Volume 11 Issue 2, February 2017

Measurement of the forces that arise from quantum vacuum fluctuations between closely spaced surfaces typically requires large apparatus, making applications difficult. Now, an experiment on a silicon chip to measure the Casimir force has been realized.

Weak coupling of light to the microscopic magnetic order in antiferromagnetic materials makes their optical characterization notoriously difficult. Now, a table-top magneto-optical technique has been developed for detecting the vector direction of antiparallel-aligned magnetic moments in a metallic antiferromagnet.

A negatively charged nitrogen–vacancy centre — a promising quantum light source — is created in diamond by laser writing (with pulses with a central wavelength of 790 nm and duration of 300 fs) with an accuracy of 200 nm in the transverse plane.

Fano interference and nonlinearity are exploited to achieve self-pulsing of a laser at gigahertz frequencies.

Careful selection of small-molecule materials provides solution-processed tandem organic solar cells with a boost in efficiency.

Due to their nature antiferromagnets are difficult to probe with conventional magnetometers. The Néel vector of a practically important antiferromagnet, CuMnAs, has now been determined by a femtosecond pump–probe magneto-optical experiment.

Previous demonstrations of the elusive Casimir force between interfaces exhibit monotonic dependence on surface displacement. Now a non-monotonic dependence of the force has been shown experimentally by exploting nanostructured surfaces.

Localized polarization knots formed in conventional optical fibres are shown to be able to act as topological bits of information for optical data communication.

Perovskite nanocrystal LEDs featuring long-chain ammonium cations offer improved stability and efficiency.

A non-invasive scattering compensation method, termed F-SHARP, gives direct access to the phase and amplitude of the electric-field point spread function, enabling fast and high-resolution correction of aberrations and scattering in living tissue.

A tunable photonic microwave filter is monolithically integrated in an InP chip. The filter includes all of the required elements — a laser, a modulator and a photodetector — and its response can be tuned by controlling the electric currents.

The theoretical study of a 3D photonic topological metacrystal based on an all-dielectric metamaterial platform shows robust propagation of surface states along 2D domain walls, making it a promising solution for photonics applications. The proposed metacrystal design might also open the way for the observation of elusive fundamental physical phenomena.