Applied optics articles within Nature Physics

Featured

  • Measure for Measure |

    Adaptive optics allows scientists to correct for distortions of an image caused by the scattering of light. Anita Chandran illuminates the nature of the technique.

    • Anita Mary Chandran

  • News & Views |

    Trojan beams, which are optical counterparts of Trojan asteroids that maintain stable orbits alongside planets, have been successfully showcased in experiments, opening up possibilities for transporting light in unconventional settings.

    • Tomáš Tyc
    •  & Tomáš Čižmár

  • Article |

    Disordered media with their numerous scattering channels can be used as optical operators. Measurements of the scattering tensor of a second-harmonic medium extend this computing application to the nonlinear regime.

    • Jungho Moon
    • , Ye-Chan Cho
    •  & Wonshik Choi

  • Review Article |

    Nonlinearities allow the large number of modes in a multimode fibre to interact and create emergent phenomena. This Review presents the breadth of the high-dimensional nonlinear physics that can be studied in this platform.

    • Logan G. Wright
    • , Fan O. Wu
    •  & Frank W. Wise

  • Article |

    Non-Abelian Thouless pumping, whose outcome depends on the order of pumping operations, has been observed in photonic waveguides with degenerate flat bands.

    • Yi-Ke Sun
    • , Xu-Lin Zhang
    •  & Hong-Bo Sun

  • News & Views |

    Observing accreting black holes in the early Universe allows precise comparison of clocks over intercontinental distances on Earth. This is achieved with a novel observation strategy using the next generation of very long baseline interferometry systems.

    • Rüdiger Haas

  • Letter |

    An atomic clock has been deployed on a field measurement campaign to determine the height of a mountain location 1,000 m above sea level, returning a value that is in good agreement with state-of-the-art geodesy.

    • Jacopo Grotti
    • , Silvio Koller
    •  & Davide Calonico

  • Article |

    Ultrashort high-intensity laser pulses change the properties of dielectrics in different ways. One unexpected outcome is light amplification in an excited dielectric, observed in a two-colour pump–probe experiment.

    • Thomas Winkler
    • , Lasse Haahr-Lillevang
    •  & Thomas Baumert

  • News & Views |

    Micro-explosions triggered by the absorption of X-ray laser light in drops and jets of water result in shock waves and in rapid heating and expansion of the liquid — as now revealed in state-of-the-art experiments.

    • Susan Davis Allen

  • Article |

    X-ray-induced explosions in water drops, examined using time-resolved imaging, show interacting high-speed liquid and vapour flows. This type of X-ray absorption dynamics is predictable and may be used for inducing particular dynamical liquid states.

    • Claudiu A. Stan
    • , Despina Milathianaki
    •  & Sébastien Boutet

  • Letter |

    Quantum mechanics sets a fundamental upper limit for the flow of heat. Such quantum-limited heat conduction is now observed over macroscopic distances, extending to a metre, in superconducting transmission lines.

    • Matti Partanen
    • , Kuan Yen Tan
    •  & Mikko Möttönen

  • News & Views |

    Without a well-defined cavity, there is no obvious way to control the resonant modes in a random laser. Experiments now show that shaping the optical pump allows for controlled single-mode operation at predetermined lasing wavelengths.

    • Stefan Rotter

  • News & Views |

    An unusual form of symmetry breaking in coupled microresonators with balanced optical gain and loss is now exploited to realize a novel type of optical isolator.

    • Chong Yidong

  • Article |

    It is now shown that coupled optical microcavities bear all the hallmarks of parity–time symmetry; that is, the system’s dynamics are unchanged by both time-reversal and mirror transformations. The resonant nature of microcavities results in unusual effects not seen in previous photonic analogues of parity–time-symmetric systems: for example, light travelling in one direction is resonantly enhanced but there are no resonance peaks going the other way.

    • Bo Peng
    • , Şahin Kaya Özdemir
    •  & Lan Yang

  • News & Views |

    A tiny drum converts between infrared and microwave signals with record efficiency by keeping the beat of both.

    • Mankei Tsang

  • Article |

    An optomechanical system that converts microwaves to optical frequency light and vice versa is demonstrated. The technique achieves a conversion efficiency of approximately 10%. The results indicate that the device could work at the quantum level, up- and down-converting individual photons, if it were cooled to millikelvin temperatures. It could, therefore, form an integral part of quantum-processor networks.

    • R. W. Andrews
    • , R. W. Peterson
    •  & K. W. Lehnert

  • News & Views |

    Defects in the crystal lattice of silicon carbide prove to be a useful room-temperature source of non-classical light.

    • Igor Aharonovich
    •  & Milos Toth

  • Article |

    Defects in silicon carbide can produce continuous-wave microwaves at room temperature. Spectroscopic analysis indicates a photoinduced inversion of the population in the spin ground states, which makes the defects a potential route to stimulated amplification of microwave radiation.

    • H. Kraus
    • , V. A. Soltamov
    •  & G. V. Astakhov

  • Letter |

    A nanomechanical interface between optical photons and microwave electrical signals is now demonstrated. Coherent transfer between microwave and optical fields is achieved by parametric electro-optical coupling in a piezoelectric optomechanical crystal, and this on-chip technology could form the basis of photonic networks of superconducting quantum bits.

    • Joerg Bochmann
    • , Amit Vainsencher
    •  & Andrew N. Cleland

  • Article |

    The efficiency of carrier–carrier scattering in graphene is now experimentally demonstrated. The dominance of this mechanism over phonon-related scattering means that a single high-energy photon could create two or more electron–hole pairs in graphene; an effect useful for optoelectronic applications.

    • K. J. Tielrooij
    • , J. C. W. Song
    •  & F. H. L. Koppens

  • Letter |

    Shor’s quantum algorithm factorizes integers, and implementing this is a benchmark test in the early development of quantum processors. Researchers now demonstrate this important test in a solid-state system: a circuit made up of four superconducting qubits factorizes the number 15.

    • Erik Lucero
    • , R. Barends
    •  & John M. Martinis

  • Article |

    An ideal amplifier has low noise, operates over a broad frequency range and has large dynamic range. A superconducting-resonator-based amplifier that combines all of these qualities is now demonstrated. The concept is applicable throughout the microwave, millimetre-wave and submillimetre-wave bands and can achieve a noise limit very close to that set by quantum mechanics.

    • Byeong Ho Eom
    • , Peter K. Day
    •  & Jonas Zmuidzinas

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