Optics and photonics articles within Nature Photonics

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  • Article |

    When near-infrared femtosecond laser pulses are focused onto a metal wire, relativistic electron acceleration is observed in the attached waveguide. An electron energy gain of 1.1 MeV and an effective acceleration gradient up to 210 MV m−1 are achieved using the laser-induced terahertz surface waves.

    • Xie-Qiu Yu
    • , Yu-Shan Zeng
    •  & Ru-Xin Li

  • News & Views |

    Dynamic control of incoherent light sources at ultrafast timescales is tremendously challenging. Now, a technique using a spatially structured optical pump and semiconductor metasurfaces has been developed that dynamically steers sub-picosecond pulses of ultrafast incoherent emission.

    • Angela Demetriadou

  • News & Views |

    The performance of infrared photodiodes designed with narrow-bandgap semiconductors is limited by inherent noise and the need for a low-temperature operation to mitigate it, while they also face a speed–efficiency trade-off.

    • M. Saif Islam

  • News & Views |

    Ultrathin Ti3C2Tx MXene films can approach the intrinsic thin-film absorption limit across the entire 0.5–10 THz band.

    • Ji Liu
    •  & Valeria Nicolosi

  • Article |

    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
    | Open Access

    Spatial-frequency tracking adaptive beacon light-field encoded endoscopy enables imaging through a single multimode fibre under bending and twisting. In vivo imaging with subcellular resolution is demonstrated in mice models.

    • Zhong Wen
    • , Zhenyu Dong
    •  & Qing Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Researchers design and demonstrate a scalable yet compact chip-based link architecture that may enable terabit-scale optical interconnects for hyperscale data centres.

    • Anthony Rizzo
    • , Asher Novick
    •  & Keren Bergman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic radar is exploited for non-contact vital sign detection with a demonstration on a cane toad with a view to application in humans. Optical signals generated from the system are also explored for LiDAR-based vital sign detection, which may yield improved accuracy and system robustness.

    • Ziqian Zhang
    • , Yang Liu
    •  & Benjamin J. Eggleton

  • Article |

    Two-photon excitation with mid- and near-infrared pulses encodes bond selectivity in fluorescence imaging. Single-molecule imaging and spectroscopy is demonstrated on individual fluorophores as well as various labelled biological targets.

    • Haomin Wang
    • , Dongkwan Lee
    •  & Lu Wei

  • Article |

    A special-purpose quantum simulator, based on a coherently controlled broadband quantum frequency comb produced in a chip-scale dynamically modulated monolithic lithium niobate microresonator, is demonstrated, opening paths for chip-scale implementation of large-scale analogue quantum simulation and computation in the time–frequency domain.

    • Usman A. Javid
    • , Raymond Lopez-Rios
    •  & Qiang Lin

  • Article |

    Large perovskite nanocrystals are synthesized to increase the cryogenic exciton radiative rate. At liquid helium temperatures, single photons from perovskite nanocrystals coalesce at a beam splitter, signalling the existence of indistinguishable photon emission.

    • Alexander E. K. Kaplan
    • , Chantalle J. Krajewska
    •  & Moungi G. Bawendi

  • Article |

    An optoelectronic synapse is realized by incorporating a photoactive layer in an organic electrochemical transistor. Writing and erasing multiple conductance states allow optical signals to be recognized and the learning process of the human brain to be mimicked.

    • Ke Chen
    • , Hang Hu
    •  & Jianguo Mei

  • Article |

    An integrated electro-optic isolator on thin-film lithium niobate enables non-reciprocal isolation by microwave-driven travelling-wave phase modulation. The isolator exhibits a maximum optical isolation of 48.0 dB at around 1,553 nm and an on-chip insertion loss of 0.5 dB.

    • Mengjie Yu
    • , Rebecca Cheng
    •  & Marko Lončar

  • News & Views |

    Two papers in Science demonstrate tracking of the stepping motion of the kinesin motor protein with nanometric spatial precision and sub-millisecond temporal resolution by using MINFLUX, a highly photon-efficient single-molecule localization technique.

    • Fernando D. Stefani

  • Article |

    A deterministic single-photon two-qubit SWAP gate between polarization and spatial-momentum is demonstrated on a silicon chip. A two-qubit swapping process fidelity of 94.9% is obtained. The coherence preservation of the SWAP gate process is verified by two-photon interference.

    • Xiang Cheng
    • , Kai-Chi Chang
    •  & Chee Wei Wong

  • Article |

    A common belief about boson bunching—fully indistinguishable bosons exhibit the utmost bunching—is theoretically disproved with seven photons of distinct polarization in a seven-mode interferometric process. Enhanced bunching could thus be observed with partially distinguishable photons.

    • Benoit Seron
    • , Leonardo Novo
    •  & Nicolas J. Cerf

  • News & Views |

    The sensitivity and bandwidth of force measurements are improved by simultaneously probing the motion of two independent mechanical sensors with entangled light.

    • Giovanni Di Giuseppe
    •  & David Vitali

  • Article |

    Strong-field approximation theory is extended to account for non-classical driving light. This extended theory predicts that ultrafast dynamics of strongly light-driven matter significantly depends on the quantum state of the driving light, particularly on its photon statistics.

    • Matan Even Tzur
    • , Michael Birk
    •  & Oren Cohen

  • Article |

    By tuning the spatial width, the strength and the frequency of a pump beam in two-dimensional cylindrical microcavities supporting stable, robust photonic snake states, a set of broadband and perfectly synchronized two-dimensional frequency combs can be realized.

    • Salim B. Ivars
    • , Yaroslav V. Kartashov
    •  & Carles Milián

  • Review Article |

    Optical analogues of electronic memristors are desirable for applications including photonic artificial intelligence and computing platforms. Here, recent progress on integrated optical memristors is reviewed.

    • Nathan Youngblood
    • , Carlos A. Ríos Ocampo
    •  & Harish Bhaskaran

  • Article |

    To bridge the ultrafast and slow classes of quantum-information-processing systems, a Fresnel time lens is developed by using a wideband electro-optic phase modulator combined with a dispersion element. The single-photon spectral bandwidth is compressed from picosecond to nanosecond timescales.

    • Filip Sośnicki
    • , Michał Mikołajczyk
    •  & Michał Karpiński

  • Article |

    Propagators of single photons based on directly measuring quantum wave functions are experimentally observed. Classical trajectories that satisfy the principle of least action are successfully extracted in the case of free space and harmonic potential.

    • Yong-Li Wen
    • , Yunfei Wang
    •  & Shi-Liang Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Detection of gas radionuclides is limited in sensitivity with present methods, but may be useful in energy, security, medical and other sectors. In this work, gas-concentrating porous scintillating metal–organic frameworks are demonstrated for gas radionuclide detection.

    • Matteo Orfano
    • , Jacopo Perego
    •  & Angelo Monguzzi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    We demonstrate an avalanche photodiode design using photon-trapping structures to enhance the quantum efficiency and minimizing the absorber thickness, yielding high quantum efficiency, suppressed dark current density and bandwidth of ~7 GHz.

    • Dekang Chen
    • , Stephen D. March
    •  & Joe C. Campbell

  • News & Views |

    Topological photonics has promised new devices that are resistant to backscattering, leading to lower loss, greater nonlinearity, and smaller footprint. New research shows that in reciprocal photonic crystals, backscattering is unavoidable, implying that breaking reciprocity is essential to leveraging photonic Chern insulators.

    • Mikael C. Rechtsman

  • News & Views |

    The study of a light‒matter fluid of exciton–polaritons confirms the role of an inverse energy cascade in two-dimensional quantum turbulence.

    • Fabrice P. Laussy

  • News & Views |

    Exceptionally high secret key generation rates of 64 Mbits–1 and 115.8 Mbits–1 over a 10 km optical fibre link have been achieved, thanks to custom-built 14-pixel and 16-pixel superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors, respectively, and the use of fast quantum key distribution transmitters.

    • Davide Bacco
    •  & Maja Colautti

  • Article |

    Spatial light modulator-based lithography-free programmable light transmission through optical gain medium is demonstrated for optical switching and a rudimentary photonic neural network.

    • Tianwei Wu
    • , Marco Menarini
    •  & Liang Feng

  • Article |

    Researchers engineer double-tapered optical-fibre arrays and use perovskite nanocrystal substrates for X-ray imaging with a three orders of magnitude output gain and spatial resolution of 22 lp mm−1. Arrayed gamma-ray imaging is also demonstrated using a nanocrystal scintillator film.

    • Luying Yi
    • , Bo Hou
    •  & Xiaogang Liu

  • News & Views |

    Multiple scattering from birefringent nanospheres confers brilliant whiteness to parts of the Pacific cleaner shrimp, inspiring new ways to achieve broadband reflection with thin layers of material.

    • Diederik S. Wiersma

  • Article |

    Joint force measurements with entangled optical probes on two optomechanical sensors are demonstrated. The force sensitivity is improved by 40% in the shot-noise-dominant regime. The sensing bandwidth is improved by 20% in the thermal noise limit.

    • Yi Xia
    • , Aman R. Agrawal
    •  & Zheshen Zhang

  • Article |

    A passively mode-locked quantum cascade laser (QCL) is developed by employing a heterogeneous gain medium and integrating graphene saturable absorbers along the entire QCL waveguide. Self-starting optical pulses of 4.0 ps are electrically generated in the 2.30–3.55 THz frequency range.

    • Elisa Riccardi
    • , Valentino Pistore
    •  & Miriam S. Vitiello

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An electrically driven on-chip light source of entangled photon pairs is developed by combining an InP gain section and Si3N4 microrings. A pair generation rate of 8,200 counts s−1 and a coincidence-to-accidental ratio of more than 80 are achieved around the wavelength of 1,550 nm.

    • Hatam Mahmudlu
    • , Robert Johanning
    •  & Michael Kues

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This work investigates the real-world value of topological protection in reciprocal photonics. Measurements of propagation losses in the slow-light regime of valley-Hall topological waveguides yield no indications of topological protection against backscattering on structural defects.

    • Christian Anker Rosiek
    • , Guillermo Arregui
    •  & Søren Stobbe

  • Article |

    An entanglement filter based on Rydberg atoms is demonstrated. It transmits a desired photonic entangled state and blocks unwanted ones. Near-perfect photonic entanglement can be extracted from a noisy input with arbitrarily low initial fidelity.

    • Gen-Sheng Ye
    • , Biao Xu
    •  & Lin Li

  • Article |

    Non-Gaussian Wigner-negative freely propagating optical quantum states are deterministically generated with a 60% photon generation efficiency. An evolution from quadrature squeezing to Wigner negativity is observed by changing the qubit rotation angle.

    • Valentin Magro
    • , Julien Vaneecloo
    •  & Alexei Ourjoumtsev

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A graph-theoretical programmable quantum photonic device composed of about 2,500 components is fabricated on a silicon substrate within a 12 mm × 15 mm footprint. It shows the generation, manipulation and certification of genuine multiphoton multidimensional entanglement, as well as the implementations of scattershot and Gaussian boson sampling.

    • Jueming Bao
    • , Zhaorong Fu
    •  & Jianwei Wang

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