Skip to main content

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.

Volume 11 Issue 8, August 2017

Artist's impression of high-order multiphoton Thomson scattering. Laser light is focused to a billion-times higher brightness than the surface of the Sun and interacts with an electron beam. The resulting figure-of-eight electron-quiver motion generates a high-energy X-ray photon with novel characteristics.

Article p514

IMAGE: WENCHAO YAN, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA—LINCOLN

COVER DESIGN: BETHANY VUKOMANOVIC

Editorial

  • The International Day of Light, which will be held on 16 May every year, is a day for celebrating and highlighting the importance of light.

    Editorial

    Advertisement

Top of page ⤴

Research Highlights

Top of page ⤴

News & Views

  • Spin–valley coupling in transition metal dichalcogenides has been shown to persist at room temperature when excitons are coherently coupled to cavity photons.

    • Gabriele Grosso
    News & Views
  • The realization of satellite-to-ground quantum cryptography would make quantum-secured communications possible on a global scale. Four recent breakthroughs suggest that this compelling capability could be achieved by the end of this decade.

    • Richard J. Hughes
    • Jane E. Nordholt
    News & Views
  • Significant improvements in the loss and drive voltage of silicon photonics-based optical phase modulators look set to benefit both short-reach and long-distance data communications.

    • Jeremy Witzens
    News & Views
  • Ultrathin, versatile, integrated optical devices and high-speed optical information processing could be the upcoming real-world opportunities of plasmonic metasurfaces.

    • Rachel Won
    News & Views
Top of page ⤴

Review Article

  • Materials whose optical properties can be reconfigured are crucial for photonic applications such as optical memories. Phase-change materials offer such utility and here recent progress is reviewed.

    • M. Wuttig
    • H. Bhaskaran
    • T. Taubner
    Review Article
Top of page ⤴

Letter

Top of page ⤴

Article

Top of page ⤴

Corrigendum

Top of page ⤴

Search

Quick links