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Quantum optics has come a long way since its birth at the beginning of the 1900s. Nature Photonics spoke to Anton Zeilinger to gain some perspective on its progress.
Photonics currently lacks a way of amplifying terahertz pulses in time-domain spectroscopy. Nathan Jukam from the École Nomale Supérieure in France spoke to Nature Photonics about how his group has achieved a semiconductor-based terahertz amplifier that gives a greatly improved amplification factor.
Although the machine vision industry is being affected by the global recession, Mats Gökstorp, president of the European Machine Vision Association, explains to Nadya Anscombe why he is optimistic about the industry's future.
The discovery that the eye of a particular mantis shrimp has an achromatic quarter-waveplate that is superior to modern-day devices could be a source of inspiration to those designing optical components. Nature Photonics spoke to Nicholas Roberts, one of the researchers involved in the study.
Until now, excitonic devices have only been realized at temperatures of 1.5 K. Nature Photonics spoke to Leonid Butov from the University of California in San Diego about his group's recent demonstration of excitonic switches operating at 125 K.
Illumination of a congruent lithium niobate crystal with blue or green light can improve its optical damage threshold dramatically. Nature Photonics spoke to Karsten Buse, who explained that this could result in far cheaper nonlinear crystals for a wide variety of photonic applications.
The organic photonics industry has come of age in the past few years. Nadya Anscombe speaks to Marc Baldo from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, about the advances that have been made and the challenges that remain.
Hong Tang from Yale University spoke to Nature Photonics about how attractive and repulsive optical forces in nanophotonic waveguides could help advance integrated photonics and optomechanical systems.
Nature Photonics spoke to Carl Brown from Nottingham Trent University about the creation of a voltage-programmable liquid-oil surface that can rapidly switch and deflect light beams.
Light is often thought to reflect from a flat surface at the same angle at which it is incident. Nature Photonics spoke to Han Woerdman about the observation of angular deviations of reflected beams.
Swiss company Synova is commercializing an innovative materials processing technique that uses a water-guided laser beam to allow 'cold laser cutting'. Nadya Anscombe talks to the company's chief technical advisor, Alexandre Pauchard, to find out more.
A prototype display technology that electromechanically transports colourful aqueous dispersed pigments over the surface of mirror-like pixels is a promising new approach to making electronic paper with high reflectivity and contrast. Nature Photonics spoke to Jason Heikenfeld to learn more.
Magnetic hard disk technology is approaching its limits. Nature Photonics spoke to William Challener, Ed Gage and Mark Re from Seagate about their demonstration of heat-assisted magnetic recording.
Powerful lightning strikes pose a significant threat to buildings and people, but imagine if it were possible to control and direct them with a laser beam. Nature Photonics spoke to Jérôme Kasparian, a researcher from the University of Geneva and co-ordinator of the Teramobile project, about the idea.
It has now been shown that twisting the orientation of layers in a metamaterial provides a new way of tailoring their electromagnetic properties. Nature Photonics spoke to Harald Giessen and Na Liu from the University of Stuttgart about the idea.
Nature Photonics spoke to Zongfu Yu and Shanhui Fan from Stanford University about their proposed 'one-way valve for light' that suits integration on a photonic silicon chip.
The demonstration in this issue that strong magnetic confinement of electrons can dramatically increase the operating temperature of terahertz quantum cascade lasers is good news for the dream of reaching room temperature. Nature Photonics spoke with Qing Hu about the result and the future prospects.
The European Commission has identified photonics as a key technology for the future health of European industry. Nature Photonics spoke to Gustav Kalbe, Head of Sector at the Photonics Unit, about how he and his colleagues are influencing photonics research.
