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Contrary to intuition, photons do not have to be indistinguishable for maximum photon bunching to occur. Partially indistinguishable photons can exhibit pronounced bunching.
A lithography-free photonic processor through dynamic control of optical gain distributions is demonstrated, allowing reconfigurable photonic neural networks and more efficient signal processing, and showing great promise in easing data traffic as well as accelerating information processing speeds.
Developing cost-efficient, reusable, sensitive, in situ online detection systems for radioactive gases remains challenging. Now researchers show that scintillating metal–organic frameworks can provide a high-performance detector solution.
The performance of infrared photodiodes designed with narrow-bandgap semiconductors is limited by inherent noise and the need for a low-temperature operation to mitigate it, while they also face a speed–efficiency trade-off.
Dynamic control of incoherent light sources at ultrafast timescales is tremendously challenging. Now, a technique using a spatially structured optical pump and semiconductor metasurfaces has been developed that dynamically steers sub-picosecond pulses of ultrafast incoherent emission.
Two papers in Science demonstrate tracking of the stepping motion of the kinesin motor protein with nanometric spatial precision and sub-millisecond temporal resolution by using MINFLUX, a highly photon-efficient single-molecule localization technique.
The sensitivity and bandwidth of force measurements are improved by simultaneously probing the motion of two independent mechanical sensors with entangled light.
The interaction of atoms with intense squeezed light is affected by the quantum noise of the driving field whereby the quantum noise of the squeezed driving field is imprinted in the emitted high harmonics.
Exceptionally high secret key generation rates of 64 Mbits–1 and 115.8 Mbits–1 over a 10 km optical fibre link have been achieved, thanks to custom-built 14-pixel and 16-pixel superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors, respectively, and the use of fast quantum key distribution transmitters.
Topological photonics has promised new devices that are resistant to backscattering, leading to lower loss, greater nonlinearity, and smaller footprint. New research shows that in reciprocal photonic crystals, backscattering is unavoidable, implying that breaking reciprocity is essential to leveraging photonic Chern insulators.
Multiple scattering from birefringent nanospheres confers brilliant whiteness to parts of the Pacific cleaner shrimp, inspiring new ways to achieve broadband reflection with thin layers of material.
