Applied optics articles within Nature Communications

Chiral nanostructures are in demand for various applications, but facile and scalable fabrication is a technical challenge. Here, the authors report polarization-directed chiral growth of complex spiral patterns by laser direct writing with vector beams.

An integrated phased array transmitter chip that uses an electronically controlled photonic network for millimeter-wave generation and beam formation is developed and used to demonstrate a fiber to wireless communication link.

It has been challenging to achieve discernible mechanoluminophore devices under ambient light. Here, authors integrate top-emitting organic light-emitting device and piezoelectric generator on thin polymer substrate for the realization of flexible devices under an ambient illuminance of 3000 lux.

The authors demonstrate a real-time, non-invasive, far-field optical probe to monitor particle size distribution in pharmaceutical manufacturing. It characterizes the speckle scattered from the surface using machine learning weaved into optical physics.

The authors present an integrated photonic processor for blind source separation (BSS) to address broadband radio-frequency interference issues. The photonic BSS achieves 19.2 GHz processing bandwidth with highly energy-efficient BSS processing of sub-15 nanosecond latency.

Printed organic and inorganic electronics continue to be of large interest for several applications. Here, the authors propose laser printing as a facile process for fabricating printed electronics with minimum feature sizes below 1 µm and demonstrate functional diodes, memristors, and physically unclonable functions.

The authors present an implementation of mid-infrared single-photon computational imaging with a single-element silicon detector. In addition to unique features of single-pixel simplicity and room-temperature operation, the infrared imager offers a superior sensitivity at the single-photon level.

The authors introduce and demonstrate cross-comb spectroscopy in the mid-infrared as a variant of dual-comb spectroscopy. It provides enhanced performance and allows mid-infrared spectral information to be obtained by near-infrared detection.

Twin-field QKD should allow secure quantum communication with favourable rate-loss scaling, but requires interferometric implementations which are often impractical for long distances. Here, the authors show how to realise it without the need for closed interferometers.

The field of terahertz wireless communication is growing rapidly. Here the authors discuss the challenges for the architectures of wireless platforms above 100 GHz and their potential applications.

The high dark current of perovskite photodetectors hinders the full potential of perovskites as active material for X-ray detectors. Here, Jin et al. provide a strategy to reduce the dark current to zero and massively enhance the signal-to-noise ratio of perovskite X-ray detectors and photodetectors.

Structural colours are of broad interest in recent years, yet the conventional nanofabrication techniques fail to match the requirement for large-scale manufacturing. Here, the authors demonstrate the use of pulsed lasers to write structural colours with widegamut, high-resolution, high-speed while low-cost manufacturability, long-term stability, and viewing-angle independence.

Resonators are key components in optics. In this work, the authors introduce a class of optical resonators with distinctly different properties from conventional resonators, allowing fundamental design trade-offs to be circumvented.

Microcombs are vulnerable to the environmental perturbations. Here, the authors propose a universal mechanism to fully control the microcombs. Based this reconfigurable microsoliton, a wavemeter with a precision of kHz is demonstrated.

The authors realize longitudinal deep-brain imaging through an intact mouse skull by constructing a high-speed reflection matrix microscope at 1.3 µm wavelength and developing a computational conjugate adaptive optics algorithm eliminating skull aberrations.

Integrating diffractive optical neural networks (DONN) would reduce errors due to bulky components and calibration. Here, the authors exploit integrated 1D dielectric metasurfaces to realise an on-chip DONN device with 90% classification accuracy, computing at 10^16 flops/mm^2 and consuming 10E-17 J/Flop.

Optical neural networks face remarkable challenges in high-level integration and on-chip operation. In this work the authors enable optical convolution utilizing time-wavelength plane stretching approach on a microcomb-driven chip-based photonic processing unit.

Miniaturized platforms are desirable for terahertz applications. Here the authors demonstrate chip-scale THz generation with controllable waveforms using thin-film lithium niobate.

Convolutional operation is a very efficient way to handle tensor analytics, but it consumes a large quantity of additional memory. Here, the authors demonstrate an integrated photonic tensor processor which directly handles high-order tensors without tensor-matrix transformation.

Traditional learning procedures for artificial intelligence rely on digital methods not suitable for physical hardware. Here, Nakajima et al. demonstrate gradient-free physical deep learning by augmenting a biologically inspired algorithm, accelerating the computation speed on optoelectronic hardware.

The authors demonstrate a multi-dimensional communication scheme that combines wavelength- and mode- multiplexing on photonic integrated circuits using foundry-compatible photonic inverse design and spectrally flattened microcombs

The authors demonstrate programmable integrated microwave photonic filters with low noise figure and ultrahigh dynamic range, using combination of modulation transformer and double injection ring resonator in a single photonic chip.

A 300-Gbit/s free-space optical communication system is demonstrated in the mid-IR wavelength region by using both wavelength- and mode-division multiplexing.

Dynamic localization is a method of confining light. Here the authors demonstrate higher-order dynamic localization of photons in a synthetic temporal mesh lattice and discuss the idea of tunable temporal cloaking by combining different-order localizations.

The authors presented an ultrahigh-responsivity phototransistor with a thin InGaAs film on a silicon waveguide. The effective gating by the silicon waveguide enables 10⁶ A/W responsivity, promising for optical power monitors in Si photonic circuits.

The authors developed an optical-fiber-based photoacoustic endoscope for gastroenterology. It can noninvasively view the internal vascular structures and visualize the hemodynamic response in a lesion.

Retrieving the pupil phase of a optical beam path is a central problem for imaging systems across scales. The authors use Diffractive Neural Networks to directly extract pupil phase information with a single, compact optoelectronic device.

Fabrication errors limit the scaling of programmable photonic circuits. Here the authors show how a broad class of circuits can be made asymptotically fault-tolerant, where the effect of errors remains controlled regardless of the circuit’s size.

Holography recreates both the amplitude and wave front of a three dimensional object, meaning that the observer perceives the image in the nearly same way as they would the true object. Creating such holographic images is challenging computationally, and requires extremely fast display update. Here, the authors combine a fast memoryless computation algorithm with the ultra-rapid writing based on all-optical switching of a ferrimagnetic film.

A unified metric to assess the performances of quantum transducers, i.e., converters of quantum information between different physical systems - is still lacking. Here the authors propose quantum capacity as such metric, and use it to investigate the optimal designs of generic quantum transduction schemes.

The authors introduce an active-mode optical microcavity sensor with enhanced sensitivity via Förster resonant energy transfer. Changes in lasing wavelengths of both donor and acceptor enable quantitative molecular analysis and real-time monitoring of intracellular molecules.

Multimode operation would greatly improve the performances of quantum repeaters. Here, the authors demonstrate a fixed-delay atomic frequency comb quantum memory, based on a Y2SiO5 crystal doped with Ytterbium ions, with a time-domain mode capacity of 1250 modes and a bandwidth of 100 MHz.

THz imaging and spectroscopy always request even more efficient components. Here the authors, thanks to a modified photoconductive switch that includes a graphene layer, demonstrate a high-speed photoconductive switch without sacrificing the generated power.

Efficient and broadband visible-light photodetectors will bring great advantages in applications such as biosensing and quantum information. Here the authors develop a photodetector with high quantum efficiency across broad wavelength range suitable for monolithic integration in photonics circuits.

The simple and scalable fabrication of high aspect ratio encapsulated flexible nanowire arrays with controlled size and periodicity is demonstrated and modelled, enabling nanophotonics applications requiring long-range order over several meters.

Fibre-based entanglement distribution represents a key primitive for quantum applications such as QKD. Here, the authors demonstrate it across 248 km of deployed fiber, observing stable detected pair rates of 9 Hz for 110 h.

Hemispherical photodetectors allow wide sight angle without the complex optical paths of fisheye lenses. Here, Wei et al, report a spray-coated quasi-two-dimensional perovskite hemispherical photodetector with wavelength selective response from the visible to the near-infrared.

Large-scale silicon-based integrated artificial neural networks lack of silicon-integrated optical neurons. Here, Yu et al, report a self-monitored all-optical neural network enabled by nonlinear germanium-silicon photodiodes, making the photonic neural network more versatile and compact.

Fiber-based micro-endoscopes are minimally invasive, but 3D imaging is limited by the need for bulky optical elements or rigid fibers. Here, the authors demonstrate holographic imaging through flexible and dynamically bent multi-core fibers by adding partially reflecting mirror to the distal fiber-tip.

Improving the image depth perception of holograms while maintaining high image quality is a current challenge. Here the authors propose an efficient solution relying on a multi-plane hologram technique that reconstruct different blurred images and sharply focused images depending on a propagation distance.

The use of light in driving the magnetization of materials has great technological potential, as well as allowing for insights into the fast dynamics of magnetic systems. Here, the authors combine CrI₃, a van der Waals magnet, with WSe₂, and demonstrate all optical switching of the resulting heterostructure.

Developing longwave infrared technology hide intrinsic challenges but at the same time is important to develop sensing and imaging for detection, ranging, and monitoring systems. Here the authors demonstrate the fabrication of high-quality microresonators in the LWIR with the simple use of native germanium.

Ising machines are accelerators for computing difficult optimization problems. In this work, Böhm et al. demonstrate a method that extends their use to perform statistical sampling and machine learning orders-of-magnitudes faster than digital computers.

The challenge of high-speed and high-accuracy coherent photonic neurons for deep learning applications lies to solve noise related issues. Here, Mourgias-Alexandris et al. address this problem by introducing a noise-resilient hardware architectural and a deep learning training platform.

Low modulus materials that can change shape in response to external stimuli are promising for a wide range of applications. The authors here introduce a shape-reprogrammable construct, based on liquid metal microfluidic networks and electromagnetic actuation, that supports a unique collection of capabilities.

Synthetic frequency dimension from light modulation enables scalable optical computing. The authors show an efficient silicon-based acousto-optic modulator that generates large synthetic frequency lattices and performs matrix-vector multiplications.

6G communication requires high-speed and advanced functionalities on-chip. Here the authors demonstrate broadband phototunable topological waveguide and demultiplexing chip with record single-channel 160 Gbit/s communication link and excellent channel isolation for 300 GHz band.

On-Chip integration of laser systems led to impressive development in many field of application like LIDAR or AR/VR to cite a few. Here the authors harness Pockels effect in an integrated semiconductor platform achieving fast on-chip configurability of a narrow linewidth laser.

A mechanically compliant and robust sensing material is essential for accurate and reliable thermal sensing. Here, the authors report the use of elastic organic crystals as fluorescence-based thermal sensors that cover a wide range of temperatures with complete retention of the sensor’s elasticity.