Volume 12 Issue 1, January 2018

Excitation and gate tuning of terahertz plasmons in dual-layer graphene integrated into on-chip telecom photonic waveguides using infrared lasers has now been demonstrated. This may open the door to atomically thick optoelectronic devices for security, tomography or data processing.

A theoretical analysis of asymmetric dressed quantum dots in a photonic crystal cavity suggests that the system could form a new type of solid-state terahertz laser. However, an experimental realization will likely require advances in fabrication technology.

The science of superoscillations and the creation of local regions of light on a subwavelength scale is attracting attention for new forms of super-resolution microscopy and stiffer optical traps.

This Review covers key advancements in X-ray ptychographic microscopy and tomography over the past ten years. Potential applications in the life and materials sciences, the latest concepts and future developments are also discussed.

A quantum memory based on a rubidium atom shows a record-long storage time of 100 ms with a readout efficiency of 22%. The photonic qubit is transferred between a basis with strong light–matter coupling and a basis with low decoherence.

An all-optical difference frequency process is exploited to generate terahertz graphene plasmons that are tunable over an octave.

Ferroelectric domains are optically reconfigured by a reversible process. The tuning is sufficient to enable macroscopically observable responses and the findings may help lead to the development of photo-stimulated ferroelectric devices.

Through a high-numerical-aperture multimode fibre, real-time manipulation of three-dimensional arrangements of micro-objects and manipulation inside inaccessible cavities are shown. The approach is useful for imaging deep inside living tissues and complex environments.

A 10 Gb s^–1 phase modulator based on a graphene-on-silicon Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is reported. The compact device has a phase-shifter length of only 300 μm and provides modulation of light at 1,550 nm with a 35 dB extinction ratio.

Frequency-resolved transient excited-state absorption of a single molecule is measured at room temperature. The dynamic Stokes shift and vibrational cooling are directly measured with 25 fs temporal resolution and a spectral detection bandwidth of hundreds of meV.

Infrared surface phonon polariton tuning is achieved by photoinjecting free carriers into resonators.