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 2 Issue 3, March 2008

Plasmonics provides a new tool for colour imaging.

Cover design by Tom Wilson

Letter by Eric Laux et al.

Volume 2 Issue 3

Subscribe

Editorial

  • Research in photonics often yields considerable commercial opportunities. However, basic research that has no obvious near-term applications is also vital for the field's evolution.

    Editorial

    Advertisement

Top of page ⤴

Commentary

  • Leading optics researchers gathered together on the Irish south coast to discuss the future direction of photonics in Europe. Their aim was to identify areas of long-term research that have potential strategic importance.

    • David Gevaux
    Commentary
Top of page ⤴

Research Highlights

Top of page ⤴

News & Views

  • A holographic microscope that can capture fluorescent images of three-dimensional specimens without the need for axial scanning looks set to bring benefits to biomedical imaging.

    • Ting-Chung Poon
    News & Views

  • After almost 50 years of laser research, efficient and compact laser sources operating in the mid-infrared region from 2 μm to 5 μm are still lacking. Now, cascaded silicon Raman lasers look set to provide a convenient answer.

    • Hugo Thienpont
    News & Views

  • Thin-membrane mirrors based on subwavelength gratings are transforming the performance of tunable VCSELs.

    • Markus Amann
    News & Views

  • A strongly nonlinear photonic crystal with a wavelength-tunable bandgap could provide the solution to realizing all-optical switches for signal processing.

    • Diederik Sybolt Wiersma
    News & Views

  • By structuring the surface of a metal with an array of holes, photonics researchers show that it is possible to tightly confine terahertz surface waves, reducing their decay length into air by two orders of magnitude. The results could lead to new approaches to waveguiding.

    • Jaime Gómez Rivas
    News & Views

  • Subwavelength holes in metal films are well known to offer extraordinary-light-transmission properties. Now a group of scientists in France have exploited such nanoholes to sort photons by colour.

    • Niek F. van Hulst
    News & Views
Top of page ⤴

Editorial

Top of page ⤴

Research Highlights

Top of page ⤴

Industry Perspective

  • Optical-fibre sensors have become an indispensable tool in the oil and gas industry, helping engineers to not only locate wells, but also get the most out of them.

    • Hilde Nakstad
    • Jon Thomas Kringlebotn
    Industry Perspective

  • Penetration of optical-fibre sensors into the medical market has been slow because of high costs and long regulatory procedures. Today, however, an increasing number of life-saving medical procedures are benefiting from the advantages that these tiny sensors can bring.

    • Éric Pinet
    Industry Perspective

  • The aerospace and wind-energy industries, which use composite materials to build aircraft and turbine blades, are beginning to use fibre-optic sensors to monitor the health of these massive structures.

    • Martin Jones
    Industry Perspective
Top of page ⤴

Business News

Top of page ⤴

Product Highlights

Top of page ⤴

Interview

  • Fibre-optic sensors have been around for many years, but their market penetration has been slow. Nadya Anscombe talks to Brian Culshaw of Strathclyde University in the UK to find out why.

    • Nadya Anscombe
    Interview
Top of page ⤴

Letter

Top of page ⤴

Article

Top of page ⤴

Photonics at NPG

Top of page ⤴

Interview

  • Seeing in colour is something we take for granted. But achieving accurate colour discrimination in practice is not a simple task. Nature Photonics spoke to Thomas Ebbesen about his group's latest work, which makes it possible to sort light into its constituent colours using surface plasmons.

    • Amber Jenkins
    Interview
Top of page ⤴

In This Issue

Top of page ⤴

Focus

  • We have been hearing about the great potential of fibre sensors for many, many years.

    Focus
Top of page ⤴

Search

Advanced search

Quick links