News & Views

Ultrashort laser light–matter interactions can create unique virtual quantum states. Researchers have now revealed this phenomenon in solution-grown semiconductor nanoplatelets using visible light.

Two independent demonstrations of room-temperature Bose–Einstein condensation of light in semiconductor optical microcavities with embedded quantum wells may pave the way for harnessing the effect for practical applications, such as high-power, single-mode emission from large-aperture devices.

Optical nanoantenna field enhancement is hampered by material- and size-dependent losses. Researchers have now made an atomic antenna using the controlled formation of an isolated germanium vacancy colour centre in diamond, which enables giant near-field optical enhancement and which can detect and control nearby charges and induce energy transfer.

Three-dimensional, label-free optical images of a complex volumetric sample can now be obtained at a 1-Hz volumetric frame rate, thanks to the use of ultrafast camera measurements and sparse representation of the sample optical response.

Silicon photonic circuits offer a promising solution for the interconnect bottleneck for advanced computing systems, but they typically require additional materials, such as germanium for photodetection. An all-silicon receiver capable of handling a data stream at 1.28 terabits per second is paving the way for future optical interconnects.

The nonlinear optical response of achiral molecules spread on chiral nanostructured substrates and subjected to circularly polarized light is examined. The experiment is a step towards confirming a long-standing theoretical prediction: hyper-Raman optical activity.

Short-wave infrared photothermal microscopy enables deep-tissue vibrational imaging at millimetre depth with high sensitivity and sub-cellular spatial resolution, offering potential for applications in biological and medical fields.

Terahertz waveforms can now be measured with atomic-scale spatial resolution as a result of a new form of terahertz time-domain spectroscopy that uses tunnelling electrons as an ultrafast, localized probe. The approach paves the way for ultrafast optical surface analysis at the scale of individual molecules or atoms.

Precise control over doping levels and displacement fields enables the observation of a notable blueshift in the Fermi polaron resonance in trilayer tungsten diselenide. This result highlights the promise of two-dimensional materials for advanced nonlinear optical applications with high tunability.

A plasmonic platform and a dual gate are integrated in a single-photon emitter made of two-dimensional materials. The combination enables engineered radiative and nonradiative decays, leading to a device quantum efficiency of up to 90%.

By exploiting nonlinear feedback arising from the interaction of ultrafast laser pulses, self-organized nanolines that appear to defy the limits of diffraction are shown to cut, dice, and structure optical materials, fabricating true zero-order sapphire waveplates and crystalline micro-prisms.

Real-time electron dynamics studies of complex systems require bright attosecond pump-probe capabilities at X-ray wavelengths. Nano-focusing schemes reaching intensities in excess of 10²² W cm^–2 and superradiant cascaded amplification of attosecond pulses to TW powers at free-electron lasers are providing transformative capabilities in this burgeoning field.

The electrochemical triggering of fluorophores in dSTORM enables one to actively control their switching behaviours, resulting in improved spatial resolution and precise molecular counting down to the single molecule level in emitter-dense areas.

A high-dimensional photodetection system that combines a lens and a thin-film interface enables simultaneous measurements of light spectrum and polarization states, with the aid of a deep neural network.