Optical physics articles within Nature Physics

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  • News & Views |

    When photons impinge on a material, free electrons can be created by the photoelectric effect. The emitted electron current usually fluctuates with Poisson statistics, but if squeezed quantum light is applied, the electrons bunch up.

    • Alfred Leitenstorfer
    •  & Peter Baum

  • Article |

    Photoemission experiments demonstrate that the photon number statistics of the exciting light can be imprinted on the emitted electrons, allowing the controlled generation of classical or non-classical electron number statistics of free electrons.

    • Jonas Heimerl
    • , Alexander Mikhaylov
    •  & Peter Hommelhoff

  • News & Views |

    Even by shining classical light on a single opening, one can perform a double-slit experiment and discover a surprising variety of quantum mechanical multi-photon correlations — thanks to surface plasmon polaritons and photon-number-resolving detectors.

    • Martijn Wubs

  • News & Views |

    Excitation of magnons — quanta of spin-waves — in an antiferromagnet can be used for high-speed data processing. The addition and subtraction of two such modes opens up possibilities for magnon-based information transfer in the terahertz spectral region.

    • Brijesh Singh Mehra
    •  & Dhanvir Singh Rana

  • Article |

    Mode locking, which is a common technique to produce short laser pulses, is demonstrated in a topological laser.

    • Christian R. Leefmans
    • , Midya Parto
    •  & Alireza Marandi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Combining multiparticle levitation with cavity control enables cavity-mediated interaction between levitated nanoparticles, whose strength can be tailored via optical detuning and position of the two particles.

    • Jayadev Vijayan
    • , Johannes Piotrowski
    •  & Lukas Novotny

  • Article |

    Most applications of surface plasmons are based on their near-field properties. These properties are now shown to be governed by nonclassical scattering between multiparticle plasmonic subsystems.

    • Mingyuan Hong
    • , Riley B. Dawkins
    •  & Omar S. Magaña-Loaiza

  • News & Views |

    Interacting emitters are the fundamental building blocks of quantum optics and quantum information devices. Pairs of organic molecules embedded in a crystal can become permanently strongly interacting when they are pumped with intense laser light.

    • Stuart J. Masson

  • Article |

    Inducing coherent interactions between distinct magnon modes—collective excitations of magnetic order—has been challenging. A canted antiferromagnet has demonstrated coherent magnon upconversion induced by terahertz laser pulses.

    • Zhuquan Zhang
    • , Frank Y. Gao
    •  & Keith A. Nelson

  • Article |

    It has been suggested that Gaussian boson sampling may provide a quantum computational advantage for calculating the vibronic spectra of molecules. Now, an equally efficient classical algorithm has been identified.

    • Changhun Oh
    • , Youngrong Lim
    •  & Liang Jiang

  • Article |

    Bound states in the continuum are topological states with useful symmetry protection properties. An experiment now shows how to use them to form macroscopically coherent complexes of polariton condensates.

    • Antonio Gianfrate
    • , Helgi Sigurðsson
    •  & Daniele Sanvitto

  • Article |

    Twisted structures are shown to confine and guide light without total internal reflection, using an effect analogous to the stable Lagrange points in celestial mechanics.

    • Haokun Luo
    • , Yunxuan Wei
    •  & Mercedeh Khajavikhan

  • News & Views |

    Understanding the mechanism underlying light-induced superconductivity could help manifest it at higher temperatures. Experiments now show that the excitation of a specific phonon leads to a resonant enhancement of this effect in K3C60.

    • Jingdi Zhang

  • News & Views |

    A decade ago, the anti-laser made waves as a new type of perfect absorber that functions as a one-way trap door for light. Experiments have now demonstrated the control of light without absorbing it.

    • A. Douglas Stone

  • News & Views |

    A nonlinear optical approach has now enabled picosecond control of a complex band structure, driving a non-Hermitian topological phase transition across an exceptional-point singularity.

    • Jiangbin Gong
    •  & Ching Hua Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Material characterization of liquids in extreme thermodynamic conditions is a challenging technical problem. Brillouin scattering metrology in an optical fibre design with a sealed liquid core now enables spatially resolved temperature and pressure measurements, using carbon disulfide as an example.

    • Andreas Geilen
    • , Alexandra Popp
    •  & Birgit Stiller

  • Article |

    Hole and particle-like quasiparticles of a Mott insulator can pair into excitonic bound states. Now, time-resolved measurements of Sr2IrO4 show signs of an excitonic fluid forming from a photo-excited population of quasiparticles.

    • Omar Mehio
    • , Xinwei Li
    •  & David Hsieh

  • Article |

    Phonons that carry a large magnetic moment may be helpful for creating spintronic devices. Now this phenomenon is observed in an antiferromagnet and is enhanced by the critical fluctuations associated with a phase transition.

    • Fangliang Wu
    • , Song Bao
    •  & Qi Zhang

  • News & Views |

    Time-varying photonics offers ways to manipulate light–matter interactions as never thought before. An experiment with photonic time interfaces reveals how they can enable broadband coherent control of waves.

    • Victor Pacheco-Peña

  • Article |

    Coherent control is an interference technique widely used to control dynamic wave processes. Its analogue in the time domain allows the tailored suppression, enhancement and reshaping of optical pulses, and the mimicking of collisions between them.

    • Emanuele Galiffi
    • , Gengyu Xu
    •  & Andrea Alù

  • Article |

    Achieving low decoherence is challenging in hybrid quantum systems. A superconducting-circuit-based optomechanical platform realizes millisecond-scale quantum state lifetime, which allows tracking of the free evolution of a squeezed mechanical state.

    • Amir Youssefi
    • , Shingo Kono
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • News & Views |

    Generating high harmonics or attosecond pulses of light is normally thought of as a classical process, but a theoretical study has now shown how the process could be driven by quantum light.

    • Dong Hyuk Ko
    •  & P. B. Corkum

  • Article |

    High-harmonic generation is a source of high-frequency radiation and is typically driven by strong, but classical, laser fields. A theoretical study now shows that using quantum light states as the driver extends the spectrum of outgoing radiation in a controllable manner.

    • Alexey Gorlach
    • , Matan Even Tzur
    •  & Ido Kaminer

  • News & Views |

    Measuring the transmission matrix of disordered structures has so far been limited to the domain of linear systems. Now it has been measured for nonlinear disorder, with exciting implications for information capacity.

    • Sushil Mujumdar

  • Article |

    Disordered media with their numerous scattering channels can be used as optical operators. Measurements of the scattering tensor of a second-harmonic medium extend this computing application to the nonlinear regime.

    • Jungho Moon
    • , Ye-Chan Cho
    •  & Wonshik Choi

  • News & Views |

    Multi-colour light fields allow a nonlinear coupling between free electrons and propagating light by stimulated Compton scattering, without the need for near fields to mediate the interaction.

    • Niklas Müller
    •  & Sascha Schäfer

  • News & Views |

    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

  • News & Views |

    Two studies of electrons generated from laser-triggered emitters have found highly predictable electron–electron energy correlations. These studies, at vastly different energy scales, may lead to heralded electron sources, enabling quantum free-electron optics and low-noise, low-damage electron beam lithography and microscopy.

    • John W. Simonaitis
    •  & Phillip D. Keathley

  • Article |

    Whether Anderson localization of light can be achieved in three dimensions has remained an open question. Numerical calculations now show that it is possible with a random arrangement of metallic spheres, but not with dielectric ones.

    • Alexey Yamilov
    • , Sergey E. Skipetrov
    •  & Hui Cao

  • Article |

    Although massive electrons and massless photons are known to interact, their study has so far been confined to the linear regime. Experiments showing two-photon coherent control of a free-electron matter wave now introduce non-linearities.

    • Maxim Tsarev
    • , Johannes W. Thurner
    •  & Peter Baum

  • Article |

    Some driven systems sustain non-equilibrium phases in which phase transitions occur without symmetry breaking. The use of a laser-cooled atomic cloud confined in a pencil beam now allows the demonstration of such a system.

    • Giovanni Ferioli
    • , Antoine Glicenstein
    •  & Antoine Browaeys

  • News & Views |

    Imposing PT-symmetry and pseudo-Hermitian symmetry on an electric circuit with non-reciprocal couplings results in a complex morphology of degenerate eigenvalues that might yield new possibilities in sensing and dynamical engineering.

    • Savannah Garmon

  • Article |

    Engineering the frequency spectrum of systems of multiple quantum emitters is the key for many quantum technologies. A cavity quantum electrodynamics experiment now demonstrates the real-time frequency modulation of cavity-protected polaritons.

    • Mohamed Baghdad
    • , Pierre-Antoine Bourdel
    •  & Romain Long

  • Article |

    Normally, quantum operations are thought of as being applied in a particular order, but it is possible to create superpositions of different orders. An experiment now demonstrates this indefinite causal order may give an advantage for quantum sensing.

    • Peng Yin
    • , Xiaobin Zhao
    •  & Guang-Can Guo

  • Research Briefing |

    Time crystals are a new state of matter. Conventional crystal properties are periodic in space, while the properties of a time crystal are periodic in time. A continuous quantum time crystal has recently been realized, and now, using optically driven many-body interactions in a nano-mechanical photonic metamaterial, a classical continuous time crystal has been created.

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