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The fast response and efficiency of plastic scintillators are severely degraded by the preferential population of slow triplet excited states in luminescence centres, such as in dye molecules. This issue can be solved by hot exciton manipulation, which avoids population of the lowest triplet state.
Nonlinear optical resonators allow the coherent conversion of photons, yet fabrication tolerances limit their wavelength accuracy. Introducing periodic modulation in ring resonators is shown to allow robust and predictable selection of the converted photons.
Acoustic modulation of atmospheric air enables the deflection of laser pulses with a peak power of 20 gigawatts, expanding the acousto-optics toolbox to high-power laser manipulation in ambient air.
With many exotic electromagnetic effects, metamaterials are now being exploited in real-world biomedical applications, with expected impacts in healthcare.
