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Perhaps one of the most obvious and widespread applications of photonics is imaging, the topic of this Technology Focus. For instance, many living creatures, ourselves included, rely on visible light and their sense of vision to navigate and find food. However, applications of imaging extend beyond the visible regime, especially for scientific and industrial purposes.
The sun is setting on fossil fuels. With the dawn of a new, clean-energy era comes new responsibilities, challenges and opportunities. Those in the photonics community will certainly help to forge the path we take in the coming years.
For the past 20 years, Takeharu Etoh from Kinki University, Japan, has been developing high-speed video imaging systems. Adarsh Sandhu spoke to him about his latest creation, the one-million-frame-per-second In-Situ Storage Image Sensor camera.
The miniaturization of laser-based atomic magnetometers could be used in neuroscience to investigate the inner workings of the brain. Nature Photonics spoke to John Kitching at the National Institute of Standards and Technology about the latest developments.
Sophisticated imaging technology will be important for the European Space Agency's Cosmic Vision programme, which aims to answer fundamental questions about the Universe and its origins.
Solitons in optical fibres are important in the generation of supercontinuum light. An understanding of the diverse physics that is involved when intense optical pulses propagate along nonlinear fibres will enable the engineering of broad-wavelength sources for a wide range of applications.
A design of laser-pumped magnetometer that combines the properties of alkali metal atoms with fabrication technology from the semiconductor industry could help realize tiny mass-producible devices with high sensitivity and low power consumption.
Researchers in London have produced a scalable microphotonic chip that can optically detect and address individual atoms. The end result could be atom–photon chips capable of complex, system-level functionality.
When tiny optical cavities are coupled together on the nanoscale, optical forces can dominate. A new proposal from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provides a way of harnessing these forces, leading to microcavities that can mechanically adapt their geometry.
Microscopic algae and low-cost forms of solar cell could have more in common than meets the eye. Both could prove important in the quest to produce cleaner, greener fuels.
A biotechnology boom in India is attracting the interest of manufacturers of imaging equipment who now recognize the country as an important emerging market.
Photolithography at a wavelength of 193 nm in the deep UV with water immersion lenses can now produce microelectronics containing features with a half-pitch as small as 40 nm. The big question is how much further can the technology be pushed?
High-performance thermal imaging technology typically involves using cryogenically cooled devices. In the future, detectors based on arrays of tiny optical resonators could lead to sensitive, rapid, thermal imaging at room temperature.
