Optical materials and structures articles within Nature Materials

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  • Perspective |

    This Perspective describes the recent advances in understanding and controlling the properties of single-wall carbon nanotubes as well as the progress towards the fabrication of new electrically driven single-photon sources.

    • X. He
    • , H. Htoon
    •  & C. Voisin

  • News & Views |

    Defects in mercury telluride quantum dots can be exploited to achieve amplified spontaneous emission under continuous-wave optical pumping at ultralow power levels.

    • Frank Wise

  • News & Views |

    Compositional grading of colloidal quantum dots enables electrically driven amplification of light, bringing electrically driven lasers from these materials very close.

    • Ifor Samuel

  • News & Views |

    The thermal conductivities of superatom crystals have significant contributions from extended phonon states and show a remarkable temperature dependence due to orientational ordering.

    • Longji Cui
    • , Edgar Meyhofer
    •  & Pramod Reddy

  • News & Views |

    A miniaturized camera has been developed by integrating a planar metasurface lens doublet with a CMOS image sensor. The metasurface lens doublet corrects the monochromatic aberration and thus delivers nearly diffraction-limited image quality over a wide field of view.

    • Cheng Sun

  • Letter |

    A theoretically proposed photonic crystal design with valley-dependent spin-split bulk bands allows for the independent control of valley and topology in a single system.

    • Jian-Wen Dong
    • , Xiao-Dong Chen
    •  & Xiang Zhang

  • News & Views |

    In the past decade, artificial materials with unusual wave interactions have significantly evolved and matured. In honour of the tenth anniversary of the premiere metamaterials conference, we look at the directions in which this field is evolving, and its impact on technology.

    • Andrea Alù

  • Article |

    The photocurrent generated in organic photodetectors and solar cells can be enhanced by increasing light absorption in the active layer. It is now shown that an extended persistence length can increase the oscillator strength of conjugated polymers.

    • Michelle S. Vezie
    • , Sheridan Few
    •  & Jenny Nelson

  • News & Views |

    Researchers have experimentally demonstrated a new type of pathway for electromagnetic waves, which allows an easy reconfiguration into various shapes while significantly suppressing backscattering.

    • Bo Zhen
    •  & Marin Soljačić

  • News & Views |

    Macroscopic deformation can induce chirality in initially achiral nanoparticle composites, and reversibly modulate their chiroptical properties.

    • Daeyeon Lee
    •  & Sang Eon Han

  • Progress Article |

    A review on toroidal excitations, from static toroidal moments in condensed matter, to dynamic toroidal multipoles demonstrated experimentally with metamaterials.

    • N. Papasimakis
    • , V. A. Fedotov
    •  & N. I. Zheludev

  • Article |

    A renally cleared, water-soluble dye emitting in the near-infrared-imaging (NIR)-II window outperforms a clinically approved NIR-I dye in the in vivo imaging of tumours and their nearby blood and lymphatic vasculatures.

    • Alexander L. Antaris
    • , Hao Chen
    •  & Hongjie Dai

  • News & Views |

    Researchers develop a simple and low-cost fabrication method for the production of large-scale all-dielectric metasurfaces, which exhibit near-perfect reflectivity in the telecommunications spectral window.

    • Nicolas Bonod

  • Article |

    A concept for the phase control of the nonlinear susceptibility using the left- and right-circular polarization basis for fundamental and harmonic generated light is introduced and tested using metasurfaces containing plasmonic antennas.

    • Guixin Li
    • , Shumei Chen
    •  & Shuang Zhang

  • Research Highlights |

    • Maria Maragkou

  • Article |

    Harnessing the optical properties of noble metals down to the nanoscale is crucial for fast information processing. Lateral confinement and delocalization of surface plasmons is now observed in self-assembled network chains of fused gold nanoparticles.

    • Alexandre Teulle
    • , Michel Bosman
    •  & Erik Dujardin

  • Article |

    Inspired by Boolean binary algebra, an approach to design electromagnetic metamaterials with desired permittivity by using just two elemental building blocks is demonstrated analytically and numerically.

    • Cristian Della Giovampaola
    •  & Nader Engheta

  • Letter |

    The dynamic control of thermal emission via the control of emissivity through intersubband absorption in n-type quantum wells, at a speed four orders of magnitude faster than is currently possible, is now demonstrated.

    • Takuya Inoue
    • , Menaka De Zoysa
    •  & Susumu Noda

  • Letter |

    Until now, it has not been possible to switch chirality in plasmonic nanostructures at will and repeatedly. Now, thanks to DNA-regulated conformational changes, reconfigurable 3D plasmonic metamolecules with switchable chirality have been created.

    • Anton Kuzyk
    • , Robert Schreiber
    •  & Na Liu

  • Letter |

    Liquid-crystalline elastomers combine rubber-like elasticity with the optical properties of liquid crystals, yet some of their properties depend on the particular liquid-crystal phase. Now, stretchable gels of the liquid-crystalline blue-phase I are reported. The blue-phase gels are electro-optically switchable under a moderate applied voltage, and their optical properties can be manipulated by an applied strain.

    • F. Castles
    • , S. M. Morris
    •  & H. J. Coles

  • Article |

    Disordered photonic materials have the ability to control the flow of light through random multiple scattering. This has the drawback of randomizing both the direction and phase of the propagating light. Now, confined and interacting light modes are demonstrated for a two-dimensional disordered photonic structure.

    • Francesco Riboli
    • , Niccolò Caselli
    •  & Diederik S. Wiersma

  • News & Views |

    The experimental observation of polariton condensates at room temperature in soft organic materials makes the study of quantum condensed phases easily accessible and opens inroads to optoelectronic devices based on macroscopic quantum phenomena.

    • Pavlos Lagoudakis

  • Review Article |

    Metamaterials are artificially fabricated materials that allow for the control of light and acoustic waves in a manner that is not possible in nature. This Review covers the recent developments in the study of so-called metasurfaces, which offer the possibility of controlling light with ultrathin, planar optical components.

    • Nanfang Yu
    •  & Federico Capasso

  • Letter |

    The photoluminescent properties of electron spins at nitrogen–vacancy (NV) centres are promising for use in quantum information and magnetometry. It is now shown that the coherence times of NV centres in nanodiamonds can be engineered to be comparable to those of bulk diamond.

    • Helena S. Knowles
    • , Dhiren M. Kara
    •  & Mete Atatüre

  • News & Views |

    A study on the subtle interplay between electronic structure and structural defects now explains why the suppression of conduction in the insulating state of bilayer graphene is not as strong as might be expected. It also reveals the possibility of creating graphene-based nanoscale systems with unique electronic properties.

    • Philip Hofmann

  • News & Views |

    Photoexcited diamond can inject highly energetic electrons in solution and promote the catalysis of a broad range of chemical reactions.

    • Christoph E. Nebel

  • Article |

    Solid-state catalysts do not participate efficiently in the reduction of N2 to NH3 because they tend not to form strong bonds with nitrogen molecules. It is now shown that, under ultraviolet radiation, hydrogen-terminated diamond can eject electrons directly in a liquid solution, thus allowing nitrogen reduction without requiring its preliminary adsorption on a solid surface.

    • Di Zhu
    • , Linghong Zhang
    •  & Robert J. Hamers

  • Article |

    Non-trivial topological phases can allow for one-way spin-polarized transport along the interfaces of topological insulators but they are relatively uncommon in the condensed state of matter. By arranging judiciously designed metamaterials into two-dimensional superlattices, a photonic topological insulator has now been demonstrated theoretically, enabling unidirectional spin-polarized photon propagation without the application of external magnetic fields or breaking of time-reversal symmetry.

    • Alexander B. Khanikaev
    • , S. Hossein Mousavi
    •  & Gennady Shvets

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