Interview

New research suggests that graphene is not a 'miracle material' for metamaterials and plasmonics. Nature Photonics spoke to Philippe Tassin about what makes a good conductor for these applications.

The application of catastrophe theory to high-harmonic generation is creating opportunities for optimizing the spectral intensity of extreme-ultraviolet light and characterizing attosecond pulses, explains Oren Raz from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Suntech Power is the world's largest producer of solar panels and has delivered more than 20 million photovoltaic panels to more than 80 countries around the globe. Nature Photonics spoke with Stuart Wenham, chief technology officer at Suntech Power, to find out more about its activities and visions.

A semiconductor is usually opaque to any light whose photon energy is larger than the semiconductor bandgap. Nature Photonics spoke to Stephen Durbin about how to render GaAs semiconductor crystals transparent using intense X-ray pulses.

Laser-driven spinning particles can be used to control the direction of nerve fibre growth. Michael Berns from the University of California at Irvine explains this control mechanism and its potential applications.

The combination of microwave photonics and optics has advanced many applications in defence, wireless communications, imaging and network infrastructure. Rachel Won talks to Jianping Yao from the University of Ottawa in Canada about the importance of this growing field.

The successful growth of GaN-based LEDs on amorphous glass avoids the size and cost limitations of a sapphire substrate, says Jun Hee Choi from the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology in South Korea.

Luminescent solar concentrators have long been hampered by reabsorption losses. Nature Photonics spoke to Noel Giebink about how to circumvent this effect.

Optofluidics brings together light and liquids to provide technologies such as fluid waveguides, deformable lenses and microdroplet lasers. Nature Photonics spoke to Frances Ligler about the origins of the field and where it might be heading.

Achieving dynamic optical control of exciton polariton quantum flow could provide a deeper understanding of quantum behaviour and inspire new types of device, says Daniele Sanvitto from the Istituto Nanoscienze in Italy.

Optically pulling a particle towards a light source may be counterintuitive, but it is not impossible. Jack Ng tells Nature Photonics how this force can be achieved.

Chalcogenide glasses are attracting significant attention thanks to their mid-infrared transparency and highly nonlinear properties. Nadya Anscombe talks to Dan Hewak from the University of Southampton in the UK.

The use of intense ultrafast terahertz pulses to gate superconductivity not only provides insights into charge transport in such materials but may also lead to new forms of data switching, explains Andrea Cavalleri.

Researchers have now shown that lasers — usually thought of as being inanimate optoelectronic instruments — can also be made from certain biological gain media. Nature Photonics spoke to Malte C. Gather and Seok Hyun Yun about their realization of a living single-cell laser.

Since the first discovery of optical gradient and scattering forces in 1970, optical tweezers have helped unveil many mysteries and given deeper insights in many areas of science. Arthur Ashkin, the father of optical tweezers, recalls some 'eureka' moments and shares his viewpoint of the field with Nature Photonics.

Researchers in Europe have demonstrated that an optical fast Fourier transformation technique can be used to efficiently encode and decode information at rates of terabits per second in a single laser source.

Nadya Anscombe talks to Stephen Eglash of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University in the USA about his vision for the green photonics sector.

Andrei Faraon from Hewlett-Packard describes how he and his colleagues achieved an eightfold enhancement to the zero-phonon emission from single nitrogen–vacancy centres in diamond.

Single photons emitted from a quantum dot can be slowed down using a hybrid semiconductor–atomic interface. Nika Akopian from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands explained to Nature Photonics how this non-classical light storage system works.

Frequency combs generated by femtosecond lasers are powerful tools for high-precision optical spectroscopy and metrology. Theodor Hänsch, who received part of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2005 for his work in this field, spoke to Nature Photonics about how frequency combs have changed science.