Features

The field of photovoltaics has grown tremendously over the past decade and in 2015 solar cell deployments accounted for 20% of the expansion of global electricity capacity.

Optical communication systems have traditionally sent the most information possible through a few spatial channels to minimize cost and maximize density. Energy constraints now compel systems at the longest and shortest distances to employ a new strategy of using more spatial channels, each carrying less data.

From displays to solar cells, the field of organic optoelectronics has come a long way over the past 50 years, but the realization of an electrically pumped organic laser remains elusive. The answer may lie with hybrid organic–inorganic materials called perovskites.

The development of free-electron lasers with improved brilliance, diffraction-limited synchrotrons and compact table-top sources all point to a healthy future for X-ray science.

In the future, sources of intense terahertz radiation will open up an era of extreme terahertz science featuring nonlinear light–matter interactions and applications in spectroscopy and imaging.

A new set of imaging techniques that take advantage of scattered light may soon lead to key advances in biomedical optics, providing access to depths well beyond what is currently possible with ballistic light.

Quantum optics is a well-established field that spans from fundamental physics to quantum information science. In the coming decade, areas including computation, communication and metrology are all likely to experience scientific and technological advances supported by this far-reaching research field.

Worldwide research efforts on plasmonics and metamaterials have been growing exponentially for the past ten years. Will this course hold true over the next decade?