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Metamaterials are man-made structures that allow optical properties to be shaped on length scales far smaller than the wavelength of light. Although metamaterials were initially considered mainly for static applications, this Review summarizes efforts towards an active functionality that enables a much broader range of photonic device applications.
When water binds to solid surfaces it forms a large variety of structures, which leads to behaviour relevant to many technological processes and phenomena such as lubrication, heterogeneous catalysis and electrochemistry. This Review discusses current understanding of the interface between water and flat metal surfaces at the atomic and molecular levels, as well as open questions in this field.
Metamaterials have a tremendous potential for applications from biophotonics to optical circuits, although progress has been hampered by intrinsic metal losses. This Review discusses the progress in countering such losses through the use of gain media to realize devices such as nanoplasmonic lasers or improved metamaterials for imaging and nonlinear optical applications.
The spin Hall effect is a relativistic spin–orbit coupling phenomenon, which can be used to electrically generate or detect spin currents in non-magnetic systems. This Review discusses the experiments that have established the basic physical understanding of the effect, and the role that several of the spin Hall devices have had in the demonstration of spintronic functionalities and physical phenomena.
Control of the electron spin as well as its charge is predicted to lead to efficient electronic devices, with potentially new functionalities. Injecting and manipulating spin-polarized carriers in silicon is a natural step towards integrating spintronics with current technology. This Review describes the first encouraging results as well as the open questions and challenges that still remain.
Spin caloritronics focuses on the interaction of electron spins with heat currents. This Review describes newly discovered physical effects that have re-invigorated the field by stimulating further research into understanding the fundamentals of spin–phonon interactions, and providing new avenues to explore to improve current thermoelectric technology.
Spin-transfer torque is the rotation that a spin-polarized current induces on the magnetization of the solid it flows through. The way in which currents generate torques in a wide variety of magnetic materials and structures is discussed in this Review, as well as recent state-of-the-art demonstrations of current-induced-torque devices that show great promise for enhancing the functionality of semiconductor devices.
From magnetism, ferroelectricity and superconductivity to electrical and thermal properties, oxides show a broad range of phenomena of fundamental as well as practical relevance. Reviewed here are the emergent phenomena arising at the interface between oxide materials, which have attracted considerable interest based on advances in thin-film deposition techniques.
