Photonic crystals articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Color construction of black carbon fibers is a challenge due to their stable physicochemical properties. Here, the authors demonstrate the tunable structural color of carbon fibers endowed by the dynamic growth of carbon spheres using glucose.

    • Sijie Zhou
    • , Chunhua Zhang
    •  & Weilin Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Non-Hermitian systems have many physical properties without Hermitian counterparts. Here, the authors demonstrate a non-Hermitian topolectrical circuit hosting continuous bound states under pseudomagnetic fields with no counterparts in Hermitian systems.

    • Xuewei Zhang
    • , Chaohua Wu
    •  & Gang Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The role of polymers in stabilizing liquid crystal (LC)-water interfaces is well studied but how the LC affects stabilizers is not fully explored yet. Here, Ma et al. show that amphiphilic polymers change their behavior when the LC is heated towards its transition to the isotropic state, and propose that this is due to an entropic repulsion active at low temperatures where the orientationally ordered LC restricts the mobility of the flexible polymer chains.

    • Xu Ma
    • , Yucen Han
    •  & Jan P. F. Lagerwall

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Current approaches to distinguish topological phases from topologically-trivial phases have limited general applicability. Here, in a photonic-crystal context, the authors demonstrate that in trivial structures the bulk local density of states (LDOS) extends all the way to the edges and corners, while in topological structures the bulk LDOS actually avoids the edges and corners.

    • Biye Xie
    • , Renwen Huang
    •  & Shuang Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors experimentally discover a class of higher-order Weyl semimetal phase in a three-dimensional photonic crystal, exhibiting the concurrence of the surface and hinge Fermi arcs from the nonzero Chern number and the nontrivial generalized real Chern number, respectively, coined a real higher-order Weyl photonic crystals.

    • Yuang Pan
    • , Chaoxi Cui
    •  & Yihao Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Co-crystals of donor-acceptor functional material pairs give switchable optical properties despite challenging aggregation-caused quenching effects. Here, the authors report several organic co-crystals with thermally-activated delayed fluorescence, waveguiding and bio-imaging application.

    • Debasish Barman
    • , Mari Annadhasan
    •  & Parameswar Krishnan Iyer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Three-dimensional structures with micro-/nanoscale features can be produced by two-photon polymerization lithography but suffering from a non-uniform shrinkage. Here, the authors report a poly(vinyl alcohol)-assisted pick-and-place process to uniformly heat shrink three-dimensional micro-/nano-architected materials printed by two-photon polymerization lithography.

    • Tomohiro Mori
    • , Hao Wang
    •  & Joel K. W. Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dissipative optomechanics, once limited to low frequencies, now operates in a sideband-resolved regime, reshaping optical and mechanical spectra and paving the way for the individual addressing of different mechanical modes in a single device.

    • André G. Primo
    • , Pedro V. Pinho
    •  & Thiago P. Mayer Alegre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Smooth topological photonic interfaces lead to less localized boundary modes which improves their guiding characteristics in both spin- and valley Hall metasurfaces. The modes become insensitive to the lattice details, showcasing improved bandgap crossing and longer propagation distances.

    • Anton Vakulenko
    • , Svetlana Kiriushechkina
    •  & Alexander B. Khanikaev

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Owing to the nonequilibrium nature, photonic topological phenomena can involve multiple band gaps. Here the authors report on the discovery of a class of hybrid topological photonic crystals that host quantum anomalous Hall and valley Hall phases simultaneously.

    • Yanan Wang
    • , Hai-Xiao Wang
    •  & Guang-Yu Guo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic crystals (PhCs) are artificial periodic materials that can be used to manipulate the flow of light. Here, the authors report the realization of asymmetric PhCs based on in-plane hyperbolic phonon polaritons in perforated α-MoO3, showing low-symmetry deep-subwavelength Bloch modes that are robust against lattice rearrangement in specific directions.

    • Jiangtao Lv
    • , Yingjie Wu
    •  & Qingdong Ou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bound-states-in-the-continuum (BICs) display unique features like symmetry protection from dissipation, long lifetimes and topological charges. Here the authors demonstrate anisotropic Bogoliubov excitation spectrum of polariton condensate from a BIC using a patterned semiconductor GaAs/AlGaAs waveguide.

    • Anna Grudinina
    • , Maria Efthymiou-Tsironi
    •  & Nina Voronova

  • Article
    | Open Access

    2D semiconductors with nonlinear optical properties hold promise for multifunction integration in electronic-photonic integrated circuits. Here, the authors report the synthesis of 2D SnP2Se6 and its integration with a SiN photonic platform, showing strong odd-even layer-independent second harmonic generation activity at 1550 nm and broadband photoresponse.

    • Cheng-Yi Zhu
    • , Zimeng Zhang
    •  & Cheng-Yan Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors proposed an approach to realize the antichiral surface states in a time-reversal invariant photonic system. They harnessed a synthetic gauge flux and observed a kz-dependent antichiral surface transport in their 3D metacrystal.

    • Jian-Wei Liu
    • , Fu-Long Shi
    •  & Jian-Wen Dong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The optical quality of large-area transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) monolayers is usually limited by surface defects and inhomogeneities. Here, the authors report a method based on 1-dodecanol encapsulation to improve the optical properties of TMD monolayers over mm-scale, enabling the fabrication of an array of polariton photonic crystal cavities.

    • Qiuyang Li
    • , Adam Alfrey
    •  & Hui Deng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this work, the authors show that photonic topological lattices with dissipative couplings could exhibit non-Abelian dynamics and geometric phases that are in sharp contrast to those arising in typical energy-conserving systems.

    • Midya Parto
    • , Christian Leefmans
    •  & Alireza Marandi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    THz integrate light sources represent an important building blocks for various applications. Here the authors report an electrically driven topological laser based on photonic Majorana zero mode that can convert electricity directly into THz single-mode laser with topologically nontrivial beams.

    • Song Han
    • , Yunda Chua
    •  & Qi Jie Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Generation and control of short pulse is desired for ultrafast applications. Here the authors demonstrate ultrafast pulse generation using self-evolving photonic crystal that can transition from high loss to low loss state based on dynamic dispersion compensation.

    • Takuya Inoue
    • , Ryohei Morita
    •  & Susumu Noda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors integrate a photonic crystal, supporting photonic bound states in the continuum (BICs), with monolayer WSe2, and leverage the high energy confinement of the BIC modes to demonstrate coherent directional dark exciton emission.

    • Xuezhi Ma
    • , Kaushik Kudtarkar
    •  & Shoufeng Lan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Colloidal crystals are widely applied in the fabrication of optoelectronic devices, but realizing freedom of design, such as in 3D printing, in colloidal crystal fabrication remains challenging. Here, the authors demonstrate a sacrificial-scaffold-mediated two-photon lithography strategy that enables the fabrication of complex 3D colloidal crystal microstructures with orderly arranged nanoparticles in the bulk.

    • Keliang Liu
    • , Haibo Ding
    •  & Zhongze Gu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic topological insulators offer unconventional, yet still difficult, ways to control light flow. Here the authors demonstrate a 3D photonic topological insulator with surface states confined and guided on the surfaces without adding any cladding.

    • Minkyung Kim
    • , Zihao Wang
    •  & Baile Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To realize the full promise of topological mechanical vibrations, they have to be controlled successfully at the nanoscale. Here the authors report topological phonon transport in an optomechanical array. This unlocks the full toolbox of cavity optomechanics, coupling light to motion, for the area of topological phononics.

    • Hengjiang Ren
    • , Tirth Shah
    •  & Oskar Painter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Several biomaterials have been promised as suitable candidates for photonic materials and pigments, but their fabrication processes have been limited to the small to medium-scale production of films. Here, the authors demonstrate a substrate-free process to fabricate structurally coloured microparticles via the confined self-assembly of a cholesteric cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) suspension within emulsified microdroplets.

    • Richard M. Parker
    • , Tianheng H. Zhao
    •  & Silvia Vignolini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Unsuspended optomechanical systems might enable unique applications for quantum sensing and transduction. Here, the authors demonstrate a two-dimensional slab-on-substrate optomechanical crystal empowered by mechanical bound states in the continuum.

    • Shengyan Liu
    • , Hao Tong
    •  & Kejie Fang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chirality transfer across length-scales is an intriguing phenomenon but connecting the properties of individual building blocks to the emergent features of their resulting large-scale structure remains challenging. Here, the authors investigate the origins of mesophase chirality in cellulose nanocrystal suspensions, whose self-assembly into chiral photonic films has attracted significant interest.

    • Thomas G. Parton
    • , Richard M. Parker
    •  & Silvia Vignolini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors provide the experimental observation of a topological rainbow in a silicon-based nanophotonic chip. The system is robust against disorders allows to separate and trap topological photonic states of different wavelength into different positions.

    • Cuicui Lu
    • , Yi-Zhi Sun
    •  & C. T. Chan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An Archimedes’ screw pumps energy into a fluid by lifting it to a higher ground. An optical screw uses helical space-time modulations in the properties of a material to grab hold of and amplify circularly polarized light of a specific handedness.

    • Emanuele Galiffi
    • , Paloma A. Huidobro
    •  & J. B. Pendry

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A route to scalability for superconducting quantum computation is the modular approach, which however requires coherent microwave-to-optical conversion. Here the authors use gallium phosphide optomechanical crystal cavities for this task, exploiting their high refractive index and large OM coupling rate.

    • Simon Hönl
    • , Youri Popoff
    •  & Paul Seidler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding photo-physics giving rise to quantum beating oscillations in hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites aids their applications in spintronics and quantum information science. Here, authors demonstrate that quantum beatings observed in single crystal perovskite at cryogenic temperatures are originating from positive and negative trions.

    • Uyen N. Huynh
    • , Ye Liu
    •  & Z. Valy Vardeny

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chern number controls the number of surface state channels in topological insulators. Here the authors propose 3D Chern insulating cubic photonic crystals with orientable and arbitrarily large Chern numbers demonstrating topologically protected photonic surface states.

    • Chiara Devescovi
    • , Mikel García-Díez
    •  & Aitzol García-Etxarri

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Visualizing and studying topological features is becoming crucial to develop new generation topological systems. Here the authors provide the theoretical and numerical demonstration of the potential of transformation optics connecting the virtual space to the physical space of lower dimension via conformal mapping.

    • Lizhen Lu
    • , Kun Ding
    •  & J. B. Pendry

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Non-Abelian topological insulators receive increasing attention due to entangled bulk bandgaps different from Abelian counterparts. Here, the authors realize two new classes of topological charges characterizing of a four-band non-Abelian topological insulator.

    • Tianshu Jiang
    • , Qinghua Guo
    •  & C. T. Chan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding and manipulating the photonic band structure formed in stacked Fabry-Pérot microcavity organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) is key to optimizing their performance. Here, through intelligent device design, the authors tune the photonic band gap in vertically-stacked OLED microcavities.

    • David Allemeier
    • , Benjamin Isenhart
    •  & Matthew S. White

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light beams can undergo small shifts due to interesting physical phenomena at interfaces. Here, the authors design a photonic crystal slab that enables a large lateral shift at normal incidence by engineering the light-interface interaction through the design of the momentum-space phase distribution.

    • Jiajun Wang
    • , Maoxiong Zhao
    •  & Jian Zi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cherenkov detectors are used to detect high energy particles and their performance capabilities depend heavily on the material used. Here, the authors propose use of a Brewster-optics-based angular filter for a detector with increased sensitivity and particle identification capability.

    • Xiao Lin
    • , Hao Hu
    •  & Yu Luo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The development of fast and dynamic topological photonic platforms is an ongoing challenge. Here, the authors demonstrate a reprogrammable plasmonic topological insulator in which ultrafast electric switches allow for nanosecond-level switching time between different configurations.

    • Jian Wei You
    • , Qian Ma
    •  & Tie Jun Cui

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