Volume 12 Issue 8, August 2018

Spin-dependent lateral optical forces, 100,000 times larger than those reported so far, can lead to displacements of centimetre-sized objects observable by the naked eye.

The generation of hot electrons in plasmonic nanostructures is of scientific and technological interest, putting the community under pressure to better understand the hot-electron mechanisms and to increase the light conversion efficiency of plasmonic nanosystems for chemical reactions and photodetection.

A chip-based optical frequency comb source has now been successfully used to send 661 Tbit s^–1 over 9.6 km of multicore fibre, bringing considerable savings in the energy consumption and size of data transmission equipment.

Valleytronics in single-layer semiconductors is reviewed with an emphasis on controlling the valley degree of freedom with light as well as potential applications.

The observation of spin-dependent lateral displacements of anisotropic and inhomogeneous media with the naked eye is reported, allowing structured light–matter interaction to move from a scientific curiosity to a new asset for the optical manipulation toolbox.

Near-infrared femtosecond laser pulses are sent to a Si or ZnO crystal to generate high-harmonic waves via static or transient field-induced optical nonlinearities. The beam profile of the high-harmonic emission is controlled by electronic methods.

By seeding a non-resonant aluminium-gallium-arsenide-on-insulator nanowaveguide with 10-GHz picosecond pulses at a low pump power of 85 mW, a single energy-efficient frequency comb source carrying 661 Tbit s^–1 of data, equivalent to more than the total Internet traffic today, is achieved.

A nonlinear charge oscillation driven by a 6 fs light field of 11 MV cm^–1 is observed in a layered organic superconductor. The initial response time of the oscillation on the timescale of 10 fs clarifies that Coulomb repulsion is essential for the superconductivity.

Linewidth broadening of a phonon laser operated at an exceptional point of a compound optomechanical system is experimentally demonstrated.

Nanocrystals assembled into metal–insulator–metal junctions can boost the efficiency of light generation from enhanced inelastic tunnelling to ~2%, which is a two orders of magnitude improvement over previous work, paving the way to on-chip ultrafast and ultracompact light sources.

A scheme for generating intense single-cycle pulses in the 5–14 μm wavelength range is proposed. The generation mechanism is described by photon frequency downshifting of an off-the-shelf Ti:sapphire laser in a tailored plasma density structure.