Materials for optics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasmonic metasurfaces can provide exciting optical functionalities. Here, Hui et al. demonstrate an infrared sensor by combining plasmonic and piezoelectric electromechanical resonances, demonstrating efficient transduction of vibration with a strong and polarization-independent absorption over an ultrathin thickness.

    • Yu Hui
    • , Juan Sebastian Gomez-Diaz
    •  & Matteo Rinaldi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ability to control both electric and magnetic dispersion of light allows a novel type of hyperbolic material with impedance matched to air. Here, the authors show experimentally a topological transition between elliptic and magnetic hyperbolic dispersions in a metamaterial for control of thermal radiation.

    • Sergey S. Kruk
    • , Zi Jing Wong
    •  & Xiang Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The photophysics of lead halide perovskites is under intense investigation. Here, the authors use force microscopy on single crystals to show that light induces drastic lattice changes, and propose that the weakening of the hydrogen coupling under illumination is responsible for the lattice dilatation.

    • Yang Zhou
    • , Lu You
    •  & Junling Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Resonant cavities are a ubiquitous building block in science and technology. Here, Liberal et al. demonstrate theoretically the existence of resonators whose eigenfrequencies are invariant with respect to geometrical deformations of their external boundaries, by exploiting the unusual properties of zero-index metamaterials.

    • I. Liberal
    • , A. M. Mahmoud
    •  & N. Engheta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    On-chip light sources for silicon photonic circuits remain a challenge since the indirect bandgap of silicon prevents efficient light emission. The authors demonstrate that lasing can be achieved by combining standard silicon-on-insulator waveguides with dye-doped organic cladding materials to provide optical gain.

    • Dietmar Korn
    • , Matthias Lauermann
    •  & Christian Koos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlled operation of individual molecular machines on a larger scale, 10-100 nm, remains challenging. Here, Kuzyk et al.demonstrate a light-driven plasmonic nanosystem that can amplify the molecular motion of azobenzene through a host nanostructure and translates it into reversible chiroptical response.

    • Anton Kuzyk
    • , Yangyang Yang
    •  & Na Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently, there has been a growing interest in do-it-yourself components to accelerate development of inexpensive fabrication approaches. Here, Chen et al.present a plasmon-assisted etching technique to fabricate planar optical components using arrays of gold pillar-supported bowtie nanoantennas as a template.

    • Hao Chen
    • , Abdul M. Bhuiya
    •  & Kimani C. Toussaint Jr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fundamental issue of phase-matching across metasurfaces has not been thoroughly addressed. Here, Almeida et al. show full phase control by introducing a spatially varying phase response of a metallic metasurface consisting of subwavelength nanoantennas and demonstrate metasurface-phase-matching.

    • Euclides Almeida
    • , Guy Shalem
    •  & Yehiam Prior

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The high polarity of colloidal inorganic-ligand-functionalized nanocrystals can be problematic for their processing, limiting their optoelectronic applications. Here, by complexation with macrocycles, the authors enabled broad amphiphilicity of such nanocrystals and processing from a variety of solvents.

    • Maryna I. Bodnarchuk
    • , Sergii Yakunin
    •  & Maksym V. Kovalenko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Distinguishing between photonic crystals and metamaterials can provide a path for designing low-loss artificial materials with a range of novel applications. Here, Rybin et al. introduce a concept of phase transitions between all-dielectric metamaterials and photonic crystals based on the physics of Mie and Bragg resonances.

    • Mikhail V. Rybin
    • , Dmitry S. Filonov
    •  & Mikhail F. Limonov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The development of invisibility cloaks which function at low frequencies are of practical importance, especially for magnetic fields involved in modern technologies. Here, Zhu et al. develop the bilayer approach to create a three-dimensional magnetic cloak able to work in both static and dynamic fields.

    • Jianfei Zhu
    • , Wei Jiang
    •  & Yungui Ma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Short pulses of high intensity laser light usually heat the ions in dense plasmas indirectly via collisions with the electrons. Here, the authors identify an extremely rapid alternative heating mechanism based on ion-ion collisions.

    • A. E. Turrell
    • , M. Sherlock
    •  & S. J. Rose

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The combination of graphene with plasmonic waveguides remains largely unexplored. Here, Ansell et al. report the fabrication of hybrid graphene plasmonic waveguide modulators working in the telecom range, with a modulation depth greater than 0.03 dB μm−1and with comparable characteristics to silicon-based devices.

    • D. Ansell
    • , I. P. Radko
    •  & A. N. Grigorenko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventional substrates used for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) are slow in response and lack reproducibility. Here, Zheng et al.describe a plasmonic sensor that can trap a single molecule at hot spots for rapid single-molecule detection with repeated trap and release capability and good SERS reproducibility.

    • Yuanhui Zheng
    • , Alexander H. Soeriyadi
    •  & J. Justin Gooding

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metamaterials are engineered media with properties that mimic those of natural materials, but offer a much wider range of possibilities. Here, the authors numerically demonstrate an elastic-wave analogue of the quantum spin Hall effect in a phononic topological metamaterial.

    • S. Hossein Mousavi
    • , Alexander B. Khanikaev
    •  & Zheng Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasmonics enables the medication of light on length-scales smaller than the wavelength of the light. Here, the authors present a theoretical investigation of optical meta-atoms based on core-shell plasmonic nanostructures, where light is confined into a small region of space.

    • Sylvain Lannebère
    •  & Mário G. Silveirinha

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Erbium ions offer a way to integrate light emitters into silicon electronics, but their radiative decay time is too slow for effective light modulation. Here, the authors use phase changes in vanadium dioxide to enable all-optical modulation more than a thousand times faster than the erbium excited-state lifetime.

    • Sébastien Cueff
    • , Dongfang Li
    •  & Rashid Zia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Organic light-emitting diodes promise a more environment-friendly future for light sources, but many use rare metals. Here, the authors present an approach that achieves external quantum efficiency over 40% by realising 100% up-conversion from triplet to singlet excitons and thus 100% radiative emission.

    • Hironori Kaji
    • , Hajime Suzuki
    •  & Chihaya Adachi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dynamic control of components is required for large-scale quantum photonic networks. Here, Kapfingeret al. show dynamic control of the interaction between two coupled photonic crystal nanocavities forming a photonic molecule. Tuning is achieved by using an electrically generated radio frequency surface acoustic wave.

    • Stephan Kapfinger
    • , Thorsten Reichert
    •  & Hubert J. Krenner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spectroscopy in the terahertz range requires polarization modulation. Here, Kan et al.demonstrate a chirality switchable metamaterial for polarization modulation employing deformable spirals. A polarization rotation as high as 28° is achieved, providing a practical and compact polarization modulator for the terahertz range.

    • Tetsuo Kan
    • , Akihiro Isozaki
    •  & Isao Shimoyama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Harnessing nonlinear optics in optoelectronic devices requires a platform that exhibits both giant optical nonlinearity and is compatible with photonic-circuit fabrication. Here, the authors demonstrate such a system that uses strong light–matter coupling between waveguide photons and quantum-well excitons.

    • P. M. Walker
    • , L. Tinkler
    •  & D. N. Krizhanovskii

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hybridization-type band gaps are known to persist in phononic crystals, but their fabrication remains challenging for all-solid hypersonic composites. Here, the authors utilize the elastic anisotropy at the interface of polymer-tethered colloidal particles to control phonon propagation in GHz regime.

    • E. Alonso-Redondo
    • , M. Schmitt
    •  & G. Fytas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nonlinear optical properties of conventional materials have limited spectral tuneability as they are defined by the material properties themselves. Here, the authors demonstrate that strong nonlinearity can be achieved in metamaterials where negligible nonlinearity of the constituent materials exists.

    • Andres D. Neira
    • , Nicolas Olivier
    •  & Anatoly V. Zayats

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical cavities enhance light–matter interactions, and have been used to strongly couple a photon to a single spin. Here, the authors take this a step further by coupling a photon to a two-spin system by embedding an indium arsenide quantum-dot molecule in a photonic crystal cavity.

    • Patrick M. Vora
    • , Allan S. Bracker
    •  & Daniel Gammon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hot electrons are generated when energy is transferred from an incoming photon, enabling an electron from a metal surface to become mobile. Here, the authors irradiate plasmonically active silver core-satellite superstructures and use the hot electrons to effect chemical reactions via photorecycling.

    • Wei Xie
    •  & Sebastian Schlücker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metasurfaces are arrays of subwavelength structures that are tailored to produce specific optical responses. Rozin et al.show that large-area metasurfaces can be readily fabricated by self-assembly of colloidal nanocrystals of different geometries, producing tunable reflectance and absorbance properties.

    • Matthew J. Rozin
    • , David A. Rosen
    •  & Andrea R. Tao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metamaterial hyperlenses convert evanescent waves into propagating ones, thereby beating the diffraction limit. Sun et al. present a non-resonant waveguide-integrated hyperlens designed around a radial fan structure that provides imaging at visible wavelengths with low losses.

    • Jingbo Sun
    • , Mikhail I. Shalaev
    •  & Natalia M. Litchinitser

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deformable and high-resolution LEDs have attracted great interest for wearable electronics, but full-colour display is still challenging. Using a stamp printing technology, Choi et al. build ultra-thin RGB quantum dot pixel arrays with luminous efficiency of 14,000 cd m−2operated at low voltage of 7 V.

    • Moon Kee Choi
    • , Jiwoong Yang
    •  & Dae-Hyeong Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Graphene has demonstrated the ability to modulate terahertz (THz) waves by optical or electrical excitation, but modulation depths have been low. Here, Li et al. demonstrate enhanced modulation and polarity-dependent THz attenuation using external voltage bias and photoexcitation on a graphene–silicon film.

    • Quan Li
    • , Zhen Tian
    •  & Weili Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The interplay of processes with different spatio-temporal scales is present in many physical systems but its study is challenging. Here, Churkin et al. study the dynamics of a partially mode-locked laser where stochastic and periodic processes interplay by mapping the evolution of the intensity autocorrelation function.

    • D. V. Churkin
    • , S. Sugavanam
    •  & S. K. Turitsyn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A weak and narrow electric dipole has limited the use of silicon nanospheres in nanophotonic applications requiring strong interaction between electric and magnetic modes. Here, Yan et al.demonstrate effective coupling between the magnetic resonance and the electric gap mode in nearly touching silicon nanospheres.

    • J. H. Yan
    • , P. Liu
    •  & G. W. Yang

  • Article |

    High-contrast fringes and holographic grating imprinting rely on the coherence of the superimposing beams, and thus, it typically requires the interference of beams originating from a single laser. Here, Odoulov et al. demonstrate that holographic grating recording is possible using pulses of different colour.

    • Serguey Odoulov
    • , Alexandr Shumelyuk
    •  & Mirco Imlau

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Few-femtosecond synchronization at free-electron lasers is key for nearly all experimental applications, stable operation and future light source development. Here, Schulz et al. demonstrate all-optical synchronization of the soft X-ray FEL FLASH to better than 30 fs and illustrate a pathway to sub-10 fs.

    • S. Schulz
    • , I. Grguraš
    •  & A. L. Cavalieri

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The optoelectronic properties of semiconducting polymers are controlled by altering chemical structure and/or inter-chain order. Perevedentsev et al. propose a nanopatterning approach whereby the geometry of polymer chain segments is modified to engineer metamaterial structures for visible light.

    • Aleksandr Perevedentsev
    • , Yannick Sonnefraud
    •  & Donal D. C. Bradley

  • Article |

    Any typical sensing device must absorb energy, thereby altering the measured signal as it propagates on. By exploiting parity-time symmetry via non-Foster circuits, Fleury et al. show that a sensor can be built that absorbs incoming signals without perturbing them or creating a shadow, rendering it invisible.

    • Romain Fleury
    • , Dimitrios Sounas
    •  & Andrea Alù

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Various vertical surface emitting, terahertz quantum-cascade lasers have been proposed recently but these suffer from power cancellations in the far-field and limited extraction efficiencies. Here, Vitiello et al.circumvent these issues using two-dimensional photonic quasi-crystalline resonators.

    • Miriam Serena Vitiello
    • , Michele Nobile
    •  & A. Giles Davies

  • Article |

    Negative index metamaterials have been proposed for super-lensing and electromagnetic invisibility but real applications have been hindered by their high losses. Here, Ye et al.demonstrate an effective gain medium that overcompensates the loss of a passive metamaterial while keeping its negative index.

    • Dexin Ye
    • , Kihun Chang
    •  & Hao Xin

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