optical control of the topological excitations of a superfluid of light is demonstrated in a high-quality-factor semiconductor microcavity. Recovery of superfluid behaviour at high polariton densities and bosonic Josephson vortices are observed.

  • Davide Caputo
  • , Nataliya Bobrovska
  •  & Daniele Sanvitto

• News & Views | 22 March 2019

  Quasi-two-dimensional electron–hole droplets

  The observation of a room-temperature stable liquid phase of electrons and holes in a quasi-two-dimensional photocell paves the way towards optoelectronic devices that harness collective phenomena.

  • Stéphane Berciaud

• Letter | 04 February 2019

  Electron–hole liquid in a van der Waals heterostructure photocell at room temperature

  Photoexcited charge carriers are typically approximated as a gas, but now it is shown that electrons and holes can behave as a liquid in MoTe₂ photocells.

  • Trevor B. Arp
  • , Dennis Pleskot
  •  & Nathaniel M. Gabor

• Letter | 14 January 2019

  Laguerre–Gauss and Hermite–Gauss soft X-ray states generated using diffractive optics

  Robust methods for creating and analysing soft X-ray modes, with as much as 30ħ angular momentum per photon, are demonstrated.

  • J. C. T Lee
  • , S. J. Alexander
  •  & B. J. McMorran

• Article | 05 November 2018

  High-efficiency perovskite–polymer bulk heterostructure light-emitting diodes

  Near-infrared perovskite–polymer light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with external quantum efficiencies of up to 20.1% are reported.

  • Baodan Zhao
  • , Sai Bai
  •  & Dawei Di

• Research Highlight | 26 October 2018

  Atomically thin materials

  • Noriaki Horiuchi

• Letter | 25 June 2018

  Nonlinear charge oscillation driven by a single-cycle light field in an organic superconductor

  A nonlinear charge oscillation driven by a 6 fs light field of 11 MV cm^–1 is observed in a layered organic superconductor. The initial response time of the oscillation on the timescale of 10 fs clarifies that Coulomb repulsion is essential for the superconductivity.

  • Y. Kawakami
  • , T. Amano
  •  & S. Iwai

• Article | 30 April 2018

  Continuous transition between weak and ultrastrong coupling through exceptional points in carbon nanotube microcavity exciton–polaritons

  A microcavity exciton–polariton system based on aligned and packed single-walled carbon nanotubes exhibits ultrastrong coupling. The coupling strength is polarization sensitive. The record high value of vacuum Rabi splitting, 329 meV, is reported.

  • Weilu Gao
  • , Xinwei Li
  •  & Junichiro Kono

• Research Highlight | 26 April 2018

  Spin–photon coupling

  • Noriaki Horiuchi

• Article | 16 April 2018

  Vacuum Bloch–Siegert shift in Landau polaritons with ultra-high cooperativity

  The Bloch–Siegert shift—a strong-field phenomenon that implies a failure of the rotating-wave approximation—is observed in the polariton dispersion diagram of a two-dimensional electron gas system inside a high-Q terahertz photonic crystal cavity.

  • Xinwei Li
  • , Motoaki Bamba
  •  & Junichiro Kono

• Letter | 26 March 2018

  High-harmonic spectroscopy of ultrafast many-body dynamics in strongly correlated systems

  A highly nonlinear optical response can be used to time-resolve light-induced phase transitions with few-femtosecond to sub-femtosecond accuracy, paving the way for time-resolving highly correlated many-body dynamics in strongly correlated systems with few-femtosecond accuracy.

  • R. E. F. Silva
  • , Igor V. Blinov
  •  & M. Ivanov

• Letter | 26 January 2018

  Large magneto-optical Kerr effect and imaging of magnetic octupole domains in an antiferromagnetic metal

  The magneto-optical Kerr effect is demonstrated in an antiferromagnetic metal. Large rotation angles, magnetic octupole domain imaging was enabled.

  • Tomoya Higo
  • , Huiyuan Man
  •  & Satoru Nakatsuji

• Letter | 18 December 2017

  Reversible optical control of macroscopic polarization in ferroelectrics

  Ferroelectric domains are optically reconfigured by a reversible process. The tuning is sufficient to enable macroscopically observable responses and the findings may help lead to the development of photo-stimulated ferroelectric devices.

  • Fernando Rubio-Marcos
  • , Diego A. Ochoa
  •  & José E. García

• Article | 05 June 2017

  Valley-polarized exciton–polaritons in a monolayer semiconductor

  Exploitation of the valley electronic structure of transition metal dichalcogenides with exciton–polaritons is an elusive challenge. Now, valley-polarized exciton–polaritons in monolayers of MoS₂ have been demonstrated.

  • Yen-Jung Chen
  • , Jeffrey D. Cain
  •  & Nathaniel P. Stern

• Letter | 09 January 2017

  Optical determination of the Néel vector in a CuMnAs thin-film antiferromagnet

  Due to their nature antiferromagnets are difficult to probe with conventional magnetometers. The Néel vector of a practically important antiferromagnet, CuMnAs, has now been determined by a femtosecond pump–probe magneto-optical experiment.

  • V. Saidl
  • , P. Němec
  •  & T. Jungwirth

• Article | 18 April 2016

  Large-scale Ising spin network based on degenerate optical parametric oscillators

  More than 10,000 time-division-multiplexed degenerate parametric oscillators are generated using phase-sensitive amplification in a nonlinear optical fibre. They can be used to simulate a coherent Ising machine that could solve difficult computing problems.

  • Takahiro Inagaki
  • , Kensuke Inaba
  •  & Hiroki Takesue

• Article | 15 February 2016

  Optical manipulation of the Berry phase in a solid-state spin qubit

  An all-optical manipulation of the Berry phase based on stimulated Raman adiabatic passage is demonstrated in an individual nitrogen–vacancy centre in diamond. The adiabatic control is 100 times faster than that demonstrated before in atomic systems.

  • Christopher G. Yale
  • , F. Joseph Heremans
  •  & David D. Awschalom

• Article | 25 January 2016

  Hexagonal boron nitride is an indirect bandgap semiconductor

  Scientists resolve the long-debated issue of the nature and value of the bandgap in hexagonal boron nitride by providing evidence for an indirect bandgap at 5.955 eV and an exciton binding energy of about 130 meV by means of optical spectroscopy.

  • G. Cassabois
  • , P. Valvin
  •  & B. Gil