Photonics, Optoelectronics and Optical Communications

Photonics encompasses the generation, manipulation and detection of light, while optoelectronics describes devices that convert between photons and electrons. Together they underpin modern optical communications, where ultralow-loss fibres guide signals over continental and submarine links at terabit rates. The field spans laser sources, modulators, photodetectors, waveguides, amplifiers and multiplexers, all engineered for minimal loss, broad bandwidth and high signal integrity. Advances in materials—from silicon photonics and lithium niobate to two-dimensional crystals—have driven ever greater integration and functionality. Alongside fundamental research into light–matter interactions and nonlinear phenomena, practical demands for low-latency, high-capacity networks and compact sensors fuel innovation. The global impact ranges from high-speed internet and data centres to remote sensing, environmental monitoring and secure communications, making photonics a keystone of twenty-first-century technology.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have demonstrated deterministic all-optical generation and electrical control of multiple graphene plasmon polaritons in a hybrid fibre–graphene waveguide. By mixing synchronised frequency-comb pulses via difference frequency generation, researchers achieved broadband plasmon excitation up to 50 THz, paving the way for ultrafast, on-chip logic operations. Another advance has realised highly efficient grating couplers on low-index platforms such as thin-film lithium niobate and silicon nitride. Self-imaging gratings with negative diffraction angles, combined with a patterned metal back-reflector formed by cryogenic deep silicon etching, achieved coupling efficiencies as high as –0.55 dB across the telecommunications C-band, offering wafer-scale compatibility for dense photonic integration.

Research from all publishers

A novel approach to molecular sensing employed synthesized complex-frequency waves to amplify surface-enhanced infrared absorption signals by more than an order of magnitude. This technique boosts the sensitivity of graphene-based SEIRA sensors for trace detection of proteins and small molecules in diverse phases. In parallel, intracavity spatiotemporal metasurfaces have been integrated into fibre lasers, combining geometric-phase conversion for spatial-mode control with giant nonlinear absorption in epsilon-near-zero media. The device simultaneously generates orbital-angular-momentum beams and Q-switched pulses, enabling compact sources for super-resolution imaging and high-density optical storage.

Photonics, Optoelectronics and Optical Communications publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in photonics, optoelectronics and optical communications across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Plasmon polariton: A hybrid quasiparticle arising from the strong coupling of light with collective oscillations of charge carriers at a material interface.

Difference frequency generation (DFG): A nonlinear optical process in which two input photons combine to produce a photon at the frequency difference of the inputs.

Grating coupler: A periodic structure patterned into a waveguide that diffracts light between free-space or fibre modes and on-chip guided modes.

Surface-enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA): A sensing technique that uses plasmonic nanostructures to boost infrared absorption signals from nearby molecules.

Geometric phase: A phase shift imprinted on light waves by spatially varying polarisation or meta-atom orientation, independent of optical path length.

Epsilon-near-zero (ENZ): A regime in which a material’s permittivity approaches zero, leading to uniform phase and enhanced nonlinear optical response.

References

1. Nonlinear co-generation of graphene plasmons for optoelectronic logic operations. Nature Communications (2022).
2. Scalable and efficient grating couplers on low-index photonic platforms enabled by cryogenic deep silicon etching. Scientific Reports (2024).
3. Synthesized complex-frequency excitation for ultrasensitive molecular sensing. eLight (2024).
4. Intracavity spatiotemporal metasurfaces. Advanced Photonics (2023).