Optical materials and structures articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Non-Hermitian systems have many physical properties without Hermitian counterparts. Here, the authors demonstrate a non-Hermitian topolectrical circuit hosting continuous bound states under pseudomagnetic fields with no counterparts in Hermitian systems.

    • Xuewei Zhang
    • , Chaohua Wu
    •  & Gang Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exploring the miniaturization of imaging systems, researchers use inverse-design for broadband meta-optics in the LWIR spectrum. Here, authors achieve a six-fold Strehl ratio improvement in image quality over conventional metalenses using a novel design and computational techniques.

    • Luocheng Huang
    • , Zheyi Han
    •  & Arka Majumdar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors develop a coupled ring resonators platform for realizing topological states of matter with hyperbolic dispersion thus offering an approach to boost the efficiency of topological photonic devices.

    • Lei Huang
    • , Lu He
    •  & Xiangdong Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this work, the authors present an active optical metasurface based on a silicon-organic platform. The metasurface can modulate the amplitude of a reflected beam via electric voltage actuation lower than ± 17V.

    • Tianzhe Zheng
    • , Yiran Gu
    •  & Andrei Faraon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors report on the fabrication of strained wrinkles in monolayer WSe2 by placing the material on Au nanoconical substrates. They investigate the correlation between topographical stress factors and localised, quantum-dot-like photoluminescence emission.

    • Emanuil S. Yanev
    • , Thomas P. Darlington
    •  & P. James Schuck

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors experimentally realized a systematic approach to synthesize arbitrary-size two-dimensional all-band-flat photonic lattices, which pave a route for investigating flat-band related physics such as slow-light, nonlinear breathing, and dispersionless image transmission.

    • Jing Yang
    • , Yuanzhen Li
    •  & Fei Gao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The enantiomer fraction strategy can achieve continuous control of the phase transition temperature, chiroptical properties, SHG intensity and other properties of chiral two-dimensional lead bromide ferroelectrics.

    • Chang-Chun Fan
    • , Cheng-Dong Liu
    •  & Wen Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Authors report a novel architecture of photonic beamformer capable of achieving broadband operation and a high number of pointing angles. We demonstrate the operation of a 5-bit beamformer capable of providing 32 pointing angles in the 10−30 GHz range.

    • Pablo Martinez-Carrasco
    • , Tan Huy Ho
    •  & José Capmany

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An efficient and physically accurate platform is required to rapidly design high-performance integrated photonic devices. Here, the authors present a scalable framework for creating on-chip optical systems with complex and arbitrary functionality.

    • Ali Najjar Amiri
    • , Aycan Deniz Vit
    •  & Emir Salih Magden

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors propose an isotropic three-dimensional metamaterial with nonreciprocal magnetoelectric resonant responses at visible and mid-infrared frequencies. The proposed metamaterials do not require external magnetization.

    • Shadi Safaei Jazi
    • , Ihar Faniayeu
    •  & Viktar Asadchy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors showcase a five-channel silicon microring modulator array with a total data rate in the terabit range. Each microring is equipped with two separate Z-shape junctions to overcome the bandwidth and modulation efficiency trade-off, providing a pathway for future 200 Gb/s/lane silicon optical interconnects.

    • Yuan Yuan
    • , Yiwei Peng
    •  & Raymond G. Beausoleil

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Silicon microring resonator plays crucial role in optical computing owing to the compact footprint and energy-efficiency, yet existing modulators require >2 V to drive it. Here, the authors present a solution to this by using metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitor microring that brings down the driving voltage to 0.8 V.

    • Wei-Che Hsu
    • , Nabila Nujhat
    •  & Alan X. Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nonlinear epsilon-near-zero nanodevices are attractive solutions for large-scale integrated system-on-chips yet heat genearation upon operation affects their performance. Here, the authors studied the linear and nonlinear thermo-optic effects in the indium tin oxide, commonly used material for this system.

    • Jiaye Wu
    • , Marco Clementi
    •  & Camille-Sophie Brès

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    In order to complete the transition to the era of large-scale integration, silicon photonics will have to overcome several challenges. Here, the authors outline what these challenges are and what it will take to tackle them.

    • Sudip Shekhar
    • , Wim Bogaerts
    •  & Bhavin J. Shastri

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Progress has been made in the development of low-loss monocrystalline plasmonic metals, opening up opportunities for ultrathin nanophotonic architectures. Here, the authors reveal differences in hot-electron thermalisation dynamics between ultrathin monocrystalline and polycrystalline gold films.

    • Can O. Karaman
    • , Anton Yu. Bykov
    •  & Anatoly V. Zayats

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multifunctional active mid-infrared ring resonators and directional couplers with quantum cascade laser cores allow electrical control of resonant frequency and quality factors, tunable filtering and frequency comb generation.

    • Dmitry Kazakov
    • , Theodore P. Letsou
    •  & Federico Capasso

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light-matter interfaces implementing arbitrary conditional operations on incoming photons would have several applications in quantum computation and communications. Here, the authors demonstrate conditional polarization rotation induced by a single quantum dot spin embedded in an electrically contacted micropillar, spanning up to a pi flip.

    • E. Mehdi
    • , M. Gundín
    •  & L. Lanco

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Authors showcase 3D direct laser writing to fabricate optically interfaced mechanical resonators. The membrane-type structures are placed inside fiber Fabry-Perot cavities to realize a miniaturized optical cavity. Further, the optomechanical properties reveal the coupling mechanism and a significant tuning of the mechanical resonator frequency.

    • Lukas Tenbrake
    • , Alexander Faßbender
    •  & Hannes Pfeifer

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    In this Perspective, the authors illustrate the physics of hyperbolic polaritons in anisotropic 2D and 1D materials, proposing new potential material candidates, forward looking opportunities and technological applications.

    • Hongwei Wang
    • , Anshuman Kumar
    •  & Tony Low

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The requirement for sophisticated objective lenses hinders the miniaturisation of single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy for portable sensing applications. Here, the authors demonstrate a dual-wavelength metalens for real-time monitoring of individual fluorescent nanoparticles.

    • Aleksandr Barulin
    • , Yeseul Kim
    •  & Inki Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chiroptic sensing of single molecule is extremely challenging. Here the authors unveil an extreme nanophotonic system based on nanoparticle-on-mirror shows exceptional high sensitivity of chiral supramolecules, which can resolve enantiomer access of a racemate monolayer, exhibiting great potential for single chiral molecule sensing.

    • Chi Zhang
    • , Huatian Hu
    •  & Tao Ding

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wavefront manipulation with metasurfaces is typically limited to low quality factors. Here, the authors show how higher-order Mie modes can be leveraged to design high quality factor optical metasurfaces for wavefront manipulation in two dimensions.

    • Claudio U. Hail
    • , Morgan Foley
    •  & Harry A. Atwater

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical anapoles in nanoresonators result in strong suppression of the electromagnetic radiation, which is challenging to detect in ideal settings. Here, the authors show that fast electrons are a powerful tool to circumvent this challenge due to their ability to access dark modes.

    • Carlos Maciel-Escudero
    • , Andrew B. Yankovich
    •  & Timur O. Shegai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Several solid-state defect platforms have been proposed for application as a spin-photon interface in quantum communication networks. Here the authors report spin-selective optical transitions and narrow inhomogeneous spectral distribution of V centers in isotopically-enriched SiC emitting in the telecom O-band.

    • Pasquale Cilibrizzi
    • , Muhammad Junaid Arshad
    •  & Cristian Bonato

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metasurfaces enable all-optical geometric coordinate transformations, converting images with altered pixel spatial relations, which can facilitate fast, energy-efficient preprocessing for tasks like object tracking, or aid in laser manufacturing.

    • Xingwang Zhang
    • , Xiaojie Zhang
    •  & Xingjie Ni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Developing quantum networks would require reliable sources of coherent quantum light at telecom wavelengths. Here, the authors employ elastic scattering of excitation laser photons on InAs/InP quantum dots to demonstrate the emission of telecom photons with coherence times longer than the Fourier limit.

    • L. Wells
    • , T. Müller
    •  & A. J. Shields

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors demonstrate real-time blind photonic interference cancellation using FPGA-photonic coordinated processing with zero calibration micro-ring resonator control and sub-second cancellation weight identification.

    • Joshua C. Lederman
    • , Weipeng Zhang
    •  & Paul R. Prucnal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The researchers showcase all-crystalline and hybrid mid-infrared supermirrors with the lowest optical losses ever demonstrated in this wavelength range, representing an unprecedented improvement over any existing mirrors made with any production technology.

    • Gar-Wing Truong
    • , Lukas W. Perner
    •  & Garrett D. Cole

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors demonstrate how flexible metasurfaces powered by artificial neural network can dynamically manipulate the EM scattering behavior from an arbitrary surface - an ultimate ambition for many EM stealth and communication problems.

    • Erda Wen
    • , Xiaozhen Yang
    •  & Daniel F. Sievenpiper

  • Article
    | Open Access

    MEMS-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are often limited in speed by mechanical resonances. Here the authors report a programmable architecture for PICs which uses mechanical eigenmodes for synchronized, resonantly enhanced optical modulation.

    • Mark Dong
    • , Julia M. Boyle
    •  & Dirk Englund

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this work, the authors use a surface plasmonic mechanism to efficiently confine TeraHertz photons inside ultrasmall cavities. These plasmonic-based TeraHertz cavities are shown to operate until the ultimate limit that is allowed fundamentally and at which plasmons start to behave in a nonlocal fashion.

    • Ian Aupiais
    • , Romain Grasset
    •  & Yannis Laplace

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors provide an experimental demonstration of magnetic field generation in graphene disks via the inverse Faraday effect. When the disks are illuminated with circularly polarized radiation in resonance with the graphene plasmon frequency, the corresponding rotational motion of the charge carriers gives rise to a unipolar magnetic field.

    • Jeong Woo Han
    • , Pavlo Sai
    •  & Martin Mittendorff

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Methods for generating macroscopic chiral matter struggle with limited scalability. Here, the authors show two vacuum filtration methods - twist stacking and mechanical rotation - to align carbon nanotubes into chiral structures at wafer scale with tunable circular dichroism.

    • Jacques Doumani
    • , Minhan Lou
    •  & Weilu Gao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Current approaches to distinguish topological phases from topologically-trivial phases have limited general applicability. Here, in a photonic-crystal context, the authors demonstrate that in trivial structures the bulk local density of states (LDOS) extends all the way to the edges and corners, while in topological structures the bulk LDOS actually avoids the edges and corners.

    • Biye Xie
    • , Renwen Huang
    •  & Shuang Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Structured light has proven useful for numerous photonic applications. However, its current use in optical fibers is severely limited. The authors report a highly integrated metafiber platform based on 3D laser nanoprinting, capable of creating arbitrarily structured light.

    • Chenhao Li
    • , Torsten Wieduwilt
    •  & Haoran Ren

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