-
Longitudinal fields and transverse rotations Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2021-01-15 Filippo Cardano; Lorenzo Marrucci
Electromagnetic fields in light waves are mainly transverse to propagation direction but actually also have longitudinal components, which may give rise to unexpected optical phenomena involving the angular momentum of light, such as transverse spin and optical torques.
-
Author Correction: Stable pure-blue hyperfluorescence organic light-emitting diodes with high-efficiency and narrow emission Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2021-01-12 Chin-Yiu Chan; Masaki Tanaka; Yi-Ting Lee; Yiu-Wing Wong; Hajime Nakanotani; Takuji Hatakeyama; Chihaya Adachi
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00759-1.
-
Metal-free scintillators excite X-ray community Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2021-01-11 Jia-Kai Chen; Naoto Shirahata; Hong-Tao Sun
Scintillators used in X-ray detectors typically require the use of heavy metal atoms to efficiently harvest ionizing radiation. Now the use of halogens is shown to yield efficient, metal-free organic scintillators.
-
Organic phosphors with bright triplet excitons for efficient X-ray-excited luminescence Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2021-01-11 Xiao Wang; Huifang Shi; Huili Ma; Wenpeng Ye; Lulu Song; Jie Zan; Xiaokang Yao; Xiangyu Ou; Guohui Yang; Zhu Zhao; Manjeet Singh; Chongyang Lin; He Wang; Wenyong Jia; Qian Wang; Jiahuan Zhi; Chaomin Dong; Xueyan Jiang; Yongan Tang; Xiaoji Xie; Yang (Michael) Yang; Jianpu Wang; Qiushui Chen; Yu Wang; Huanghao Yang; Guoqing Zhang; Zhongfu An; Xiaogang Liu; Wei Huang
Materials that exhibit X-ray-excited luminescence have great potential in radiation detection, security inspection, biomedical applications and X-ray astronomy1,2,3,4,5. However, high-performance materials are almost exclusively limited to ceramic scintillators, which are typically prepared under high temperatures6. Herein we report metal-free organic phosphors based on a molecular design that supports
-
Stable pure-blue hyperfluorescence organic light-emitting diodes with high-efficiency and narrow emission Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2021-01-04 Chin-Yiu Chan; Masaki Tanaka; Yi-Ting Lee; Yiu-Wing Wong; Hajime Nakanotani; Takuji Hatakeyama; Chihaya Adachi
Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are a promising light-source technology for future generations of display1,2. Despite great progress3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12, it is still challenging to produce blue OLEDs with sufficient colour purity, lifetime and efficiency for applications. Here, we report pure-blue (Commission Internationale de l’ Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of 0.13, 0.16) OLEDs with high efficiency
-
Comprehensive defect suppression in perovskite nanocrystals for high-efficiency light-emitting diodes Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2021-01-04 Young-Hoon Kim; Sungjin Kim; Arvin Kakekhani; Jinwoo Park; Jaehyeok Park; Yong-Hee Lee; Hengxing Xu; Satyawan Nagane; Robert B. Wexler; Dong-Hyeok Kim; Seung Hyeon Jo; Laura Martínez-Sarti; Peng Tan; Aditya Sadhanala; Gyeong-Su Park; Young-Woon Kim; Bin Hu; Henk J. Bolink; Seunghyup Yoo; Richard H. Friend; Andrew M. Rappe; Tae-Woo Lee
Electroluminescence efficiencies of metal halide perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) are limited by a lack of material strategies that can both suppress the formation of defects and enhance the charge carrier confinement. Here we report a one-dopant alloying strategy that generates smaller, monodisperse colloidal particles (confining electrons and holes, and boosting radiative recombination) with fewer
-
Terahertz race heats up Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-22 Carlo Sirtori
The journey to realize a terahertz quantum cascade laser that operates at room temperature has taken a jump forward with news of a device that operates at –23 °C, within the reach of Peltier coolers.
-
Designs break bandwidth record Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-22 Ute Troppenz; Jochen Kreissl
Two independent reports of directly modulated lasers with bandwidths of >60 GHz may help bring data rates beyond 200 Gb s–1 to low-cost optical communication systems. Key to the successes has been managing photonic feedback effects within the laser cavities.
-
Low-chirp isolator-free 65-GHz-bandwidth directly modulated lasers Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-22 Yasuhiro Matsui; Richard Schatz; Di Che; Ferdous Khan; Martin Kwakernaak; Tsurugi Sudo
Today, in the face of ever increasing communication traffic, minimizing power consumption in data communication systems has become a challenge. Direct modulation of lasers, a technique as old as lasers themselves, is known for its high energy efficiency and low cost. However, the modulation bandwidth of directly modulated lasers has fallen behind those of external modulators. In this Article, we report
-
Photonic-crystal optical parametric oscillator Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-21 Eiichi Kuramochi
The first demonstration of an optical parametric oscillator using a photonic crystal microcavity is promising for the future development of on-chip light sources for applications in integrated quantum optics.
-
Transverse spinning of unpolarized light Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-21 J. S. Eismann; L. H. Nicholls; D. J. Roth; M. A. Alonso; P. Banzer; F. J. Rodríguez-Fortuño; A. V. Zayats; F. Nori; K. Y. Bliokh
It is well known that the spin angular momentum of light, and therefore that of photons, is directly related to their circular polarization. Naturally, for totally unpolarized light, polarization is undefined and the spin vanishes. However, for non-paraxial light, the recently discovered transverse spin component, orthogonal to the main propagation direction, is largely independent of the polarization
-
Efficient and bright white light-emitting diodes based on single-layer heterophase halide perovskites Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-21 Jiawei Chen; Jian Wang; Xiaobao Xu; Jinhang Li; Jizhong Song; Si Lan; Sinan Liu; Bo Cai; Boning Han; Jake T. Precht; David Ginger; Haibo Zeng
At present, electric lighting accounts for ~15% of global power consumption and thus the adoption of efficient, low-cost lighting technologies is important. Halide perovskites have been shown to be good emitters of pure red, green and blue light, but an efficient source of broadband white electroluminescence suitable for lighting applications is desirable. Here, we report a white light-emitting diode
-
Efficient and stable organic light-emitting devices employing phosphorescent molecular aggregates Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-21 Linyu Cao; Kody Klimes; Yunlong Ji; Tyler Fleetham; Jian Li
Stable and efficient organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) operating at high brightness are desirable for future high-resolution displays and lighting products. Here, we report a tetradentate Pd(ii) complex called Pd3O8-P, which has attractive optoelectronics properties. At room temperature, aggregates of Pd3O8-P exhibited a close-to-unity photoluminescent quantum yield and a short transient lifetime
-
Photonic crystal optical parametric oscillator Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-21 Gabriel Marty; Sylvain Combrié; Fabrice Raineri; Alfredo De Rossi
We report a new class of optical parametric oscillators, based on a 20-μm-long semiconductor photonic crystal cavity and operating at telecom wavelengths. Because the confinement results from Bragg scattering, the optical cavity contains a few modes, approximately equispaced in frequency. Parametric oscillation is reached when these high-quality-factor modes are thermally tuned into a triply resonant
-
Optical parametric amplification by monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-21 Chiara Trovatello; Andrea Marini; Xinyi Xu; Changhwan Lee; Fang Liu; Nicola Curreli; Cristian Manzoni; Stefano Dal Conte; Kaiyuan Yao; Alessandro Ciattoni; James Hone; Xiaoyang Zhu; P. James Schuck; Giulio Cerullo
Optical parametric amplification is a second-order nonlinear process whereby an optical signal is amplified by a pump via the generation of an idler field1. This mechanism is inherently related to spontaneous parametric down-conversion, which currently constitutes the building block for entangled photon pair generation2, a process that is exploited in modern quantum technologies. Here we demonstrate
-
Seven-octave high-brightness and carrier-envelope-phase-stable light source Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-14 Ugaitz Elu; Luke Maidment; Lenard Vamos; Francesco Tani; David Novoa; Michael H. Frosz; Valeriy Badikov; Dmitrii Badikov; Valentin Petrov; Philip St. J. Russell; Jens Biegert
High-brightness sources of coherent and few-cycle-duration light waveforms with spectral coverage from the ultraviolet to the terahertz would offer unprecedented versatility and opportunities for a wide range of applications from bio-chemical sensing1 to time-resolved and nonlinear spectroscopy, and to attosecond light-wave electronics2,3. Combinations of various sources with frequency conversion4
-
Ultrastrong plasmon–phonon coupling via epsilon-near-zero nanocavities Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-07 Daehan Yoo; Fernando de León-Pérez; Matthew Pelton; In-Ho Lee; Daniel A. Mohr; Markus B. Raschke; Joshua D. Caldwell; Luis Martín-Moreno; Sang-Hyun Oh
Vibrational ultrastrong coupling, where the light–matter coupling strength is comparable to the vibrational frequency of molecules, presents new opportunities to probe the interactions between molecules and zero-point fluctuations, harness cavity-modified chemical reactions and develop novel devices in the mid-infrared spectral range. Here we use epsilon-near-zero nanocavities filled with a model polar
-
Sensitive vectorial optomechanical footprint of light in soft condensed matter Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-07 Mohamed El Ketara; Hirokazu Kobayashi; Etienne Brasselet
Among the properties of light that dictate its mechanical effects, polarization has held a special place since the mechanical identification of the photon spin1. Nowadays, little surprise might be expected from the mechanical action of linearly polarized weakly focused (paraxial) beams on transparent and homogeneous dielectrics. Still, here we unveil vectorial optomechanical effects mediated by the
-
CsPbBr 3 perovskite detectors with 1.4% energy resolution for high-energy γ-rays Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-07 Yihui He; Matthew Petryk; Zhifu Liu; Daniel G. Chica; Ido Hadar; Charles Leak; Weijun Ke; Ioannis Spanopoulos; Wenwen Lin; Duck Young Chung; Bruce W. Wessels; Zhong He; Mercouri G. Kanatzidis
Halide perovskite semiconductors are poised to revitalize the field of ionizing radiation detection as they have done to solar photovoltaics. We show that all-inorganic perovskite CsPbBr3 devices resolve 137Cs 662-keV γ-rays with 1.4% energy resolution, as well as other X- and γ-rays with energies ranging from tens of keV to over 1 MeV in ambipolar sensing and unipolar hole-only sensing modes with
-
Publisher Correction: Real-space observation of vibrational strong coupling between propagating phonon polaritons and organic molecules Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-12-04 Andrei Bylinkin; Martin Schnell; Marta Autore; Francesco Calavalle; Peining Li; Javier Taboada-Gutièrrez; Song Liu; James H. Edgar; Fèlix Casanova; Luis E. Hueso; Pablo Alonso-Gonzalez; Alexey Y. Nikitin; Rainer Hillenbrand
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-020-00746-y
-
Optical analogue of Dresselhaus spin–orbit interaction in photonic graphene Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-30 C. E. Whittaker; T. Dowling; A. V. Nalitov; A. V. Yulin; B. Royall; E. Clarke; M. S. Skolnick; I. A. Shelykh; D. N. Krizhanovskii
The concept of gauge fields plays a significant role in many areas of physics, from particle physics and cosmology to condensed-matter systems, where gauge potentials are a natural consequence of electromagnetic fields acting on charged particles and are of central importance in topological states of matter1. Here, we report on the experimental realization of a synthetic non-Abelian gauge field for
-
Distributed quantum phase estimation with entangled photons Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-30 Li-Zheng Liu; Yu-Zhe Zhang; Zheng-Da Li; Rui Zhang; Xu-Fei Yin; Yue-Yang Fei; Li Li; Nai-Le Liu; Feihu Xu; Yu-Ao Chen; Jian-Wei Pan
Distributed quantum metrology can enhance the sensitivity for sensing spatially distributed parameters beyond the classical limits. Here we demonstrate distributed quantum phase estimation with discrete variables to achieve Heisenberg limit phase measurements. Based on parallel entanglement in modes and particles, we demonstrate distributed quantum sensing for both individual phase shifts and an averaged
-
Machine learning and applications in ultrafast photonics Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-30 Goëry Genty; Lauri Salmela; John M. Dudley; Daniel Brunner; Alexey Kokhanovskiy; Sergei Kobtsev; Sergei K. Turitsyn
Recent years have seen the rapid growth and development of the field of smart photonics, where machine-learning algorithms are being matched to optical systems to add new functionalities and to enhance performance. An area where machine learning shows particular potential to accelerate technology is the field of ultrafast photonics — the generation and characterization of light pulses, the study of
-
Direct mapping of attosecond electron dynamics Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-30 Chuliang Zhou; Yafeng Bai; Liwei Song; Yushan Zeng; Yi Xu; Dongdong Zhang; Xiaoming Lu; Yuxin Leng; Jiansheng Liu; Ye Tian; Ruxin Li; Zhizhan Xu
The subcycle interaction of light and electrons has been one of the key frontiers in free-electron lasers, attosecond science and dynamical investigation of matter. Capturing the underlying subcycle dynamics of electrons with an optical field promises fascinating vistas with unprecedented temporal resolution. Yet the rigorous synchronization requirement has kept its realization out of reach. Here,
-
Real-space observation of vibrational strong coupling between propagating phonon polaritons and organic molecules Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-23 Andrei Bylinkin; Martin Schnell; Marta Autore; Francesco Calavalle; Peining Li; Javier Taboada-Gutièrrez; Song Liu; James H. Edgar; Fèlix Casanova; Luis E. Hueso; Pablo Alonso-Gonzalez; Alexey Y. Nikitin; Rainer Hillenbrand
Phonon polaritons in van der Waals materials can strongly enhance light–matter interactions at mid-infrared frequencies, owing to their extreme field confinement and long lifetimes1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Phonon polaritons thus bear potential for vibrational strong coupling with molecules. Although the onset of vibrational strong coupling was observed spectroscopically with phonon-polariton nanoresonators8,
-
Guiding light to non-classicality Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-20 Pablo Solano
The manipulation of the quantum properties of light involves its technically challenging strong interaction with matter. Now, an experiment shows that when light propagates through a waveguide it only takes a weakly coupled line of atoms to single out its photons, or bunch them together, unveiling and controlling its quantum nature.
-
Lightwave control of topological properties in 2D materials for sub-cycle and non-resonant valley manipulation Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-16 Á. Jiménez-Galán; R. E. F. Silva; O. Smirnova; M. Ivanov
Modern light generation technology offers extraordinary capabilities for sculpting light pulses, with full control over individual electric field oscillations within each laser cycle1,2,3. These capabilities are at the core of lightwave electronics—the dream of ultrafast lightwave control over electron dynamics in solids on a sub-cycle timescale, aiming at information processing at petahertz rates4
-
Quantitative sampling of atomic-scale electromagnetic waveforms Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-16 D. Peller; C. Roelcke; L. Z. Kastner; T. Buchner; A. Neef; J. Hayes; F. Bonafé; D. Sidler; M. Ruggenthaler; A. Rubio; R. Huber; J. Repp
Tailored nanostructures can confine electromagnetic waveforms in extremely sub-wavelength volumes, opening new avenues in lightwave sensing and control down to sub-molecular resolution. Atomic light–matter interaction depends critically on the absolute strength and the precise time evolution of the near field, which may be strongly influenced by quantum-mechanical effects. However, measuring atom-scale
-
Compact design delivers hard X-rays Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-09 Makina Yabashi
Beneath a forest in Villigen, Switzerland, a new compact free-electron laser facility is generating brilliant X-ray flashes.
-
NIR II-responsive photon upconversion through energy migration in an ytterbium sublattice Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-09 Bo Zhou; Long Yan; Jinshu Huang; Xuelong Liu; Lili Tao; Qinyuan Zhang
Smart control of photon upconversion is a key strategy for lanthanide-based materials used in biological and photonic applications. However, this has remained a challenge for the upconversion luminescence of lanthanides under excitation in the second near-infrared (NIR II) biowindow instead of at the conventional 980 and 808 nm wavelengths. Here, we report a conceptual design for an energy-migratory
-
Silicon photonics interfaced with integrated electronics for 9 GHz measurement of squeezed light Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-09 Joel F. Tasker; Jonathan Frazer; Giacomo Ferranti; Euan J. Allen; Léandre F. Brunel; Sébastien Tanzilli; Virginia D’Auria; Jonathan C. F. Matthews
Photonic quantum technology can be enhanced by monolithic fabrication of both the underpinning quantum hardware and the corresponding electronics for classical readout and control. Here, by interfacing complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible silicon and germanium-on-silicon nanophotonics with silicon-germanium integrated amplification electronics, we curtail total capacitance in a
-
A compact and cost-effective hard X-ray free-electron laser driven by a high-brightness and low-energy electron beam Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-09 Eduard Prat; Rafael Abela; Masamitsu Aiba; Arturo Alarcon; Jürgen Alex; Yunieski Arbelo; Christopher Arrell; Vladimir Arsov; Camila Bacellar; Carl Beard; Paul Beaud; Simona Bettoni; Roger Biffiger; Markus Bopp; Hans-Heinrich Braun; Marco Calvi; Ariana Cassar; Tine Celcer; Majed Chergui; Pavel Chevtsov; Claudio Cirelli; Alessandro Citterio; Paolo Craievich; Marta Csatari Divall; Andreas Dax; Micha Dehler;
We present the first lasing results of SwissFEL, a hard X-ray free-electron laser (FEL) that recently came into operation at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. SwissFEL is a very stable, compact and cost-effective X-ray FEL facility driven by a low-energy and ultra-low-emittance electron beam travelling through short-period undulators. It delivers stable hard X-ray FEL radiation at 1-Å wavelength
-
Exotic waves in multimode hollow-core fibres Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-03 Logan G. Wright; Frank W. Wise
Unexpected multimode solitary waves can be formed spontaneously in hollow-core fibres, hinting at a vast world of exciting nonlinear optics, with applications for generating few-cycle, ultra-intense pulses.
-
High-power portable terahertz laser systems Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-02 Ali Khalatpour; Andrew K. Paulsen; Chris Deimert; Zbig R. Wasilewski; Qing Hu
Terahertz (THz) frequencies remain among the least utilized in the electromagnetic spectrum, largely due to the lack of powerful and compact sources. The invention of THz quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) was a major breakthrough to bridge the so-called ‘THz gap’ between semiconductor electronic and photonic sources. However, their demanding cooling requirement has confined the technology to a laboratory
-
Efficient photoinduced second-harmonic generation in silicon nitride photonics Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-02 Xiyuan Lu; Gregory Moille; Ashutosh Rao; Daron A. Westly; Kartik Srinivasan
Silicon photonics lacks a second-order nonlinear optical (χ(2)) response in general, because the typical constituent materials are centrosymmetric and lack inversion symmetry, which prohibits χ(2) nonlinear processes such as second-harmonic generation (SHG). Here, we realize high SHG efficiency in silicon photonics by combining a photoinduced effective χ(2) nonlinearity with resonant enhancement and
-
Photoelectronic mapping of the spin–orbit interaction of intense light fields Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-02 Yiqi Fang; Meng Han; Peipei Ge; Zhenning Guo; Xiaoyang Yu; Yongkai Deng; Chengyin Wu; Qihuang Gong; Yunquan Liu
The interaction between a quantum particle’s spin angular momentum1 and its orbital angular momentum2 is ubiquitous in nature. In optics, the spin–orbit optical phenomenon is closely related with the light–matter interaction3 and has been of great interest4,5. With the development of laser technology6, the high-power and ultrafast light sources now serve as a crucial tool in revealing the behaviour
-
Electrically driven acousto-optics and broadband non-reciprocity in silicon photonics Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-11-02 Eric A. Kittlaus; William M. Jones; Peter T. Rakich; Nils T. Otterstrom; Richard E. Muller; Mina Rais-Zadeh
Emerging technologies based on tailorable photon–phonon interactions promise new capabilities ranging from high-fidelity information processing to non-reciprocal optics and quantum state control. However, many existing realizations of such light–sound couplings involve unconventional materials and fabrication schemes challenging to co-implement with scalable integrated photonic circuitry. Here, we
-
High-energy multidimensional solitary states in hollow-core fibres Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-10-26 Reza Safaei; Guangyu Fan; Ojoon Kwon; Katherine Légaré; Philippe Lassonde; Bruno E. Schmidt; Heide Ibrahim; François Légaré
Multidimensional solitary states (MDSS)—self-sustained wavepackets—have attracted renewed interest in many different fields of physics. They are of particular importance in nonlinear optics, especially for the nonlinear propagation of ultrashort pulses in multimode fibres, which contain rich spatiotemporal intermodal interactions and dynamics, albeit often in an unstable manner. Here, we report the
-
A free-electron laboratory coherent X-ray source Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-10-19 Ingo Uschmann
Facilities generating coherent X-rays tend to be large scale and costly. Now researchers have demonstrated a parametric and coherent laboratory-scale X-ray source by passing moderately energetic electrons through van der Waals heterostructures.
-
Sub-molecular photoluminescence Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-10-19 Takashi Kumagai
Photoluminescence spectroscopy using atomic-scale light reveals an optical transition of a single molecule at sub-nanometre resolution.
-
Directly modulated membrane lasers with 108 GHz bandwidth on a high-thermal-conductivity silicon carbide substrate Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-10-19 Suguru Yamaoka; Nikolaos-Panteleimon Diamantopoulos; Hidetaka Nishi; Ryo Nakao; Takuro Fujii; Koji Takeda; Tatsurou Hiraki; Takuma Tsurugaya; Shigeru Kanazawa; Hiromasa Tanobe; Takaaki Kakitsuka; Tai Tsuchizawa; Fumio Koyama; Shinji Matsuo
Increasing the modulation speed of semiconductor lasers has attracted much attention from the viewpoint of both physics and the applications of lasers. Here we propose a membrane distributed reflector laser on a low-refractive-index and high-thermal-conductivity silicon carbide substrate that overcomes the modulation bandwidth limit. The laser features a high modulation efficiency because of its large
-
Pockels soliton microcomb Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-10-19 Alexander W. Bruch; Xianwen Liu; Zheng Gong; Joshua B. Surya; Ming Li; Chang-Ling Zou; Hong X. Tang
Kerr soliton microcombs have recently emerged as a prominent topic in integrated photonics and have enabled new horizons for optical frequency metrology. Kerr soliton microcombs, as the name suggests, are based on high-order cubic optical nonlinearity. It is desirable to exploit quadratic photonic materials, namely Pockels materials, for soliton generation and on-chip implementation of 1f–2f comb self-referencing
-
Transient optical symmetry breaking for ultrafast broadband dichroism in plasmonic metasurfaces Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-10-19 Andrea Schirato; Margherita Maiuri; Andrea Toma; Silvio Fugattini; Remo Proietti Zaccaria; Paolo Laporta; Peter Nordlander; Giulio Cerullo; Alessandro Alabastri; Giuseppe Della Valle
Ultrafast nanophotonics is an emerging research field aimed at the development of nanodevices capable of light modulation with unprecedented speed1,2,3,4. A promising approach exploits the optical nonlinearity of nanostructured materials (either metallic or dielectric) to modulate their effective permittivity via interaction with intense ultrashort laser pulses. Although the ultrafast temporal dynamics
-
Publisher Correction: Vectorized optoelectronic control and metrology in a semiconductor Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-10-12 Shawn Sederberg; Fanqi Kong; Felix Hufnagel; Chunmei Zhang; Ebrahim Karimi; Paul B. Corkum
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
-
Broadband Mie driven random quasi-phase-matching Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-10-12 Romolo Savo; Andrea Morandi; Jolanda S. Müller; Fabian Kaufmann; Flavia Timpu; Marc Reig Escalé; Michele Zanini; Lucio Isa; Rachel Grange
High-quality crystals without inversion symmetry are the conventional platform to achieve optical frequency conversion via three-wave mixing. In bulk crystals, efficient wave mixing relies on phase-matching configurations, while at the micro- and nanoscale it requires resonant mechanisms that enhance the nonlinear light–matter interaction. These strategies commonly result in wavelength-specific performances
-
Deep learning for the design of photonic structures Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-10-05 Wei Ma; Zhaocheng Liu; Zhaxylyk A. Kudyshev; Alexandra Boltasseva; Wenshan Cai; Yongmin Liu
Innovative approaches and tools play an important role in shaping design, characterization and optimization for the field of photonics. As a subset of machine learning that learns multilevel abstraction of data using hierarchically structured layers, deep learning offers an efficient means to design photonic structures, spawning data-driven approaches complementary to conventional physics- and rule-based
-
Sculpting electric currents with structured light Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-10-02 Andrew Forbes
The limited control of electrons by light has resulted in photonic-driven circuits lagging far behind their electronic counterparts. Now, a technique exploiting coherent control with structured light has been used to sculpt the spatial distribution of electric currents, ushering in vectorized optoelectronic control in semiconductors.
-
Molecular designs offer fast exciton conversion Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-09-23 Eli Zysman-Colman
Two independent studies report new organic compounds that offer record rates of reverse intersystem crossing between triplet and singlet excited states. The result is sky-blue organic light-emitting diodes with improved efficiency, stability and reduced efficiency roll-off.
-
Correlating photons using the collective nonlinear response of atoms weakly coupled to an optical mode Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-09-21 Adarsh S. Prasad; Jakob Hinney; Sahand Mahmoodian; Klemens Hammerer; Samuel Rind; Philipp Schneeweiss; Anders S. Sørensen; Jürgen Volz; Arno Rauschenbeutel
Photons in a nonlinear medium can repel or attract each other, resulting in strongly correlated quantum many-body states1,2. Typically, such correlated states of light arise from the extreme nonlinearity granted by quantum emitters that are strongly coupled to a photonic mode2,3. However, unavoidable dissipation (such as photon loss) blurs nonlinear quantum effects when such approaches are used. Here
-
Diamond photonics is scaling up Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-09-14 Mehran Kianinia; Igor Aharonovich
The integration of diamond waveguide arrays into an aluminium nitride photonic platform offers hope for the realization of scalable chips for quantum information processing.
-
Extreme ionization of gold atoms Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-09-14 Lap Van Dao; Peter Hannaford
Gold atoms are stripped of 72 of their electrons to form nitrogen-like Au72+ ions inside extremely hot plasmas by irradiating gold foils and nanowires with highly relativistic femtosecond laser pulses.
-
Harmonic spin–orbit angular momentum cascade in nonlinear optical crystals Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-09-14 Yutao Tang; Kingfai Li; Xuecai Zhang; Junhong Deng; Guixin Li; Etienne Brasselet
Optical angular momentum-based photonic technologies demonstrate the key role of the optical spin–orbit interaction that usually refers to linear optical processes in spatially engineered optical materials1. Re-examining the basics of nonlinear optics of homogeneous crystals under circularly polarized light2,3, we report experiments on the enrichment of the spin–orbit angular momentum spectrum of paraxial
-
Vectorized optoelectronic control and metrology in a semiconductor Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-09-14 Shawn Sederberg; Fanqi Kong; Felix Hufnagel; Chunmei Zhang; Ebrahim Karimi; Paul B. Corkum
The increasingly prominent role of light in information processing makes optoelectronic devices a technology of fundamental importance. Coherent control of currents in semiconductors using synthesized optical waveforms provides a sensitive and robust means to transfer information from light to an electronic circuit. Currents driven by Gaussian laser beams are spatially uniform in direction, offering
-
Tunable pseudo-magnetic fields for polaritons in strained metasurfaces Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-09-14 Charlie-Ray Mann; Simon A. R. Horsley; Eros Mariani
Pseudo-magnetic fields generated in artificially strained lattices have enabled the emulation of exotic phenomena once thought to be exclusive to charged particles. However, they have so far failed to emulate the tunability of real magnetic fields because they are determined solely by the engineered strain configuration, rendering them fixed by design. Here, we unveil a universal mechanism to tune
-
Tunable free-electron X-ray radiation from van der Waals materials Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-09-14 Michael Shentcis; Adam K. Budniak; Xihang Shi; Raphael Dahan; Yaniv Kurman; Michael Kalina; Hanan Herzig Sheinfux; Mark Blei; Mark Kamper Svendsen; Yaron Amouyal; Sefaattin Tongay; Kristian Sommer Thygesen; Frank H. L. Koppens; Efrat Lifshitz; F. Javier García de Abajo; Liang Jie Wong; Ido Kaminer
Tunable sources of X-ray radiation are widely used for imaging and spectroscopy in fundamental science, medicine and industry. The growing demand for highly tunable, high-brightness laboratory-scale X-ray sources motivates research into new fundamental mechanisms of X-ray generation. Here, we demonstrate the ability of van der Waals materials to serve as a platform for tunable X-ray generation when
-
Publisher Correction: Experimental demonstration of a three-dimensional lithium niobate nonlinear photonic crystal Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-09-09 Dunzhao Wei; Chaowei Wang; Huijun Wang; Xiaopeng Hu; Dan Wei; Xinyuan Fang; Yong Zhang; Dong Wu; Yanlei Hu; Jiawen Li; Shining Zhu; Min Xiao
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
-
Topology in momentum space becomes real Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-09-08 Masaya Notomi
Using topological singular points, the topological charge of photonic crystals in momentum space is successfully transferred to optical vortex beams in real space.
-
Generalized Kramers–Kronig receiver for coherent terahertz communications Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-09-07 T. Harter; C. Füllner; J. N. Kemal; S. Ummethala; J. L. Steinmann; M. Brosi; J. L. Hesler; E. Bründermann; A.-S. Müller; W. Freude; S. Randel; C. Koos
Modern communication systems rely on efficient quadrature amplitude modulation formats that encode information on both the amplitude and phase of an electromagnetic carrier. Coherent detection of such signals typically requires complex receivers that contain a continuous-wave local oscillator as a phase reference and a mixer circuit for spectral down-conversion. In optical communications, the so-called
-
Untapping solar energy resources Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-08-25 Bo Albinsson; Axel Olesund
The photovoltaics market has long been dominated by silicon, but further improvements of these solar cells require novel approaches. Now, triplet–triplet annihilation photon upconversion has been used to harvest photons from below the bandgap of silicon, extending the spectral response and potentially improving the efficiency of these cells.
-
Nasca patterning in the microworld Nat. Photon. (IF 31.241) Pub Date : 2020-08-25 Olga Smirnova
Launching electrons to the centre of an optical field with a vortex phase profile via extreme-ultraviolet photoionization makes coherent imprinting of the spatial distribution of the vortex beam onto the electron wave packet possible.
Contents have been reproduced by permission of the publishers.