Summary
Atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) physics explores the quantum behaviour of electrons, atoms and light, and their mutual interactions across energy, length and time scales. In atoms and molecules, quantised electronic, vibrational and rotational levels govern absorption and emission spectra, underpinning precision spectroscopy, quantum control and chemistry. Optical fields couple to matter via electric-dipole and higher multipole processes, enabling cooling, trapping and coherence of ultracold gases. At high field strengths, nonlinear optoelectronic phenomena such as harmonic generation, rectification and quantum interference emerge. AMO methods yield quantum many-body simulators, high-fidelity logic gates and metrologies that exploit entanglement and superposition. Across terahertz to visible regimes, engineered nanostructures and atom arrays serve both as testbeds for fundamental interactions and as platforms for next-generation communications, sensing and quantum technologies.
Research from Nature Portfolio
Parallel entangling operations have been demonstrated on up to sixty neutral atoms confined in optical tweezers and excited to Rydberg levels. By optimising single-pulse excitation and exploiting atomic dark states, two-qubit gate fidelities of 99.5 percent were achieved in parallel, surpassing the surface-code threshold for fault-tolerant quantum error correction. A related architecture uses coherent transport of entangled atom arrays between layers of single- and two-qubit operations, enabling dynamically reconfigurable connectivity for generating graph and surface-code states, and for hybrid analogue–digital quantum simulation. In solid-state spins, ultrafast optical excitation of magnetoelectric insulator thin films has launched both narrowband and broadband terahertz magnons via spin–phonon coupling. Subsequent inverse spin Hall conversion permits calibrated, sub-50 fs temporal mapping of magnetic order under ambient conditions. More recently, high-performance organic mixed ion–electron conductors have been incorporated as electro-active tuning layers in direct-written terahertz metasurfaces. Large conductivity modulations persist at 0.1–10 THz, enabling fully reconfigurable, printed metadevices on rigid and flexible substrates.
Topic trend for the past 5 years
The graph below shows the article count in Nature Index journals for atomic, molecular and optical physics.
* The ‘Current Index’ represents data for a 12-month rolling window, the current window is 1 May 2025 - 30 April 2026.
Technical terms
Rydberg state: An atomic level with a highly excited electron whose orbit radius scales as n², yielding strong dipole interactions and long lifetimes.
Inverse spin Hall effect: Conversion of a spin current into a transverse charge current in materials with strong spin–orbit coupling, used to detect spin dynamics via terahertz emission.
Surface-code threshold: The minimum two-qubit gate fidelity required for scalable, fault-tolerant quantum error correction in a surface-code architecture.
Quantum interference: Coherent superposition of excitation pathways that controls the direction, amplitude or timing of nonlinear optical responses.
Optical rectification: A second-order nonlinear process in which an ultrafast optical pulse induces a transient polarization that radiates terahertz fields.
Metasurface: A planar array of subwavelength resonators engineered to control amplitude, phase and polarization of electromagnetic waves at targeted frequencies.
Notable articles in atomic, molecular and optical physics
- Emission of coherent THz magnons in an antiferromagnetic insulator triggered by ultrafast spin–phonon interactions. Nature Communications (2023).
- High-fidelity parallel entangling gates on a neutral-atom quantum computer. Nature (2023).
- A quantum processor based on coherent transport of entangled atom arrays. Nature (2022).
- Tuning direct-written terahertz metadevices with organic mixed ion-electron conductors. Nature Communications (2024).
About these summaries
This Nature Research Intelligence Topic summary is created with the cited references and a large language model. We take care to ground generated text with facts, and have systems in place to gain human feedback on the overall quality of the process in line with our AI principles. We strive to create accurate and useful summaries for people unfamiliar with the research topic and that supports this goal. These pages are a beta release and will be updated as we learn how best to help people gain value from a research topic summary.
Research
Position of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics in Nature Index by Count
Leading institutions
| Institution | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) | 280 | 103.37 |
| University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) | 129 | 33.95 |
| University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) | 71 | 23.63 |
| Peking University (PKU) | 62 | 21.27 |
| Nanjing University (NJU) | 42 | 21.13 |
| Shandong University (SDU) | 57 | 20.54 |
| Beijing Normal University (BNU) | 23 | 15.52 |
| Sichuan University (SCU) | 28 | 15.46 |
| Yangzhou University (YZU) | 23 | 15.25 |
| French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) | 65 | 13.63 |
Leading countries/territories
| Countries/territories | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| China | 873 | 805.14 |
| United States of America (USA) | 262 | 185.3 |
| Germany | 153 | 78.9 |
| Japan | 102 | 67.59 |
| France | 68 | 36.6 |
| South Korea | 47 | 29.83 |
| United Kingdom (UK) | 76 | 24.42 |
| India | 29 | 24.38 |
| Switzerland | 53 | 22.26 |
| Italy | 52 | 20.34 |
Collaboration
Top 5 leading collaborators in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
Collaborating institutions
Note: Hover over the bars to view details about each institution's Share.
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