News & Comment

Seeing in colour is something we take for granted. But achieving accurate colour discrimination in practice is not a simple task. Nature Photonics spoke to Thomas Ebbesen about his group's latest work, which makes it possible to sort light into its constituent colours using surface plasmons.

Conventional solar cells lose most of the Sun's energy as heat. Nature Photonics spoke to Tom Gregorkiewicz at the University of Amsterdam about his group's latest work, which may lead to cheap and efficient silicon solar cells by harnessing some of the lost energy.

Many of the advances in fibre-laser technology are thanks to work by Andreas Tünnermann, now head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering in Jena, Germany. Nadya Anscombe spoke to him about developments in the area and his views on its future.

The ability of living organisms to generate light by bioluminescence is a fascinating phenomenon. Nature Photonics spoke to Yoriko Ando from the University of Tokyo about her recent quantitative analysis of the effect in fireflies.

Whatever format future quantum information systems take, they are likely to involve single photons in some way. Nature Photonics spoke to Stefan Strauf at the Stevens Institute of Technology about getting the most out of quantum dots.

The miniaturization of laser-based atomic magnetometers could be used in neuroscience to investigate the inner workings of the brain. Nature Photonics spoke to John Kitching at the National Institute of Standards and Technology about the latest developments.

For the past 20 years, Takeharu Etoh from Kinki University, Japan, has been developing high-speed video imaging systems. Adarsh Sandhu spoke to him about his latest creation, the one-million-frame-per-second In-Situ Storage Image Sensor camera.

Analysing the spectral and temporal performance of lasers operating in the mid- and far-infrared is challenging. Now, electro–optic sampling appears to be a convenient solution. Nature Photonics spoke to Klaus Reimann from the Max-Born-Institut in Berlin about the technique.

An elegant technique that provides molecular imaging with simultaneous anatomical co-registration of internal organs has now been demonstrated on a mouse. Nature Photonics spoke to Elizabeth Hillman about her dynamic fluorescence molecular imaging technique.

Thanks to innovations in wireless, LED and CCD sensor technology, it is now possible to make a camera pill for patients to swallow. Adarsh Sandhu spoke to Olympus Medical Systems about their latest developments in endoscopy.

Over 40 years ago, a device known as a mirrorless optical parametric oscillator was proposed. Only now has it been demonstrated in the lab. Nature Photonics talked to Carlota Canalias and Valdas Pasiskevicius of KTH, The Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, to find out how.

Fujitsu of Japan has created a new venture company called QD Laser to bring commercial quantum-dot lasers and amplifiers to the market as rapidly as possible. Adarsh Sandhu spoke to its chief executive officer about the firm's plans.

Terahertz sources are already hitting the market as parts of imaging systems. Nature Photonics spoke to Carlo Sirtori from the University of Paris-Diderot and Thales Research and Technology about the implications of merging terahertz and telecommunication technologies.

Free-electron lasers offer an alternative approach to creating short pulses of high-intensity light. Nature Photonics spoke to Mikhail Yurkov about pushing the wavelength of these machines towards the X-ray range.

Could laser televisions be the next big market opportunity for semiconductor lasers? Nature Photonics spoke to Jean-Michel Pelaprat, the chief executive officer of Novalux, a Californian company investigating the idea, to find out.

Microphotonic devices are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Nature Photonics spoke to Michal Lipson from Cornell University about her team's recent success in adding a new type of wavelength converter to the silicon-photonics toolbox.

People have been trying to get silicon to lase since the first semiconductor laser in the 1960s. Thanks to recent breakthroughs, silicon lasers are finally beginning to take flight. Amber Jenkins spoke to Haisheng Rong, Victor Krutul and Manny Vara at Intel to find out more.

Fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technology, which provides a high-speed optical-data link directly into the house or apartment, is now becoming very popular in Japan and Korea. Adarsh Sandhu spoke to the FTTH Council Asia Pacific about the status of the technology in the region.

Unwanted reflections can severely limit the performance of optical components. David Gevaux spoke to Fred Schubert from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute about how his nanomaterials with a refractive index almost equal to that of air can help.

Why is General Electric Global Research so interested in the optical properties of butterfly wings? Rachel Won spoke to Radislav Potyrailo about the recent findings of his team that the wing's nanostructures act as a high-performance optical sensor for detecting vapours.