Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Modelling shows how plasma density gradients can be tailored to compress optical pulses in the final stages of laser systems towards exawatt (1018 W) peak powers.
A large-angle twist between two bilayer graphene films makes a sensitive and broadband infrared–terahertz detector as a result of interlayer screening and a crystal field-induced bandgap.
Bias-free optical metasurfaces with a large non-reciprocal response for free-space radiation are discussed, based on thermo-optic nonlinearities. These ultrathin devices may lead to new approaches for areas ranging from signal processing to protection of high-power laser cavities.
Wavelength-scale, low-threshold, vortex and anti-vortex nanolasers with topological charges in an optical cavity that is formed by a topological disclination are demonstrated, paving a way towards the development of ultra-small light sources with quantized vector vortex states attractive for optical communication systems.
Programmable photonic arrays with <10 fW (per unit) standby power consumption, <40 pJ (per unit) reconfiguration energy and <11 V programming voltages are demonstrated.
Self-configuring meshes of integrated Mach–Zehnder interferometers determine the optimal communication channels through unknown optical media, with the resulting modes showing crosstalk below –30 dB.
An electrically tunable device that can work as an optical switch, an optical limiter with a tunable limiting threshold and a nonlinear optical isolator with a tunable operating range in the mid-infrared range is realized by combining a gold layer with subwavelength square slits and a layer of VO2.
This Review covers a comparison between various label-free biomedical imaging techniques, their advantages over label-based methods and relevant applications.
Researchers demonstrate nonlinear wavelength converters whose output wavelengths are controlled with high accuracy by bandgap-protected wavenumber selectivity. Output frequencies are continuously tuned by nearly 300 GHz without compromising efficiency.
Photonic processors are promising candidates for solving tough mathematical problems. Nature Photonics asked Yoshihisa Yamamoto, director of the Physics and Informatics Laboratories at NTT Research in USA, about the progress that is being made in realizing coherent Ising machines (CIMs).
By implanting 117Sn, a fibre-packaged nanophotonic diamond waveguide with optically addressable hyperfine transitions separated by 452 MHz is demonstrated. This enables the formation of a spin-gated optical switch and achieving a waveguide-to-fibre extraction efficiency of 57%.
Researchers propose a laser pulse compression method for exawatt to zettawatt lasers based on spatially varying dispersion of an inhomogeneous plasma. This may enable, for example, pulse compression of a laser pulse from 2.35 ps to 10.3 fs. The approach is robust at high intensities.
Three-dimensional nonlinear optical metamaterials are realized by directly engineering the symmetries of electronic wavefunctions at the atomic scale by stacking individual two-dimensional van der Waals interfaces into a precisely designed three-dimensional configuration.
Vladimir Zakharov was a man of a strong passion and grand intellect, who was equally and deservedly proud of both his scientific achievements and his poetry.
We posit that inconsistent interpretations of experimental data have led to inaccurate claims on metalens focusing efficiencies. By performing a meta-analysis, we show that extraordinary claims of high focusing efficiency at high numerical apertures are, unfortunately, not yet backed by rigorous simulation or experimental results.
A scheme for fast, comprehensive characterization of high-dimensional quantum states could aid quantum applications in imaging and information processing.
