Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
One of the main features of plasmonics is the possibility to locally enhance the intensity of electromagnetic fields. This enables strong non-linear optical effects in structures with metal inclusions, including metamaterials. This Review discusses nonlinear effects in plasmonic structures and presents an overview of applications and limitations.
Many researchers hope to merge plasmonics and graphene photonics to combine their useful features. The properties and characteristics of plasmons on graphene are reviewed. Prospects for possible future applications are discussed.
The advent of high-energy, short-pulse X-ray sources based on free-electron lasers, laser plasmas and high-harmonic generation is now making it possible to probe the dynamics of electrons within molecules.
An ultrastable optical laser based on a single-crystal silicon Fabry–Pérot cavity offers a fractional frequency instability of 1 × 10−16 on short timescales and supports a laser linewidth of less than 40 mHz at a wavelength of 1.5 μm.
The short flash of a femtosecond laser induces a complex physiological response in mammalian cells that manifests as a slow bleaching of fluorescence from green fluorescent protein.
Researchers in the field of quantum optics are focusing not only on applications such as quantum key distribution systems, but also on fundamental investigations into phenomena illustrating the quantum nature of photons, such as quantum discord and non-Markovian behaviour.
Multifunctional organic materials can be used to make optically tunable organic transistors that can operate on microsecond timescales, thus opening new perspectives in the design of organic integrated circuits.
X-ray free-electron lasers are bright, femtosecond X-ray sources. Researchers have now operated one in a seeding scheme that allows X-ray pulse output approaching the single-mode ideal and produces a remarkable enhancement in monochromatic power.
Spin waves show promise as a means of transporting information in integrated magnetic devices, but convenient ways to control their properties are required. Now directional control of spin-wave emission using photonics has been demonstrated in an all-optical pump–probe experiment.
The implementation of a quantum Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment defies the conventional boundaries set by the complementarity principle and shows photons coherently oscillating between particle and wave behaviours in a single experimental set-up.
The demonstration of edge- and surface-emitting lasers made by transfer-printing epitaxial layers of compound semiconductors onto silicon substrates creates new opportunities for optoelectronics.
Scientists have shown that Förster resonance energy transfer can be used to realize new designs of dye laser that offer improved photostability and access to new pumping and emission wavelengths.
Advances in electron optics and X-ray detection are opening up the periodic table to one of the ultimate goals of microanalysis — single-atom spectroscopy.
The world's second hard-X-ray free-electron laser has now been commissioned in Japan. The facility's compact accelerator and short-period undulator not only minimize space and cost but also ensure excellent output stability.
A single sheet of graphene dramatically changes the nonlinear response of a silicon photonic crystal, enabling ultralow-power optical bistability, self-induced regenerative oscillation and coherent four-wave mixing.
Over the past five decades, breakthroughs in device design and advances in material and growth technologies have transformed semiconductor lasers from laboratory curiosities into practical devices with real-world applications.
