Featured
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News & Views |
A metallic road to localization
Whether Anderson localization of light is possible in three dimensions has long been an open question. Numerical calculations have now shown that it can be done with a disordered arrangement of metal particles.
- Diederik S. Wiersma
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Letter
| Open Access
Three-dimensional non-Abelian quantum holonomy
Photonic waveguides with appropriately engineered interactions allow the experimental realization of non-Abelian quantum holonomies of the symmetry group U(3), which is known from the strong nuclear force.
- Vera Neef
- , Julien Pinske
- & Alexander Szameit
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Review Article |
Imaging in complex media
Seeing—and consequently imaging—through turbid media such as fog is a difficult task, as multiple scattering scrambles the visual information. This Review summarizes techniques that physically or computationally reconstruct the images.
- Jacopo Bertolotti
- & Ori Katz
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News & Views |
A controlled cascade interference
Nonlinear optical effects enable sophisticated functionalities to generate and manipulate light. The precise control of two distinct nonlinear phenomena in a photonic chip can enhance a key optical nonlinearity that makes single-photon sources more efficient.
- Thiago P. Mayer Alegre
- & Gustavo S. Wiederhecker
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Letter |
Gain-induced topological response via tailored long-range interactions
Non-Hermitian concepts together with optical gain allow the tailoring of short- and long-range exchange interactions in integrated topological photonics, and an exact Haldane model can be realized in this way.
- Yuzhou G. N. Liu
- , Pawel S. Jung
- & Mercedeh Khajavikhan
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News & Views |
Playing pinball with light
Without a well-defined cavity, there is no obvious way to control the resonant modes in a random laser. Experiments now show that shaping the optical pump allows for controlled single-mode operation at predetermined lasing wavelengths.
- Stefan Rotter
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News & Views |
Asymmetry from symmetry
An unusual form of symmetry breaking in coupled microresonators with balanced optical gain and loss is now exploited to realize a novel type of optical isolator.
- Chong Yidong
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Article |
Parity–time-symmetric whispering-gallery microcavities
It is now shown that coupled optical microcavities bear all the hallmarks of parity–time symmetry; that is, the system’s dynamics are unchanged by both time-reversal and mirror transformations. The resonant nature of microcavities results in unusual effects not seen in previous photonic analogues of parity–time-symmetric systems: for example, light travelling in one direction is resonantly enhanced but there are no resonance peaks going the other way.
- Bo Peng
- , Şahin Kaya Özdemir
- & Lan Yang
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News & Views |
Through the quantum chicane
In quantum control there is an inherent tension between high fidelity requirements and the need for speed to avoid decoherence. A direct comparison of quantum control protocols at these two extremes indicates where the sweet spot may lie.
- Lloyd C. L. Hollenberg
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News & Views |
The stress of light cools vibration
Brillouin scattering of light is now shown to attenuate the Brownian motion of microscopic acoustic resonators. This electrostrictive phenomenon could be a useful complement to the ponderomotive and photothermal effects that can optically control optomechanical systems.
- Ivan Favero
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Letter |
Observation of spontaneous Brillouin cooling
A novel mechanism for cooling tiny mechanical resonators is now demonstrated. Inelastic scattering of light from phonons in an electrostrictive material attenuates the Brownian motion of the mechanical mode.
- Gaurav Bahl
- , Matthew Tomes
- & Tal Carmon
Coherent control of chaotic optical microcavity with reflectionless scattering modes