News & Views

Ultrafast chiroptical signals are notoriously difficult to image in space and time simultaneously. Now, multiplexed off-axis holography, which encodes polarization information, enables ultrafast wide-field imaging of the transient optical activity, phase and absorption of samples.

Limited-size object optical microscopy enables label-free, far-field super-resolution imaging of arbitrarily shaped particles, with limited size of the field of view as the only required prior knowledge.

A non-destructive scanning method harnesses nonlinear micro-ring resonators as on-chip optical power discriminators to directly measure loss and gain of components in photonic integrated circuits with sub-0.1 dB precision.

Weak optical coupling between hydrated ions and dielectric microcavities, together with pronounced drift and noise in liquids, makes optical single-ion sensing notoriously difficult. Now, a plasmon-enhanced microcavity microlaser registers individual metal-ion events in solution via shifts of a self-heterodyned beat note.

Structured microwaves emitted by a chip-based microcomb source equipped with an antenna array enable ultrahigh-capacity communications and multi-variable sensing.

Photonic topological structures based on solid-state Chern insulators allow light to flow in only one direction along their edges, making them intrinsically resistant to scattering and localization by imperfections. Now, a photonic version of a Chern insulator has been realized in a complex multi-core fibre.

Valley dispersion engineering enables seamless transition between guided and leaky topological edge states, providing a viable route for the application of topological devices in terahertz communications.

A capillary-driven nanoimprint technology creates high-efficiency nanoscale quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) with sub-100-nm pixels, enabling ultrahigh resolutions of nearly 170,000 pixels per inch (PPI) for next-generation displays.

Implementing stable laser operation requires optical isolators to protect against destabilizing back-reflection signals. Now, CMOS optical circuits provide a simple and insensitive pathway towards robust protection.

A Hydrogen plasma that is generated with controllable density distribution can act as a lens to tightly focus extreme-ultraviolet attosecond pulses.

Lithium tantalate (LiTaO₃) is heterogeneously integrated with silicon photonics circuits, enabling high modulation speed, reduced bias drift and a high optical damage threshold, while ensuring full compatibility with the existing silicon photonics process design kit.

Mode mixing and mapping with a piece of multimode optical fibre and spatial light modulators creates a bridge between two isolated quantum networks, linking distant nodes with quantum connectivity.

Optical computing has been limited to vector–matrix multiplications, with matrix–matrix operations requiring wavelength- or time-division multiplexing, reducing energy efficiency and speed. Now, researchers have demonstrated a free-space optical approach that overcomes these limitations, enabling parallel matrix–matrix and tensor–matrix multiplications in a single optical operation.

Modulating an electron beam with a frequency-beating laser enables a free-electron laser to generate high-power, narrowband terahertz pulses that can be continuously tuned from 7.8 to 30.8 terahertz.

A nanostencil lithography technique enables fabricating arrays of green-emitting OLEDs with pixels as small as 100 nm and an external quantum efficiency of 13.1%.