Reviews & Analysis

Near- and mid-infrared plasmonics are exciting research areas with applications in nanoscale energy concentration, sensing or ultrafast switching for telecommunication. Now, a new efficient way to manipulate plasmon resonances in semiconductor nanoarrays at ultrafast timescales has been found.

An optoelectronic prototype based on a self-assembled molecular junction to controllably excite propagating surface plasmons has been developed.

The ability to make measurements of time and fundamental physical constants with extreme precision makes it possible to test theories to ever greater levels of scrutiny. A workshop in Tokyo in January discussed the challenges involved and the progress being made.

Obtaining information about an object or medium with an unknown, random scattering potential is notoriously difficult. The projection of random illumination patterns as probe is now shown to help.

A 2016 competition to find the optimum software for 3D single-molecule localization microscopy will help practitioners choose the best tool for the job and spur further developments in the field.

Coherent control joins the nonlinear optical toolbox for free-electron lasers and demonstrates phase control on the attosecond scale.

Ghost imaging allows the creation of images using light that never interacts with the object. Researchers now show that this technique can be applied to reconstruct temporal 'images' of rapidly varying, picosecond signals in telecommunication systems.

Optical control of geometric phase is demonstrated, paving the way towards quantum state control of the nitrogen–vacancy centre in diamond becoming resilient, spatially selective and scalable.

The quantum concepts of entanglement and interaction-free measurements are applied to spectroscopy to successfully sense carbon dioxide in air.

X-ray counterparts of visible light optical elements are notoriously difficult to realize because the refractive index of all materials is close to unity. It has now been demonstrated that curved waveguides fabricated on a silicon chip can channel and deflect X-ray beams by consecutive grazing reflections.

Dynamic control of magnetization by short laser pulses has recently attracted much interest. The Kerr nonlinearity has now been utilized to modulate the polarization of light at terahertz frequencies.