Optics and photonics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Visual evidence for photo-induced ionic migration in perovskite films without contacts is lacking. Here, the authors use a unique combination of confocal photoluminescence microscopy and chemical imaging to correlate the local changes in photophysics with composition in CH3NH3PbI3films under illumination.

    • Dane W. deQuilettes
    • , Wei Zhang
    •  & Samuel D. Stranks

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Attosecond soft X-ray pulses hold promise for probing electronic dynamics in real time, but it is challenging to achieve element sensitivity while maintaining temporal resolution. Teichmann et al. report the cover of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen absorption edges with an isolated pulse supporting 13 as duration.

    • S. M. Teichmann
    • , F. Silva
    •  & J. Biegert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The evolution of a quantum state undergoing radiative decay depends on how the emission is detected. Here, the authors demonstrate how continuous field detection, as opposed to the more common detection of energy quanta, allows control of the back-action on the emitter’s state.

    • M. Naghiloo
    • , N. Foroozani
    •  & K. W. Murch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A theoretical description of the nonlinear response of metals is complicated due to their complex electron behavior. Here, Krasavin et al. use a hydrodynamic model coupled with Maxwell's equations and demonstrate higher harmonics and supercontinuum generation from metal Archimedean spiral shapes

    • A. V. Krasavin
    • , P. Ginzburg
    •  & A. V. Zayats

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrochromism, the dependence of light absorption upon electronic control, finds a wide range of applications in smart materials. Here, Liu et al. show an electrochromic DNA–surfactant liquid crystal system that exhibits electrically tunable optical absorption and thermally tunable memory.

    • Kai Liu
    • , Justin Varghese
    •  & Andreas Herrmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Compact, integrated mode-locked lasers can produce ultrashort pulses of light in the visible and near infrared, but are more difficult to achieve in the mid-infrared. Here, the authors demonstrate active mode locking of an external-cavity quantum cascade laser emitting at 5.2 micrometres at room temperature.

    • D. G. Revin
    • , M. Hemingway
    •  & A. Belyanin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optomechanics harnesses the interaction between mechanical resonators and light, but weak matter–single-photon interactions limit studies to the linear regime. Here, the authors show that the interaction can be enhanced by modulating the spring constant of the resonator.

    • Marc-Antoine Lemonde
    • , Nicolas Didier
    •  & Aashish A. Clerk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bloch oscillations are a fundamental electron transport phenomenon in condensed matter. Here, the authors experimentally realize spatial Bloch oscillations in a non-Hermitian integrated photonic system using CMOS compatible fabrication processes, contributing to improving the understanding of non-Hermitian transport phenomena.

    • Ye-Long Xu
    • , William S. Fegadolli
    •  & Yan-Feng Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Intense laser-driven acceleration mechanisms are promising for the realization of compact particle accelerators. Here, the authors present a miniature linear accelerating module for laser-driven protons from a foil that addresses limitation in terms of peak energy, bandwidth and beam divergence.

    • Satyabrata Kar
    • , Hamad Ahmed
    •  & Marco Borghesi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Transferring quantum information is a fundamental task, but doing so with high fidelity is a challenging task. Here, the authors implement the perfect state transfer protocol to a photonic qubit, entangled with a second one in a different location, across eleven coupled waveguides.

    • Robert J. Chapman
    • , Matteo Santandrea
    •  & Alberto Peruzzo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The efficiency of coherent transport can be enhanced through interaction between the system and a noisy environment. Here, Biggerstaff et al. report an experimental simulation of environment assisted coherent transport using laser-written waveguides, showing that controllable decoherence yields an increase in transport efficiency.

    • Devon N. Biggerstaff
    • , René Heilmann
    •  & Ivan Kassal

  • 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

    Phonons—crystal lattice vibrations—interact with crystal defects on the nanometre spatial scale and femtosecond timescale. Here, the authors demonstrate direct, real-space imaging of the nucleation, emergence and dispersion of single-phonon wavefronts at individual atomic-scale defects in semiconductors.

    • Daniel R. Cremons
    • , Dayne A. Plemmons
    •  & David J. Flannigan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Components such as isolators, circulators and gyrators are non-reciprocal in that they allow electromagnetic waves to flow in one direction but not the other. Here, the authors demonstrate a radio-frequency circulator that is compatible with and integrated in a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor integrated circuit.

    • Negar Reiskarimian
    •  & Harish Krishnaswamy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical isolators, or optical diodes, allow electromagnetic radiation to travel in one direction but not the other. Here, the authors achieve unidirectional propagation of terahertz waves by taking advantage of the non-reciprocal nature of optical conductivity in magnetostatically biased graphene.

    • Michele Tamagnone
    • , Clara Moldovan
    •  & Julien Perruisseau-Carrier

  • 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

    Confocal and multiphoton fluorescence microscopy often suffers from low dynamic range. Here the authors develop a high dynamic range, laser scanning fluorescence technique by simultaneously recording different light intensity ranges. The method can be adapted to commercial systems.

    • C. Vinegoni
    • , C. Leon Swisher
    •  & R. Weissleder

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deterministically generated single photons are useful for quantum communications, but the processes that create such light are often non-deterministic. Here, the authors enhance the single-photon output probability by multiplexing photons from four temporal modes using fibre-integrated optics.

    • C. Xiong
    • , X. Zhang
    •  & B. J. Eggleton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The recombination dynamics of photogenerated carriers in organolead trihalide perovskites are not well understood. Here, He et al.report that the recombination of photogenerated carriers in solution-processed methylammonium-lead-halide films is dominated by excitons weakly localized in band tail states.

    • Haiping He
    • , Qianqian Yu
    •  & Zhizhen Ye

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light scattering from a dense coherent medium is determined by the interplay of dispersive and radiative dipole–dipole interactions. Here, the authors control the motional effects that obscure the coherence of scattered light and study collective emission in a driven gas of cold strontium-88 atoms.

    • S. L. Bromley
    • , B. Zhu
    •  & J. Ye

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ability to heal whilst maintaining original functionality is important for establishing materials with superior longevity. Here, the authors demonstrate a supramolecular polymeric coating which exhibits excellent optical and mechanical properties, even following damage repair.

    • Diederik W. R. Balkenende
    • , Christophe A. Monnier
    •  & Christoph Weder

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Higher-order multi-photon pumped polarized lasers promise application in future optoelectronic and biomedical applications. Here, the authors demonstrate a polarized three-photon pumped (3PP) microcavity laser in a single host-guest composite MOF crystal via a controllable in situ self-assembly strategy.

    • Huajun He
    • , En Ma
    •  & Guodong Qian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aerosol droplets have significant effects on atmospheric photochemistry, however measuring absorption from single droplets is a challenge. Here, the authors report a method to measure absorption of nanodroplets with attolitre sensitivity, showing rate enhancements for light focusing in photolysis reactions.

    • Johannes W. Cremer
    • , Klemens M. Thaler
    •  & Ruth Signorell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Use of electron microscopy to determine morphology, or find where functionally significant biomolecules are located with high spatial resolution is of great interest. Here, Rez, Cohen et al. use aloof electron beam vibrational spectroscopy to probe different bonds in biological samples with no significant radiation damage.

    • Peter Rez
    • , Toshihiro Aoki
    •  & Hagai Cohen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Graphene has the high carrier mobility and short photoresponse time required for efficient photodetection, but broad and weak optical absorption are severe drawbacks. Here, the authors show that twisted bilayer graphene with van Hove singularities exhibits a strong light-matter interaction and selectively enhanced photocurrent generation.

    • Jianbo Yin
    • , Huan Wang
    •  & Zhongfan Liu

  • 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

    Optical fibres offer a way of sensing across a wide area, providing a spatial and temporal map of the measured parameter. Here, the authors use image and video processing to remove noise and increase the contrast in such a distributed optical fibre sensor, improving the signal-to-noise ratio by a factor of 100.

    • Marcelo A. Soto
    • , Jaime A. Ramírez
    •  & Luc Thévenaz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Short X-ray pulses from free-electron lasers enable coherent diffractive imaging of noncrystalline objects such as single molecules. Here, the authors reconstructing full image information from a single-shot diffraction pattern by using two sufficiently separated objects to act as references for each other.

    • Ben Leshem
    • , Rui Xu
    •  & Oren Raz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical solitons are pulses that propagate undistorted. Here, the authors demonstrate a class of soliton arising from the interaction of self-phase modulation with quartic dispersion, rather than with quadratic dispersion as occurs in conventional solitons.

    • Andrea Blanco-Redondo
    • , C. Martijn de Sterke
    •  & Chad Husko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deterministic sources of entangled photons are important for photonic quantum networks, but many applications are only possible when their wavelengths are tunable. Here, the authors use on-chip strain engineering to demonstrate such a source with silicon-integrated InAs/GaAs quantum dots.

    • Yan Chen
    • , Jiaxiang Zhang
    •  & Oliver G. Schmidt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Slow switching speeds in device configurations have severely limited the applications of electrochromic materials. Here, Xu et al. use plasmonic nanoslit arrays and demonstrate fast, high-contrast, monochromatic and full-colour electrochromic switching using two different electrochromic polymers.

    • Ting Xu
    • , Erich C. Walter
    •  & A. Alec Talin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Laser frequency combs emit a spectrum of equally spaced peaks that can provide precise frequency references useful for astronomy. Here, the authors demonstrate a frequency comb using electro-optical modulation, which has a line spacing that is resolvable using grating spectrographs unlike the mode-locking approach.

    • X. Yi
    • , K. Vahala
    •  & C. Beichman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum dots can produce entangled photons, but careful control over photon wavelength is required for real-life applications. Here, the authors use three-directional strain engineering to overcome this problem and to interface entangled photons from quantum dots with a cloud of natural atoms.

    • Rinaldo Trotta
    • , Javier Martín-Sánchez
    •  & Armando Rastelli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Scaling photonic quantum information processing approaches remains challenging for integrated quantum optics. Here, Schuck et al.develop a hybrid superconducting-photonic circuit system to show how quantum interference and single-photon detectors can be combined in a scalable fashion on a silicon chip.

    • C. Schuck
    • , X. Guo
    •  & H. X. Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spontaneous polarization in ferroelectric materials leads to their use as photovoltaic devices. Here, the authors show by first-principles calculations how nanolayering of PbTiO3with nickel ions and oxygen vacancies can result in enhanced photocurrents due to smaller bandgaps and photocurrent alignment.

    • Fenggong Wang
    • , Steve M. Young
    •  & Andrew M. Rappe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While shaping of the electromagnetic fields around nanostructures is widely studied, the influence of the field inside the nanostructures is often overlooked. Here, Wolf et al. control the spatial distribution of third-harmonic emission in a plasmonic nanostructure, imaged by a far field Fourier method.

    • Daniela Wolf
    • , Thorsten Schumacher
    •  & Markus Lippitz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photoelectrochemical systems based on plasmonics require control of band bending at the interface as well as transport of hot carriers. Here, Wang et al. employ a ferroelectric material, Pb(Zr,Ti)O3, with gold on ITO to capture hot electrons from the metal and manipulate the photoexcited charges for energy conversion.

    • Zhijie Wang
    • , Dawei Cao
    •  & Yong Lei

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Active control of optical fields at the nanoscale is difficult to achieve. Here, the authors fabricate an on-chip graphene NEMS suspended a few tens of nanometres above nitrogen vacancy centres and demonstrate electromechanical control of the photons emitted by electrostatic tuning of the graphene NEMS position.

    • Antoine Reserbat-Plantey
    • , Kevin G. Schädler
    •  & Frank H. L. Koppens

  • Article
    | Open Access

    BioLEDs is an emerging group of light-emitting diodes that use duplex-strand DNA to enhance luminescence intensity. Here, Back et al.show that only the specific binding between a pair of single-strand DNA can trigger the enhancement, which potentially makes BioLEDs an easy platform for DNA recognition.

    • Seung Hyuk Back
    • , Jin Hyuk Park
    •  & Dong June Ahn

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