Optical metrology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solid-state spatio-spectral coherent light detection and ranging system is proposed based on flutter-wavelength-swept laser for real-time four-dimensional coherent imaging over extended measurable distance even in challenging environments.

    • Dawoon Jeong
    • , Hansol Jang
    •  & Chang-Seok Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent years have seen a growing need for miniaturized spectroscopic tools. Here, authors present a novel integrated spectrometer with programmable photonic circuits, achieving record-high resolution and bandwidth via only a few filtering components.

    • Chunhui Yao
    • , Kangning Xu
    •  & Richard Penty

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Precision measurement plays an important role in frequency metrology and optical communications. Here the authors compare two geographically separate ultrastable lasers at 7 × 10−17 fractional frequency instability over a 2220 km optical fibre link and these measurements can be useful for dissemination of ultrastable light to distant optical clocks.

    • M. Schioppo
    • , J. Kronjäger
    •  & G. Grosche

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exploiting technologies derived from the optical clocks community, the authors demonstrate a setup for twin-field QKD which extends the coherence times by three orders of magnitude, overcoming the main challenge towards real-world implementation.

    • Cecilia Clivati
    • , Alice Meda
    •  & Davide Calonico

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A travelling wave inside a metal slit can reveal its own waveform by probing deflecting motions of charged particles. Here, a real-time THz oscilloscope was demonstrated by utilizing the relativistic electrons and the subwavelength slit waveguide.

    • In Hyung Baek
    • , Hyun Woo Kim
    •  & Young Uk Jeong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Generally, wavefronts are measured using angle-based sensors like the Shack-Hartmann sensor. Here, the authors present an angle-sensitive device that uses flat optics integrated on a focal plane array for compact wavefront sensing with improved resolution.

    • Soongyu Yi
    • , Jin Xiang
    •  & Zongfu Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Doppler effect is a wave phenomenon that can find the magnitude of velocity of moving targets with scalar waves. Here, the authors use vectorially structured light with spatially variant polarization to fully determine both the magnitude of velocity and motion direction of a moving particle.

    • Liang Fang
    • , Zhenyu Wan
    •  & Jian Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extracting weak, ultrafast single-shot waveforms from a noisy background has critical uses in many applications. Here, the authors present a method to enhance signals and recover arbitrary waveforms from very noisy backgrounds by manipulating the physical waveform spectra in real time.

    • Benjamin Crockett
    • , Luis Romero Cortés
    •  & José Azaña

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Atomic clocks and their networks are useful tools for optical communications and frequency metrology. Here the authors use phase stabilization and active tip-tilt to suppress atmospheric effects and enable optical frequency transfer through free-space.

    • Benjamin P. Dix-Matthews
    • , Sascha W. Schediwy
    •  & Peter Wolf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Imagers capable of reconstructing three-dimensional scenes in the presence of strong background noise are desirable for many remote sensing and imaging applications. Here, the authors report an imager operating in photon-starved and noise-polluted environments through quantum parametric mode sorting.

    • Patrick Rehain
    • , Yong Meng Sua
    •  & Yu-Ping Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In order to satisfy a wide range of modern microwave applications, improved methods are needed to produce low-noise microwave signals. Here the authors demonstrate ultra-low noise microwave synthesis via optical frequency division using a transfer oscillator method applied to a microresonator-based comb on the path to future self-referenced integrated sources.

    • Erwan Lucas
    • , Pierre Brochard
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Typical methods for optical vector analysis have tradeoffs among resolution, dynamic range, and bandwidth. The authors use an asymmetric optical probe signal generator and receiver to perform attometer resolution measurement over a THz of bandwidth while maintaining high dynamic range, aiming to characterize emerging optical devices.

    • Ting Qing
    • , Shupeng Li
    •  & Shilong Pan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical clock networks have many applications from precision time keeping, sensing to fundamental physics. Here the authors demonstrate robust and free-space femtosecond time synchronization of optical clocks via a moving quadcopter.

    • Hugo Bergeron
    • , Laura C. Sinclair
    •  & Nathan R. Newbury

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Precise gravimetric measurements are an important but challenging task. Here, Qvarfort et al. theoretically show that, in an optomechanical cavity, only the phase of the optical output needs to be measured to obtain a precise value for the gravitational acceleration with high sensitivity.

    • Sofia Qvarfort
    • , Alessio Serafini
    •  & Sougato Bose

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The complex speckle pattern produced by coherent multiple scattering contains information about the incident light field, which has recently been used for imaging. Metzgeret al. use speckle to construct a wavemeter with sub-femtometre resolution which is subsequently used for laser stabilization.

    • Nikolaus Klaus Metzger
    • , Roman Spesyvtsev
    •  & Kishan Dholakia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Kloppstechet al. report experimental observations of the heat transfer between a gold tip and an atomically flat gold sample in the 0.2–7 nm regime. The observed flux rates are four orders of magnitude larger than expected from theory, suggesting the possibility of additional heat transfer mechanisms.

    • Konstantin Kloppstech
    • , Nils Könne
    •  & Achim Kittel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, Cuiet al. report radiative heat transfer in few Ångström to 5 nm gap sizes, between a gold-coated probe and a heated planar gold substrate subjected to various surface cleaning procedures. They found that insufficiently cleaned probes and substrates led to unexpectedly large radiative thermal conductances.

    • Longji Cui
    • , Wonho Jeong
    •  & Pramod Reddy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An ideal optical frequency-comb system should combine both single-line spectral resolution and a bandwidth broad enough to cover as many lines as possible. Here, the authors incorporate a fibre spectrometer to detect approximately 500 comb-lines with an instrument resolution of 120 megahertz.

    • Nicola Coluccelli
    • , Marco Cassinerio
    •  & Gianluca Galzerano

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Inertial sensors using atom interferometry have applications in geophysics, navigation- and space-based tests of fundamental physics. Here, the first operation of an atom accelerometer during parabolic flights is reported, demonstrating high-resolution measurements at both 1g and 0g.

    • R. Geiger
    • , V. Ménoret
    •  & P. Bouyer

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