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Implementing stable lasers often requires complex packaging of multiple devices, such as stand-alone external cavities and isolators. Now, stabilizing and isolating lasers can be realized in a single silicon chip thanks to the Kerr nonlinear effect in a resonator.
Picosecond pulses of terahertz light used for rapid and reversible switching of charged excitons (trions) into neutral excitons in a two-dimensional semiconductor open perspectives for high-speed optoelectronic devices and fundamental studies of new electronic phases of matter.
Oscillators for tunable terahertz waves with ultra-high spectral purity may pave the way for precise molecular clocks and extremely high-data-rate wireless communications.
A new attosecond metrology technique for studying light–molecule interactions in liquids may open the door for variety of attosecond applications in chemistry and biology.
The interaction of electrons and photons lies at the very foundation of quantum electrodynamics. However, if an electron is able to scatter off several hundred photons, provided by a high-power laser, new physical phenomena come into play. This might pave a way for future light sources and photon–photon colliders.
Imaging in the water window has traditionally relied on large synchrotron radiation sources. Now, a tabletop tunable X-ray source which generates water-window X-ray photons from a low energy electron beam interacting with a van der Waals crystal has been demonstrated.
A nonlinear optical response to a new form of light, dubbed chiral topological light owing to its local chirality and global topological characteristics, is enabling unprecedented enantiosensitivity and robustness of chiro-optical spectroscopies as a result of structured light–matter interactions at deep subwavelength scales.
Ultrashort laser light–matter interactions can create unique virtual quantum states. Researchers have now revealed this phenomenon in solution-grown semiconductor nanoplatelets using visible light.
Two independent demonstrations of room-temperature Bose–Einstein condensation of light in semiconductor optical microcavities with embedded quantum wells may pave the way for harnessing the effect for practical applications, such as high-power, single-mode emission from large-aperture devices.
Optical nanoantenna field enhancement is hampered by material- and size-dependent losses. Researchers have now made an atomic antenna using the controlled formation of an isolated germanium vacancy colour centre in diamond, which enables giant near-field optical enhancement and which can detect and control nearby charges and induce energy transfer.
Three-dimensional, label-free optical images of a complex volumetric sample can now be obtained at a 1-Hz volumetric frame rate, thanks to the use of ultrafast camera measurements and sparse representation of the sample optical response.
Silicon photonic circuits offer a promising solution for the interconnect bottleneck for advanced computing systems, but they typically require additional materials, such as germanium for photodetection. An all-silicon receiver capable of handling a data stream at 1.28 terabits per second is paving the way for future optical interconnects.
The nonlinear optical response of achiral molecules spread on chiral nanostructured substrates and subjected to circularly polarized light is examined. The experiment is a step towards confirming a long-standing theoretical prediction: hyper-Raman optical activity.
