Volume 17 Issue 2, February 2023

Enhancement of laser energy conversion into X-rays is obtained using a target made by entwined carbon nanotubes.

A scheme for converting qubits between two different representations, discrete and continuous variables, paves the way for more-efficient quantum networks.

The near-field chirality of a single-symmetry achiral object enables polarization-dependent unidirectional photocurrent generation, and the vectorial output paves a way for a new family of geometric photodetectors.

Compact laser-wakefield-driven X-ray sources show promise but suffer from poor conversion efficiency. New research demonstrates high-yield, hard X-rays generated by using carbon nanotube targets, instead of gases.

The intrinsic Kerr nonlinearity in ring resonators is exploited to demonstrate passive isolation of a continuous-wave laser. Up to 35-dB isolation with 5-dB insertion loss was achieved on-chip.

Researchers demonstrate a laser-plasma accelerator-driven free-electron laser in a seeded configuration, where control over the radiation wavelength and longitudinal coherence are achieved.

A chip-scale laser platform based on silicon nitride ring resonators and commercial Fabry–Pérot laser diodes is developed for the wavelength range from 404 nm to 785 nm. The achieved coarse and fine tunings are up to 12.5 nm and 33.9 GHz, respectively, with kilohertz-scale linewidths and side-mode suppression ratios above 35 dB.

A conversion of quantum information between single-photon and cat-state qubits is demonstrated by teleportation using optical hybrid entanglement. The classical limit of conversion is exceeded over the full Bloch sphere, with an average fidelity above 79%.

A photodetector responding to only circularly polarized light is developed. It has a ring-shaped form, consisting of plasmonic nanostructures on a graphene sheet. Its zero-bias responsivity and detectivity of ellipticity in the mid-infrared at room temperature are 392 V W⁻¹ and 0.03° Hz^−1/2, respectively.

A multi-view reflector microscope based on polarization modulation and pupil splitting enables single-molecule orientation-localization microscopy with precisions of 10.9 nm and 2.0°.

A nonlinear multi-pass cell is shown to be able to shift the central wavelength of a laser by tens of nanometres, offering a new means for control for high-power laser systems

Circularly polarized light emitted from OLEDs exhibits opposite handedness depending on the propagation direction of the light. Switching the current flow in the OLED also switches the light handedness.

Relative synchronization between free-electron laser pulses and a near-infrared field fields is achieved with 24 as resolution by using a correlation analysis of single-shot photoelectron spectra. It is applied to coherently control the photoionization process in neon atom on the attosecond timescale.