Materials for optics articles within Nature Communications

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• Article
  04 November 2023 | Open Access

  Double boron–oxygen-fused polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: skeletal editing and applications as organic optoelectronic materials

  The development of chemically diverse boron-oxygen-fused polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons has been limited by their synthetic complexity. Here, authors report a one-pot strategy for their facile synthesis and demonstrate their potential as ultralong afterglow and host materials for deep-blue OLEDs.

  • Guijie Li
  • , Kewei Xu
  •  & Yuan-Bin She

• Article
  31 October 2023 | Open Access

  Organic photodiodes with bias-switchable photomultiplication and photovoltaic modes

  Preparation of photodiodes with photomultiplication/photovoltaic two operating modes is promising but challenging. Here, the authors report a bias-switchable dual-mode organic photodiode by adopting traps and blocking layer, achieving detectivity of 10¹² Jones and fast response speed in both modes.

  • Qingxia Liu
  • , Lingfeng Li
  •  & Yadong Jiang

• Article
  30 October 2023 | Open Access

  Localization and interaction of interlayer excitons in MoSe₂/WSe₂ heterobilayers

  The authors investigate the optical response of marginally twisted MoSe₂/WSe₂ heterobilayers and identify two types of trapped excitons depending on laser excitation power and temperature: excitons trapped in shallow defects and excitons trapped in the moire potential. At strong excitation powers, interlayer biexcitons are identified.

  • Hanlin Fang
  • , Qiaoling Lin
  •  & Witlef Wieczorek

• Matters Arising
  24 October 2023 | Open Access

  Reassessing the existence of soft X-ray correlated plasmons

  • Mohsen Moazzami Gudarzi
  •  & Seyed Hamed Aboutalebi

• Article
  21 October 2023 | Open Access

  Nanoscale reshaping of resonant dielectric microstructures by light-driven explosions

  Laser machining can modify and reshape materials on the scale comparable to light’s wavelength. Here, authors use tailored microstructures to push the limit of laser machining to a scale that is almost 100 times smaller than a wavelength of light.

  • Maxim R. Shcherbakov
  • , Giovanni Sartorello
  •  & Gennady Shvets

• Article
  20 October 2023 | Open Access

  Highly efficient color-tunable organic co-crystals unveiling polymorphism, isomerism, delayed fluorescence for optical waveguides and cell-imaging

  Co-crystals of donor-acceptor functional material pairs give switchable optical properties despite challenging aggregation-caused quenching effects. Here, the authors report several organic co-crystals with thermally-activated delayed fluorescence, waveguiding and bio-imaging application.

  • Debasish Barman
  • , Mari Annadhasan
  •  & Parameswar Krishnan Iyer

• Article
  18 October 2023 | Open Access

  Autonomous self-healing organic crystals for nonlinear optics

  There are many potential applications for non-centrosymmetric molecular crystals, but due to their typical brittle nature, efficiency of applications declines on prolonged use. Here, the authors report an autonomous self-healing ability of dibenzoate derivative single crystals that can retain its non-linear optical response.

  • Saikat Mondal
  • , Pratap Tanari
  •  & C. Malla Reddy

• Article
  13 October 2023 | Open Access

  Charge injection engineering at organic/inorganic heterointerfaces for high-efficiency and fast-response perovskite light-emitting diodes

  The hole injection and device stability rely heavily on the inorganic/organic interface in perovskite light-emitting diodes. The authors enhanced the NiO_x/PVK interface with a self-assembled monolayer, resulting in blue and green devices with maximum efficiencies of 14.5% and 26.0%, respectively.

  • Zhenchao Li
  • , Ziming Chen
  •  & Hin-Lap Yip

• Article
  12 October 2023 | Open Access

  Electroluminescence and hyperphosphorescence from stable blue Ir(III) carbene complexes with suppressed efficiency roll-off

  Deep-blue emitters and corresponding light-emitting devices are still in the progress to meet industrial standards. Here, the authors report catalytic interconversion of isomeric iridium(III) complexes and achieve true-blue emission and operational half-lifetime of over 10,000 h for tandem devices.

  • Jie Yan
  • , Dong-Ying Zhou
  •  & Yun Chi

• Article
  04 October 2023 | Open Access

  Inverse design of chiral functional films by a robotic AI-guided system

  Chiral materials with strong and tunable chiroptical activities are highly desirable. Here, the authors employ an AI-guided robotic platform to fully execute a cyclic process to perform inverse design and fabricate chiral films with target chiroptical performance.

  • Yifan Xie
  • , Shuo Feng
  •  & Gang Zou

• Article
  28 September 2023 | Open Access

  Towards bioresource-based aggregation-induced emission luminogens from lignin β-O-4 motifs as renewable resources

  Biorenewable feedstocks are important for developing more sustainable materials, but developing processes can be challenging due to incompatible reaction conditions. Here, the authors report the one-pot preparation of aggregation-induced emission luminogens from lignin moieties.

  • Tenglong Guo
  • , Yuting Lin
  •  & Tao Zhang

• Article
  27 September 2023 | Open Access

  Twisted moiré photonic crystal enabled optical vortex generation through bound states in the continuum

  The Authors in this work predict the radiation of twisted bilayer photonic crystals to host an optical vortex in the far field, which is enabled by connecting BIC modes in photonic crystals with the free space through a ‘moiré channel’.

  • Tiancheng Zhang
  • , Kaichen Dong
  •  & Jie Yao

• Article
  22 September 2023 | Open Access

  Manipulation of nonlinear optical responses in layered ferroelectric niobium oxide dihalides

  This paper reports the intralayer ferroelectric-to-antiferroelectric and ferroelectric-toparaelectric phase transitions in layered NbOCl₂ and NbOI₂ under a small pressure, respectively, along with the strong manipulations of nonlinear optics.

  • Liangting Ye
  • , Wenju Zhou
  •  & Bing Huang

• Article
  21 September 2023 | Open Access

  Engineering the temporal dynamics of all-optical switching with fast and slow materials

  Here the authors demonstrate the active control of an all-optical switch harnessing the interaction of light with the constituent materials. The response speeds up by two orders of magnitude and scales accordingly with the strength of the light matter interaction.

  • Soham Saha
  • , Benjamin T. Diroll
  •  & Alexandra Boltasseva

• Article
  20 September 2023 | Open Access

  Blue organic light-emitting diode with a turn-on voltage of 1.47 V

  The requirement of a high applied voltage remains a critical issue for blue organic-light emitting diodes. Here, the authors determine the appropriate donor-acceptor combination for triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion emission, achieving a low turn-on voltage of 1.47 V in blue devices.

  • Seiichiro Izawa
  • , Masahiro Morimoto
  •  & Masahiro Hiramoto

• Article
  13 September 2023 | Open Access

  High performance mechano-optoelectronic molecular switch

  To date the performance of molecular electronics compared to silicon limits their applications. Yang et al. develop the first mechano-optoelectronic switch based on mechanically controlled aggregation-induced emission of the self-assembled molecules, which can be reversibly switched at high speed.

  • Zhenyu Yang
  • , Pierre-André Cazade
  •  & Yuan Li

• Article
  28 August 2023 | Open Access

  Controlling the propagation asymmetry of hyperbolic shear polaritons in beta-gallium oxide

  Hyperbolic phonon polaritons occurring in anisotropic materials exhibit strong light confinement and propagation directionality. Matson et al. report real-space imaging and control of recently discovered hyperbolic shear phonon-polaritons in beta-Ga2O3, arising from symmetry breaking in the dielectric response.

  • Joseph Matson
  • , Sören Wasserroth
  •  & Joshua D. Caldwell

• Article
  24 August 2023 | Open Access

  A universal metasurface antenna to manipulate all fundamental characteristics of electromagnetic waves

  The authors show a universal metasurface antenna capable of simultaneously and independently controlling all five fundamental properties of electromagnetic waves, including amplitude, phase, frequency, polarization, and momentum.

  • Geng-Bo Wu
  • , Jun Yan Dai
  •  & Chi Hou Chan

• Article
  19 August 2023 | Open Access

  Minimizing non-radiative decay in molecular aggregates through control of excitonic coupling

  Exciton delocalization in molecular aggregates is suggested to counteract the Energy Gap Law. Here, authors reveal the underlying physical picture and find the optimal excitonic coupling that minimizes nonradiative decay by nearly exact simulations.

  • Yuanheng Wang
  • , Jiajun Ren
  •  & Zhigang Shuai

• Article
  16 August 2023 | Open Access

  Giant room-temperature nonlinearities in a monolayer Janus topological semiconductor

  Electronic band topology may be leveraged to enhance nonlinear optical properties in monolayer semiconductors. Here, the authors report giant room-temperature nonlinearity enhancements in Janus transition metal dichalcogenides.

  • Jiaojian Shi
  • , Haowei Xu
  •  & Aaron M. Lindenberg

• Article
  12 August 2023 | Open Access

  Correlating metasurface spectra with a generation-elimination framework

  The authors present a generation-elimination framework that correlates the spectra from different frequency bands, where the inaccessible spectra are precisely forecasted without consulting structural information. The spectral correlation will accelerate the unification of all metasurface designs and facilitate versatile applications involving cross-wavelength information correlation.

  • Jieting Chen
  • , Chao Qian
  •  & Hongsheng Chen

• Article
  07 August 2023 | Open Access

  Interplay of structure and photophysics of individualized rod-shaped graphene quantum dots with up to 132 sp² carbon atoms

  The use and characterization of graphene quantum dots is limited by their pronounced tendency to form aggregates. Here, the authors synthesize rod-shaped motifs of nanographenes with up to 132 sp² carbon atoms that are fully individualized, which allows the precise description of their intrinsic photophysical properties.

  • Daniel Medina-Lopez
  • , Thomas Liu
  •  & Stephane Campidelli

• Article
  31 July 2023 | Open Access

  Localised surface plasmon resonance inducing cooperative Jahn–Teller effect for crystal phase-change in a nanocrystal

  Here the authors demonstrate that semiconductive plasmonic CuS NCs show metastable displacive ion movements due to the cooperative Jahn–Teller effect induced by localised surface plasmon resonance.

  • Masanori Sakamoto
  • , Masaki Hada
  •  & Tohru Sato

• Article
  25 July 2023 | Open Access

  Hybrid topological photonic crystals

  Owing to the nonequilibrium nature, photonic topological phenomena can involve multiple band gaps. Here the authors report on the discovery of a class of hybrid topological photonic crystals that host quantum anomalous Hall and valley Hall phases simultaneously.

  • Yanan Wang
  • , Hai-Xiao Wang
  •  & Guang-Yu Guo

• Article
  22 July 2023 | Open Access

  Durable organic nonlinear optical membranes for thermotolerant lightings and in vivo bioimaging

  Organic nonlinear optical materials have potential in applications such as bioimaging, but tend to have low photoluminescent quantum yields and are prone to aggregation-caused quenching. Here, the authors report a host-guest approach for improving the luminescent properties of these materials.

  • Tian Tian
  • , Yuxuan Fang
  •  & Wu-Qiang Wu

• Article
  12 July 2023 | Open Access

  Mesitylated trityl radicals, a platform for doublet emission: symmetry breaking, charge-transfer states and conjugated polymers

  Neutral π-radicals are potential emitters for optoelectronic devices due to the absence of energetically low-lying non-emissive states. Here, the authors report mesityl-substituted tris(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl)methyl radicals and achieve maximum device efficiency of 28% at a wavelength of 689 nm.

  • Petri Murto
  • , Rituparno Chowdhury
  •  & Hugo Bronstein

• Article
  11 July 2023 | Open Access

  Carbene-stabilized enantiopure heterometallic clusters featuring EQE of 20.8% in circularly-polarized OLED

  Chiral coinage metal clusters show promise for use in emerging circularly polarized light-emitting materials and diodes but research on efficient circularly polarized organic light-emitting diodes (CP-OLEDs) with enantiopure metal clusters remains elusive. Herein, the authors design a multidentate chiral N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligand which is used in the synthesis of enantiopure Au(I)-Cu(I) clusters with exceptional stability and demonstrate application of these clusters in the fabrication of CP-OLEDs

  • Xiao-Hong Ma
  • , Jing Li
  •  & Shuang-Quan Zang

• Article
  03 July 2023 | Open Access

  Longevity gene responsible for robust blue organic materials employing thermally activated delayed fluorescence

  High throughput virtual screening of robust blue thermally activated delayed fluorescent emitters has yet been implemented. Here, authors reveal a linear relationship of the difference between bond dissociate energy and first triplet state energy with the logarithm of device operational lifetime.

  • Qing-Yu Meng
  • , Rui Wang
  •  & Juan Qiao

• Article
  01 July 2023 | Open Access

  Achieving near-perfect light absorption in atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides through band nesting

  The authors demonstrate near-perfect light absorption using only two atomic layers of transition metal dichalcogenides. This is achieved by reducing interlayer interaction which optimizes band nesting, and does not require the use of complex metasurfaces.

  • Seungjun Lee
  • , Dongjea Seo
  •  & Tony Low

• Article
  01 July 2023 | Open Access

  Hyperbolic polaritonic crystals with configurable low-symmetry Bloch modes

  Photonic crystals (PhCs) are artificial periodic materials that can be used to manipulate the flow of light. Here, the authors report the realization of asymmetric PhCs based on in-plane hyperbolic phonon polaritons in perforated α-MoO₃, showing low-symmetry deep-subwavelength Bloch modes that are robust against lattice rearrangement in specific directions.

  • Jiangtao Lv
  • , Yingjie Wu
  •  & Qingdong Ou

• Article
  27 June 2023 | Open Access

  Impact of bimetallic interface design on heat generation in plasmonic Au/Pd nanostructures studied by single-particle thermometry

  The conversion of light into heat is a key process for plasmonic-catalytic applications. Here, the authors investigate how the design of the bimetallic interface affects the photothermal heating properties in Au/Pd nanostructures by applying thermometry at the single-particle level.

  • Julian Gargiulo
  • , Matias Herran
  •  & Emiliano Cortés

• Article
  24 June 2023 | Open Access

  Halide-assisted differential growth of chiral nanoparticles with threefold rotational symmetry

  Expanding the library of chiral plasmonic nanoparticles will foster the development of chiroptical applications. Here, the authors apply halide-assisted differential growth to convert Au nanodisks into triskelion-shaped chiral nanoparticles with threefold rotational symmetry.

  • Jiapeng Zheng
  • , Christina Boukouvala
  •  & Jianfang Wang

• Article
  19 June 2023 | Open Access

  Collective photothermal bending of flexible organic crystals modified with MXene-polymer multilayers as optical waveguide arrays

  Organic crystals represent potential alternatives to silicon dioxide due to their high flexibility and controllable properties. Here, the authors prepared a hybrid organic crystal material that responds mechanically to infrared light.

  • Xuesong Yang
  • , Linfeng Lan
  •  & Hongyu Zhang

• Article
  06 June 2023 | Open Access

  Eye accommodation-inspired neuro-metasurface focusing

  Here the authors propose for the first time the concept of supervised-evolving learning (SEL) and a corresponding SEL-driven adaptive focusing (SELAF) system. This metasurface can adaptively realize focusing at any specified position for waves incident from any direction. This work demonstrates unprecedented potential for tasks involving real-time, fast and complex electromagnetic wave manipulation.

  • Huan Lu
  • , Jiwei Zhao
  •  & Hongsheng Chen

• Article
  30 May 2023 | Open Access

  Unraveling chirality transfer mechanism by structural isomer-derived hydrogen bonding interaction in 2D chiral perovskite

  Chiral Ruddlesden-Popper perovskites are of interest as they exhibit circular dichroism in the visible light region. Here authors demonstrate the effect of asymmetric hydrogen bonding on the spin-polarization-based phenomena in chiral 2D perovskites by using structural isomer organic spacers.

  • Jaehyun Son
  • , Sunihl Ma
  •  & Jooho Moon

• Article
  30 May 2023 | Open Access

  Hybrid achromatic microlenses with high numerical apertures and focusing efficiencies across the visible

  Creating compact, lightweight and powerful optics that work well under visible light has been challenging. Here, the authors 3D print optically transparent polymers inside nanoporous glass in order to densely integrate refractive and diffractive elements, forming thin, high-performance hybrid achromatic imaging micro-optics.

  • Corey A. Richards
  • , Christian R. Ocier
  •  & Paul V. Braun

• Article
  29 May 2023 | Open Access

  Photonic crystals with rainbow colors by centrifugation-assisted assembly of colloidal lignin nanoparticles

  Photonic crystals are often prepared by assembly of particles into periodically arranged structures, but it is challenging to fabricate these materials using lignin nanoparticles. Here, the authors report the use of centrifugation to fabricate photonic crystals with rainbow structural colors.

  • Jinrong Liu
  • , Mathias Nero
  •  & Mika H. Sipponen

• Article
  25 May 2023 | Open Access

  Polarization patterning in ferroelectric nematic liquids via flexoelectric coupling

  Ferroelectric Nematic Liquid Crystals (FNLCs) have potential in applications due to their unique combination of fluidity, spontaneous polarization, large dielectric permittivity, and second-order non-linear optical properties. Sebastián et al. show the patterning of electric polarization in FNLCs by photoalignment which exploit flexoelectric coupling between polarization and splay director deformations.

  • Nerea Sebastián
  • , Matija Lovšin
  •  & Alenka Mertelj

• Article
  22 May 2023 | Open Access

  Intramolecular charge transfer enables highly-efficient X-ray luminescence in cluster scintillators

  X-ray luminescence efficiency of copper halide clusters is limited by nonradiative charge transfer. Here, Zhang et al. report highly emissive radioluminescence of Cu4I4 cubes by functionalizing biphosphine ligands with acridine, unlocking the potential use as low-cost and eco-friendly scintillators.

  • Nan Zhang
  • , Lei Qu
  •  & Hui Xu

• Article
  17 May 2023 | Open Access

  Self-wavelength shifting in two-dimensional perovskite for sensitive and fast gamma-ray detection

  Efficient light extraction in perovskite X/γ-ray scintillators is hindered by the small Stokes shift of exciton luminescence. Here, Jin et al. exploit the intrinsic strain in 2D perovskite as “self-wavelength shifting” to reduce the self-absorption effect without sacrificing the device response speed.

  • Tong Jin
  • , Zheng Liu
  •  & Guangda Niu

• Article
  15 May 2023 | Open Access

  Interfacial interaction and intense interfacial ultraviolet light emission at an incoherent interface

  Incoherent interfaces usually have weak interfacial interactions and lack of unique properties. Here, Yan et al. demonstrate unexpected strong interfacial interactions and intense ultraviolet light emission at an incoherent AlN/Al₂O₃ interface.

  • Xuexi Yan
  • , Yixiao Jiang
  •  & Xiu-Liang Ma

• Article
  04 May 2023 | Open Access

  Strong second-harmonic generation by sublattice polarization in non-uniformly strained monolayer graphene

  Nanostructured platforms for efficient nonlinear optics are the building block of next generation integrated photonic devices. Here the authors provide a straightforward method to engineer the lattice symmetry of monolayer graphene, boosting the SHG signal at low temperature.

  • Kunze Lu
  • , Manlin Luo
  •  & Donguk Nam

• Article
  04 May 2023 | Open Access

  Confining donor conformation distributions for efficient thermally activated delayed fluorescence with fast spin-flipping

  The distribution of dihedral angles in film state has significant influence on excited state lifetimes of thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitters. Here authors report conformation distribution confinement strategy to achieve fast spin-flipping for efficient organic light-emitting diodes.

  • Weidong Qiu
  • , Denghui Liu
  •  & Shi-Jian Su

• Article
  03 May 2023 | Open Access

  Epitaxial growth of highly symmetrical branched noble metal-semiconductor heterostructures with efficient plasmon-induced hot-electron transfer

  Epitaxial growth of heterostructures composed of materials with large lattice mismatch is challenging. Here, the authors reported the epitaxy of II-VI semiconductor nanorods on plasmonic noble metal, despite a lattice mismatch of more than 40%.

  • Li Zhai
  • , Sara T. Gebre
  •  & Xue-Jun Wu

• Article
  12 April 2023 | Open Access

  Single-shot isotropic differential interference contrast microscopy

  The authors present a metasurface-assisted isotropic DIC microscopy technique. It is based on an original pattern of radial shear interferometry, that converts rectilinear shear into rotationally symmetric radial shear, enabling single-shot isotropic imaging capabilities.

  • Xinwei Wang
  • , Hao Wang
  •  & Xumin Ding

• Article
  11 April 2023 | Open Access

  Antichiral surface states in time-reversal-invariant photonic semimetals

  Here the authors proposed an approach to realize the antichiral surface states in a time-reversal invariant photonic system. They harnessed a synthetic gauge flux and observed a k_z-dependent antichiral surface transport in their 3D metacrystal.

  • Jian-Wei Liu
  • , Fu-Long Shi
  •  & Jian-Wen Dong

• Article
  10 April 2023 | Open Access

  Realizing efficient blue and deep-blue delayed fluorescence materials with record-beating electroluminescence efficiencies of 43.4%

  Thermally activated delayed fluorescence materials are important for the development of OLED materials but the development of robust blue emitting materials remains challenging. Here, the authors report three highly efficient blue and deepblue delayed fluorescence materials demonstrating excellent electroluminescence performance.

  • Yan Fu
  • , Hao Liu
  •  & Zujin Zhao

• Article
  08 April 2023 | Open Access

  A direct observation of up-converted room-temperature phosphorescence in an anti-Kasha dopant-matrix system

  The emission maximum of phosphorescence is normally larger than that of fluorescence. Here, authors report up-converted room-temperature phosphorescence materials that emit from higher-lying triplet states with 3n-π* characters and large phosphorescence decay rate constants, violating Kasha’s rule.

  • Jiuyang Li
  • , Xun Li
  •  & Kaka Zhang

• Article
  01 April 2023 | Open Access

  Macroscopic transition metal dichalcogenides monolayers with uniformly high optical quality

  The optical quality of large-area transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) monolayers is usually limited by surface defects and inhomogeneities. Here, the authors report a method based on 1-dodecanol encapsulation to improve the optical properties of TMD monolayers over mm-scale, enabling the fabrication of an array of polariton photonic crystal cavities.

  • Qiuyang Li
  • , Adam Alfrey
  •  & Hui Deng

• Article
  14 March 2023 | Open Access

  Polarization-directed growth of spiral nanostructures by laser direct writing with vector beams

  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.

  • Xiaolin Lu
  • , Xujie Wang
  •  & Tao Ding