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  • Fengnian Xia from Yale University shares his opinions with Nature Photonics on the status of research into 2D materials and their prospects for commercial applications.

    • Rachel Won
    Interview
  • Nature Photonics spoke to Allen Taflove, father of the finite-difference time-domain technique, about the birth of Maxwell's equations and their impact on the world after 150 years.

    • David Pile
    Interview
  • Nature Photonics spoke to Pierre Berini — pioneer of plasmon waveguides — to get some perspective on how nanophotonics has evolved over the past decade and where it is heading.

    • David Pile
    Interview
  • Arno Rauschenbeutel explains to Nature Photonics how atoms help induce a nonlinear π phase shift at the single photon level.

    • Maria Maragkou
    Interview
  • Ilya Akimov talks to Nature Photonics about employing trions in semiconductor quantum wells to store optical information.

    • Maria Maragkou
    Interview
  • Ori Katz and Sylvain Gigan explain to Nature Photonics how a well-known astronomy technique has been adapted for imaging through turbid media, with great potential for bio-imaging applications.

    • Maria Maragkou
    Interview
  • A burst-mode camera developed in Japan called STAMP with a femtosecond frame rate could become a powerful tool for studying ultrafast dynamics. Nature Photonics asked Keiichi Nakagawa about the technique.

    • Noriaki Horiuchi
    Interview
  • Etienne Brasselet explains to Nature Photonics that light can exert a counter-intuitive torque on matter.

    • David Pile
    Interview
  • Scientists have transferred coherence from a near-infrared frequency comb laser to the extreme-ultraviolet region with no detectable noise. Jun Ye and co-workers explain that this might impact fields from fundamental physics to nuclear clocks.

    • David Pile
    Interview
  • Oliver Pike explains to Nature Photonics that the so far elusive electron–positron pair production from light may now be possible using existing technology.

    • David Pile
    Interview
  • By injecting high-energy charge carriers (dubbed 'hot holes') into a semiconductor, scientists have succeeded in realizing photodetectors capable of detecting ultralong wavelengths. Unil Perera from Georgia State University in the USA explains how the devices work and how they can be improved.

    • Oliver Graydon
    Interview
  • A hollow-core optical fibre filled with warm caesium atoms can temporarily store the properties of photons. Michael Sprague from the University of Oxford, UK, explains to Nature Photonics how this optical memory could be a useful building block for fibre-based quantum optics.

    • Oliver Graydon
    Interview
  • Spectral purity can now be transferred from one laser to another with a very different wavelength at an order of magnitude better than previously achievable. Yann Le Coq spoke to Nature Photonics about the new development.

    • David Pile
    Interview
  • On-chip quantum interference between integrated photon sources has now become a reality. Mark Thompson spoke to Nature Photonics about the realization of and future outlook for integrated quantum optics.

    • David Pile
    Interview
  • Michele Svandrlik and Fulvio Parmigiani, respectively Project Director and Head of Science at FERMI, talk to Nature Photonics about building the first fully coherent seeded free-electron laser that outputs soft X-rays.

    • David Pile
    Interview
  • Researchers realized a magnet that can optically switch the polarization plane of light by 90 degrees. Nature Photonics asked Shin-ichi Ohkoshi how his group achieved this feat.

    • Noriaki Horiuchi
    Interview
  • Room-temperature, optically pumped GaAs/AlGaAs/GaAs nanowire lasers have been realized. Dhruv Saxena and Sudha Mokkapati from the Australian National University discuss this breakthrough.

    • David Pile
    Interview
  • Researchers have fabricated a voltage-tunable plasmonic crystal in a two-dimensional electron gas that operates at terahertz frequencies. Nature Photonics spoke to Eric Shaner, Greg Dyer and Greg Aizin about the observation of Tamm states at the crystal's edge.

    • David Pile
    Interview
  • Nature Photonics spoke to Anatoly Grudinin, founder of the fibre laser company Fianium, to gain insight into the vicissitudes in the industry over the past decade and future challenges that academia can help solve.

    • David Pile
    Interview
  • Clustering of dark and grey solitons in fibre lasers has been found to induce a turbulent regime similar to that of a rapidly flowing fluid in a pipe. Sergei Turitsyn from the University of Aston, UK, explains.

    • Oliver Graydon
    Interview