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Electrically driven antennas are ubiquitous at radio frequencies, but frequency generators cannot reach optical frequencies. Quantum shot noise from inelastic tunnelling may provide the solution.
The discovery of a new nonlinear light propagation regime in optical fibres paves the way to spectrally brighter lasers and control of signal distortion in communication links.
Researchers have observed light propagation in which photons glide smoothly along a one-dimensional chain of electrons known as a Luttinger liquid — a many-body interacting quantum system held within a single-walled carbon nanotube.
As the plasmonics community meets in Jerusalem, the hunt to make it a more practical technology continues. The use of new materials and applications in colour printing could be part of the answer.
The observation of individual atoms with single-lattice-site resolution has proved to be an enormously powerful detection method for optical lattice-based quantum simulators. Such a technique has now been demonstrated with fermionic atoms.
The ultrafast enhancement of the exchange interaction between two spins in an antiferromagnetic insulator can now be detected, thanks to an all-optical pump–probe method based on stimulated two-magnon excitation.
All-dielectric photonic quasicrystals may act as zero-refractive-index homogeneous materials despite their lack of translational symmetry and periodicity, stretching wavelengths to infinity and offering applications in light wavefront sculpting and optical cloaking.
The finding that a graphene sponge structure can undergo light-driven levitation exposes both fundamentally interesting physics and thought-provoking potential for next-generation space propulsion.
As the demand for data transmission escalates and optical fibre capacity approaches its limit, the telecommunications research community is debating if the capacity crunch is nearing and is suggesting ways to be technology-ready.
Controlled growth of non-cubic, anisotropic solar cell materials, such as antimony selenide, is bringing new opportunities for efficient thin-film photovoltaics.
High-speed 2 μm digital optical receivers are brought closer to reality by an extended-response foundry-made monolithic silicon-on-insulator avalanche photodiode.
An inverse-design approach yields ultra-compact, high-performance photonic components from patterns of complex, subwavelength voids etched into silicon.
