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A position sensor is demonstrated that is capable of resolving the zero-point motion of a nanomechanical oscillator in the timescale of its thermal decoherence; it achieves an imprecision that is four orders of magnitude below that at the standard quantum limit and is used to feedback-cool the oscillator to a mean photon number of five.

A turnkey regime for soliton microcombs is demonstrated, in which solitons are generated by switching on a co-integrated pump laser, eliminating the need for photonic and electronic control circuitry.

Optomechanical systems in which a high-quality optical resonator is coupled to a mechanical oscillator hold great promise for examining quantum effects in relatively large structures. As a step towards this, a silica microtoroid has now been cooled to the point that it has just 63 thermal quanta.

Laser-driven resolved sideband cooling of the resonant vibrational mode of a toroidal microcavity represents another step towards reaching the quantum ground state.

Spectroscopy that combines the accuracy of a frequency comb with the ease of use of a tunable, external cavity diode laser is demonstrated, enabling precise dispersion measurements of microresonator modes.

A pair of strongly coupled photonic microresonators shows nonlinear emergent behaviour, which can be understood by incorporating interactions in the theoretical description of nonlinear optical systems.

Optical absorption and nonlinear index are important performance drivers in devices like microcombs. Here the authors use resonance-enhanced nonlinear spectroscopy to characterize absorption limits and nonlinear index for some integrated photonic materials.

Optical frequency combs are vital tools for precision measurements, and extending them further into the mid-infrared 'molecular fingerprint' range will open new avenues for spectroscopy. Using crystalline microresonators, Wang et al. demonstrate Kerr combs at 2.5 μm as a promising route into the mid-infrared.

Low dissipation of fundamental mode is a determinant factor in nanomechanical resonator design. Here the authors realize soft clamping for the fundamental mode in a nanomechanical tensile structure achieving low loss, low mass, and low resonance frequency that render it a perfect force sensor.

Soft clamping reduces the dissipation of nanomechanical resonators, but this method has been limited to amorphous materials. When applied in crystalline silicon, it enables resonators with quality factors beyond ten billion.

Nonreciprocal optical devices traditionally rely on magnetic fields and magnetic-free approaches are rather recent. Here, Bernier et al. propose and demonstrate a purely optomechanical circulator with reconfigurable transmission without the need for direct coupling between input and output modes.

A nanomechanical beam and a disk-shaped optical resonator are integrated on a chip to make a transducer that can measure extremely weak forces.

Based on observations in crystalline MgF₂ and planar Si₃N₄ microresonators, scientists reveal that the existence of multiple and broad-beat notes in a Kerr-frequency comb is due to the formation dynamics of the comb itself. This work identifies the conditions requires for low-phase-noise performance and also helps to elucidate a number of yet-unexplained phenomena.

A nanomechanical oscillator coupled to a superconducting waveguide provides all-microwave field-controlled tunable slowing and advancing of microwave signals, with millisecond distortion-free delay and negligible losses.

A study of the dynamics of so-called Kerr solitons in optical microresonators reports the discovery of a simple mechanism that permits the step-wise reduction of soliton states, one by one.

Highly sensitive trace-gas detection is possible in the mid-infrared range with transparent microresonators. Here, the authors directly measure the necessary ultra-high quality factors of microresonators made from fluoride crystal materials using a tapered chalcogenide fibre.

Temporal dissipative solitons are observed in a nonlinear, high-finesse, optical microresonator driven by a continuous-wave laser. This approach enables ultrashort pulses to be generated in spectral regimes lacking broadband laser gain media and saturable absorbers, making it potentially useful for applications in broadband spectroscopy, telecommunications, astronomy and low-phase-noise microwave generation.

Experiments investigating strong interactions of light and matter at the single-photon level usually involve single atoms in mirrored cavities, but these are technically complex. This paper reports an alternative approach, demonstrating strong coupling between individual caesium atoms and the fields of a high-quality toroidal microresonator.

Dissipative Kerr solitons enable optical frequency comb generation in microresonators, but these solitons can undergo a breathing transition which impacts the stability of such microcombs. Here, Lucas et al. deterministically induce soliton breathing and directly observe the spatiotemporal dynamics.

A microwave cavity optomechanics experiment investigates the interplay between the electromagnetic and mechanical modes and how their roles can be reversed in engineered dissipation.

Coupling a nanometre-scale oscillator to a micrometre-scale optical resonator provides a way of measuring the small-amplitude motion. The scheme is applied to silicon nitride ’strings’, but it could be extended to many other types of tiny vibrating structures.

Up to three distinct frequency combs are simultaneously generated from an optical microresonator and a continuous-wave laser, enabling the deployment of dual- and triple-comb-based methods to applications unachievable by current technologies.

An integrated photonic processor, based on phase-change-material memory arrays and chip-based optical frequency combs, which can operate at speeds of trillions of multiply-accumulate (MAC) operations per second, is demonstrated.

A tiny disc-like structure on a silicon chip is simply illuminated by a conventional laser diode, and the resulting interaction between the laser light and the resonator gives rise to an optical frequency comb that emits in the infrared. The simplicity of the scheme, and the reduction in size, cost and power, should enhance the utility of optical frequency combs in a broad number of fields.

Demonstration of an optomechanical system that works as a quantum interface between light and micro-mechanical motion.

A design of on-chip optomechanical resonator that simultaneously maximizes a high mechanical Q-factor in the megahertz range and an ultrahigh optical finesse is reported. Studies of the mechanical properties of the cavity achieve the first direct observation of mechanical normal-mode coupling in a micromechanical system.

Dissipative Kerr solitons are the key phenomenon underpinning the generation of broad and coherent frequency combs on a photonic chip. This work extends the notion of dissipative Kerr solitons to the case of two coupled resonators possessing an exceptional point.

An optical-frequency synthesizer based on stabilized frequency combs has been developed utilizing chip-scale devices as key components, in a move towards using integrated photonics technology for ultrafast science and metrology.