Optics and photonics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light-matter interfaces implementing arbitrary conditional operations on incoming photons would have several applications in quantum computation and communications. Here, the authors demonstrate conditional polarization rotation induced by a single quantum dot spin embedded in an electrically contacted micropillar, spanning up to a pi flip.

    • E. Mehdi
    • , M. Gundín
    •  & L. Lanco

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors report a high-performance broadband spectrometer based on a van der Waals heterostructure tunnel diode containing MoS2 and and black phosphorus, leveraging their electrically tunable photoresponse and advanced computational algorithms for spectral reconstruction.

    • Md Gius Uddin
    • , Susobhan Das
    •  & Zhipei Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The precise role of cochaperones and ATP hydrolysis in driving Hsp90’s chaperone cycle is largely unclear. Here, the authors use single-molecule FRET to show that several cochaperones are necessary to establish directionality in Hsp90’s conformational cycle.

    • Leonie Vollmar
    • , Julia Schimpf
    •  & Thorsten Hugel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic integrated circuits have grown as potential hardware for neural networks and quantum computing, yet the tuning speed and large power consumption limited the application. Here, authors introduce the memresonator, a memristor heterogeneously integrated with a microring resonator, as a non-volatile silicon photonic phase shifter to address these limitations.

    • Bassem Tossoun
    • , Di Liang
    •  & Raymond G. Beausoleil

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic Stochastic Emergent Storage is a neuromorphic photonic device for image storage and classification based on scattering-intrinsic patterns. Here, the authors show emergent storage employs stochastic prototype scattering-induced light patterns to generate categories corresponding to emergent archetypes.

    • Marco Leonetti
    • , Giorgio Gosti
    •  & Giancarlo Ruocco

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The intrinsic photovoltaic effect (IPVE) in noncentrosymmetric materials has the potential to overcome the limitations of traditional photovoltaic devices. Here, the authors report the observation of a strong and gate-tunable IPVE in 1D grain boundaries of a van der Waals semiconductor, ReS2.

    • Yongheng Zhou
    • , Xin Zhou
    •  & Xiaolong Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Enhanced sensitivity is a key parameter in quantum metrology. Here the authors demonstrate a distributed quantum phase sensing method that uses fewer photons than the number of parameters needed, and an enhanced quantum sensitivity is achieved.

    • Dong-Hyun Kim
    • , Seongjin Hong
    •  & Hyang-Tag Lim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors propose and demonstrate a novel integrated spectrometer that measures any arbitrary spectrum with two-dimensional Fourier transform, breaking the scalability limit in chip-scale spectrometry.

    • Hongnan Xu
    • , Yue Qin
    •  & Hon Ki Tsang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Drones are an effective and flexible tool for safety assessment of aging infrastructure, especially in locations with challenging accessibility. Here, authors demonstrate a phase-based sampling moiré technique with a drone for measurement of millimeter-scale infrastructural displacement in bridges.

    • Shien Ri
    • , Jiaxing Ye
    •  & Norihiko Ogura

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Authors showcase 3D direct laser writing to fabricate optically interfaced mechanical resonators. The membrane-type structures are placed inside fiber Fabry-Perot cavities to realize a miniaturized optical cavity. Further, the optomechanical properties reveal the coupling mechanism and a significant tuning of the mechanical resonator frequency.

    • Lukas Tenbrake
    • , Alexander Faßbender
    •  & Hannes Pfeifer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors experimentally realize the electrical tuning of branched flow of light in nematic liquid crystals. The statistical properties and the polarization effect of the branched flow of light in the film are systematically studied adding fundamental insights on branched flow of light.

    • Shan-shan Chang
    • , Ke-Hui Wu
    •  & Jin-hui Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors demonstrate a universal approach to achieve turnkey dissipative Kerr soliton (DKS) frequency comb. Phase insensitivity, self-healing capability, deterministic selection of DKS state, and access to ultralow noise are all successfully accomplished.

    • Mingming Nie
    • , Jonathan Musgrave
    •  & Shu-Wei Huang

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    In this Perspective, the authors illustrate the physics of hyperbolic polaritons in anisotropic 2D and 1D materials, proposing new potential material candidates, forward looking opportunities and technological applications.

    • Hongwei Wang
    • , Anshuman Kumar
    •  & Tony Low

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The requirement for sophisticated objective lenses hinders the miniaturisation of single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy for portable sensing applications. Here, the authors demonstrate a dual-wavelength metalens for real-time monitoring of individual fluorescent nanoparticles.

    • Aleksandr Barulin
    • , Yeseul Kim
    •  & Inki Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pulses of adjustable duration are generated by a mode-locked random fibre laser that can drive advances in sensing. Rayleigh backscattering from cm-long sections of telecom fibre provides laser feedback and spectral selectivity to the Fourier limit.

    • Jean Pierre von der Weid
    • , Marlon M. Correia
    •  & Walter Margulis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chiroptic sensing of single molecule is extremely challenging. Here the authors unveil an extreme nanophotonic system based on nanoparticle-on-mirror shows exceptional high sensitivity of chiral supramolecules, which can resolve enantiomer access of a racemate monolayer, exhibiting great potential for single chiral molecule sensing.

    • Chi Zhang
    • , Huatian Hu
    •  & Tao Ding

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventional optical tomography can have disadvantages, including anisotropic resolution and incomplete imaging of cellular structures. Here, the authors propose an AI-driven 3D cell imaging system with a cell rotator, which offers improved resolution and automated processing.

    • Jiawei Sun
    • , Bin Yang
    •  & Juergen W. Czarske

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ultrafast spectroscopy enables characterization and control of non-equilibrium states. Here the authors introduce a stochastic thermodynamics approach to calculate entropy production in a material under ultrafast excitation, using ionic displacement data from time-resolved X-ray scattering experiments.

    • Lorenzo Caprini
    • , Hartmut Löwen
    •  & R. Matthias Geilhufe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Near-eye displays are pivotal for building augmented and virtual reality platforms, but hurdles remain in achieving comfort and realistic visual experiences. Here, authors demonstrate compact 3D holographic glasses with focus cues by combining merits of waveguide displays and holographic displays.

    • Changwon Jang
    • , Kiseung Bang
    •  & Douglas Lanman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Transparent absorbers for electromagnetic interference shielding are sought in the terahertz frequency range. The authors demonstrate organohydrogel-elastomer composites based on permittivity gradients, with strong ionic conduction loss, showing high absorption in the 0.5–4.5 THz band.

    • Wenke Xie
    • , Qian Tang
    •  & Qiye Wen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical anapoles in nanoresonators result in strong suppression of the electromagnetic radiation, which is challenging to detect in ideal settings. Here, the authors show that fast electrons are a powerful tool to circumvent this challenge due to their ability to access dark modes.

    • Carlos Maciel-Escudero
    • , Andrew B. Yankovich
    •  & Timur O. Shegai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wavefront manipulation with metasurfaces is typically limited to low quality factors. Here, the authors show how higher-order Mie modes can be leveraged to design high quality factor optical metasurfaces for wavefront manipulation in two dimensions.

    • Claudio U. Hail
    • , Morgan Foley
    •  & Harry A. Atwater

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Several solid-state defect platforms have been proposed for application as a spin-photon interface in quantum communication networks. Here the authors report spin-selective optical transitions and narrow inhomogeneous spectral distribution of V centers in isotopically-enriched SiC emitting in the telecom O-band.

    • Pasquale Cilibrizzi
    • , Muhammad Junaid Arshad
    •  & Cristian Bonato

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors identify real-space contributions to the characteristics of high-harmonic generation in ReS2 and demonstrate the possibility of laser-controlled emission. They find that the spectrum is not just determined by the band structure, but also by the interference between HHG signals coming from different atoms within the unit cell.

    • Álvaro Jiménez-Galán
    • , Chandler Bossaer
    •  & Giulio Vampa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Processing of conventional infrared-transparent materials limits their applicability. The authors demonstrate 3D printing of thiol-ene optical components with mid- and long-wave infrared transparency with applications such as reaction temperature monitoring.

    • Piaoran Ye
    • , Zhihan Hong
    •  & Rongguang Liang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metasurfaces enable all-optical geometric coordinate transformations, converting images with altered pixel spatial relations, which can facilitate fast, energy-efficient preprocessing for tasks like object tracking, or aid in laser manufacturing.

    • Xingwang Zhang
    • , Xiaojie Zhang
    •  & Xingjie Ni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Developing quantum networks would require reliable sources of coherent quantum light at telecom wavelengths. Here, the authors employ elastic scattering of excitation laser photons on InAs/InP quantum dots to demonstrate the emission of telecom photons with coherence times longer than the Fourier limit.

    • L. Wells
    • , T. Müller
    •  & A. J. Shields

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors report on the experimental observation and characterization of exceptional points above the lasing threshold in photonic crystal nanocavities.

    • Kaiwen Ji
    • , Qi Zhong
    •  & Alejandro M. Yacomotti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High-dimensional quantum states allow for several advantages in quantum communication, but protocols such as teleportation require additional entangled photons as the dimension increases. Here, the authors show how to transport a high-dimensional quantum state from a bright coherent laser field to a single photon, using two entangled photons as the quantum channel.

    • Bereneice Sephton
    • , Adam Vallés
    •  & Andrew Forbes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Remote transport of high-dimensional-encoded photonic states could in principle be achieved via quantum teleportation, but with considerable experimental effort. Here, instead, the authors exploit spatial-mode engineered frequency conversion between a coherent wave packet and a single photon to remotely transfer the HD OAM states, also providing a strategy for quantum imaging.

    • Xiaodong Qiu
    • , Haoxu Guo
    •  & Lixiang Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hyperbolic exciton polaritons (HEPs) are anisotropic light-matter excitations with promising applications, but their steady-state observation is challenging. Here, the authors report experimental evidence of HEPs in a van der Waals magnet, CrSBr, via cryogenic infrared near-field microscopy.

    • Francesco L. Ruta
    • , Shuai Zhang
    •  & D. N. Basov

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    The enhanced Coulomb interaction in two dimensions leads to not only tightly bound excitons but also many-particle excitonic complexes: excitons interacting with other quasiparticles, which results in improved and even new exciton properties with better controls. Here, we summarize studies of excitonic complexes in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides and their moiré heterojunctions, envisioning how to utilize them for exploring quantum many-body physics.

    • Xiaotong Chen
    • , Zhen Lian
    •  & Su-Fei Shi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors propose electron-positron creation by scattering of gamma-rays and polaritons, enabling the synthesis of ultrafast, localized positron sources and introducing the possibility to exploit nanophotonics for particle physics.

    • Valerio Di Giulio
    •  & F. Javier García de Abajo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors demonstrate real-time blind photonic interference cancellation using FPGA-photonic coordinated processing with zero calibration micro-ring resonator control and sub-second cancellation weight identification.

    • Joshua C. Lederman
    • , Weipeng Zhang
    •  & Paul R. Prucnal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ultrahigh-efficiency and low-threshold yet tunable and compact laser devices are at the base of new functional devices. Here the authors harness a new temperature degree of freedom to realize a tunable photon-phonon collaboratively pumped laser.

    • Yu Fu
    • , Fei Liang
    •  & Yan-Feng Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The researchers showcase all-crystalline and hybrid mid-infrared supermirrors with the lowest optical losses ever demonstrated in this wavelength range, representing an unprecedented improvement over any existing mirrors made with any production technology.

    • Gar-Wing Truong
    • , Lukas W. Perner
    •  & Garrett D. Cole

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors uncover a coherent, long-range transport of excitons in organic semiconductors that are strongly coupled to spatially structured plasmon fields by tracing ultrafast Rabi oscillations using two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy.

    • Daniel Timmer
    • , Moritz Gittinger
    •  & Christoph Lienau

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Standard techniques for Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy are limited by the electronics to 100’s of picoseconds time resolution. Here, the authors show how to use two-photon interference to perform fluorescence lifetime sensing with picosecond-scale resolution.

    • Ashley Lyons
    • , Vytautas Zickus
    •  & Daniele Faccio

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The photonic applications of hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) in anisotropic van der Waals materials are currently limited by their low tunability. Here, the authors report the static and ultrafast wavevector modulation of HPhPs in hexagonal boron nitride by tuning the plasma frequency of doped semiconductor substrates.

    • Mingze He
    • , Joseph R. Matson
    •  & Joshua D. Caldwell

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