Optics and photonics articles within Nature Physics

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  • Article |

    Classical approaches to imaging through complex media do not account for the quantum nature of the incident field. Now, images encoded on an entangled two-photon state are shown to transmit through a scattering medium whereas scattered by classical light.

    • Chloé Vernière
    • , Raphaël Guitter
    •  & Hugo Defienne

  • Article |

    Non-Hermitian systems support non-trivial topological effects, yet eigenvalue braiding remains difficult to control and observe. Now, active tuning of laser modes enables programmable and directly observable braiding on an integrated photonic chip.

    • Wenbo Mao
    • , Bofeng Zhu
    •  & Lan Yang

  • Research Briefing |

    Charge-transfer excitations, which define the optical bandgap in many insulators, also contribute to magnetic exchange in antiferromagnets. Femtosecond optical pumping of these transitions in canted antiferromagnet DyFeO3 reshapes the spin-wave spectrum — the set of collective spin excitations that define the dynamics of the antiferromagnet — without destroying the long-range order.

  • Article |

    Optical forces and torques on nanoparticles are difficult to measure due to the diffraction limit of light. Now, transverse optical torque is observed through the optical trapping and spatial tracking of a designed microscale structure.

    • Ryoma Fukuhara
    • , Tsutomu Shimura
    •  & Yoshito Y. Tanaka

  • Editorial |

    The advent of the laser transformed spectroscopy into a tool for precision measurements across scales, from nuclei to stars. In this Editorial we reflect on its far-reaching influence.

  • Article |

    Controlling the dynamics of magnons at terahertz frequencies is important for fast and efficient information processing devices. Now optical excitation is shown to enable ultrafast manipulation of magnon spectra in an insulating antiferromagnet.

    • V. Radovskaia
    • , R. Andrei
    •  & D. Afanasiev

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlling the rotational motion of nanoscale objects by trapping and cooling is a prerequisite for exploring quantum rotational phenomena. Now, two orthogonal librational modes of a levitated nanorotor are cooled into their quantum ground state.

    • Stephan Troyer
    • , Florian Fechtel
    •  & Markus Arndt

  • News & Views |

    Cavity-enhanced spectroscopy has now reached temperatures as low as 4 K — colder than most of space. This removes long-standing barriers in measuring hydrogen, which is a benchmark system for testing quantum theory and relevant for metrology.

    • Cun-Feng Cheng
    •  & Shui-Ming Hu

  • Article |

    Airy beams are promising for applications requiring sharp focusing but have so far been realized in only two dimensions. Now their extension to three dimensions exhibits superior spatiotemporal focusing dynamics than Gaussian beams.

    • Qian Cao
    • , Nianjia Zhang
    •  & Qiwen Zhan

  • News & Views |

    Robust interference between photonic topological edge states, without compromising unidirectional transmission, is achieved. Optical gain enables fast, reconfigurable control of mode coupling, thus realizing a tunable on-chip topological interferometer.

    • Yandong Li

  • Editorial |

    Fifty years ago, the theoretical concept behind free-electron lasers was proposed. Since then, these light sources, operating from millimetre to X-ray wavelengths, have been indispensable for many areas of science.

  • Measure for Measure |

    Early radiography methods, such as conventional X-ray scans, gave physicians only limited information about what happens inside the body. Rachel Toth tells us how this case was cracked with computed tomography.

    • Rachel Toth

  • News & Views |

    Free-electron lasers generate intense, femtosecond and sub-nanometre wavelength pulses. Incorporating such X-ray light into transient grating spectroscopy reveals electron dynamics at the nanometre length scale.

    • Martin Beye

  • Article |

    Applications of optical laser-based techniques are limited by the long wavelengths of the lasers. Now, observations of phonons and thermal transport at nanometre length scales are reported with an all-hard X-ray transient-grating spectroscopy technique.

    • Haoyuan Li
    • , Nan Wang
    •  & Diling Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Superradiance is usually driven by light-mediated couplings, leaving the role of direct emitter interactions unclear. Now, it is shown that dipole–dipole interactions in diamond spins drive self-induced pulsed and continuous superradiant masing.

    • Wenzel Kersten
    • , Nikolaus de Zordo
    •  & Jörg Schmiedmayer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic processors are limited by the bulkiness of discrete components and wiring complexity. An experiment now demonstrates a reprogrammable two-dimensional waveguide that performs neural network inference through multimode wave propagation.

    • Tatsuhiro Onodera
    • , Martin M. Stein
    •  & Peter L. McMahon

  • Article |

    Strongly coupled light–matter systems could offer enhanced manipulation of topological phenomena. Now, tunable non-Hermitian effects are demonstrated with exciton–polaritons induced by a twist degree of freedom.

    • Jie Liang
    • , Hao Zheng
    •  & Rui Su

  • News & Views |

    Controlling topological photonic quasiparticles is a prerequisite for their implementation in devices. Now, their precise manipulation has been demonstrated using synthetic gauge fields based on the manipulation of the material’s dielectric index.

    • Shai Tsesses
    •  & Aviv Karnieli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Finding a classical description of a quantum state can require resource-intensive tomography protocols. It has now been shown that, for bosonic systems, tomography is extremely inefficient in general, but can be done efficiently for some useful states.

    • Francesco A. Mele
    • , Antonio A. Mele
    •  & Salvatore F. E. Oliviero

  • Article |

    Lacking translational symmetry, the momentum-space description of quasicrystals is distinct from that of fully crystalline materials. Now, a quasicrystal with two 2D layers links different momenta from the individual layers, allowing new excitons to form.

    • Zhida Liu
    • , Qiang Gao
    •  & Xiaoqin Li

  • News & Views |

    When driven by nonclassical light, photoemission from a needle tip reveals signatures of strong-field physics, opening up opportunities to control matter and to engineer the building blocks of quantum technologies.

    • Marcelo Ciappina

  • News & Views |

    Photon sources used in quantum optics are limited in ways that free electron sources may not be. Now, accelerated electrons have been shown to generate non-classical light — this opens up possibilities for quantum experiments at the nanoscale.

    • Sophie Meuret
    •  & Hugo Lourenço-Martins

  • Article |

    Direct coupling between electrons, photons and phonons is challenging due to energy and momentum mismatches. Now, it is possible to achieve steady-state electron–phonon–photon excitation through nonlinear lasing by suppressing spontaneous emission.

    • Fei Liang
    • , Cheng He
    •  & Yan-Feng Chen

  • News & Views |

    Exciton–polariton superlattices allow sub-picosecond switching of topological phases, paving the way for ultrafast and reconfigurable topological photonic devices.

    • Hyun Gyu Song
    •  & Su-Hyun Gong

  • News & Views |

    Imaging through opaque media is challenging. But through the chaos it is possible to discern unique fingerprints of the objects hidden within.

    • Ilya Starshynov

  • News & Views |

    High-purity quantum states, essential for quantum technological applications, were achieved by cooling optically levitated silica nanoparticles.

    • Tania Monteiro

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Condensates of excitons have been observed in the quantum Hall regime, but evidence for their existence at low magnetic fields remains controversial. Now evidence of coherence between optically pumped interlayer excitons in MoS2 marks a step towards confirming exciton condensation at low magnetic fields.

    • Xiaoling Liu
    • , Nadine Leisgang
    •  & Mikhail D. Lukin

  • Article |

    Spin–photon interfaces provide a connection between quantum information stored in atomic or electronic spins and optical communications networks. A quantum photon emitter with long-lived, controllable coherent spin has now been demonstrated.

    • Mark R. Hogg
    • , Nadia O. Antoniadis
    •  & Richard J. Warburton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Observing quantum effects in a mechanical oscillator requires it to be close to a pure quantum state, rather than a thermal mixture. Here a librational mode of a levitated nanoparticle is cooled close to its ground state without using cryogenics.

    • Lorenzo Dania
    • , Oscar Schmitt Kremer
    •  & Martin Frimmer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Synthetic dimensions allow photons and gauge fields to interact in photonic emulators. Now a study with fast-gain lasers shows that gain-driven coherence enables robust light flow in frequency space, establishing it as a viable platform for lattice emulation.

    • Alexander Dikopoltsev
    • , Ina Heckelmann
    •  & Jérôme Faist

  • Article |

    Skyrmion bags—textures comprising multiple skyrmions contained within a larger skyrmion—have been reported in several condensed matter systems. Now an optical analogue of these structures has been observed in plasmonic moiré superlattices.

    • Julian Schwab
    • , Alexander Neuhaus
    •  & Harald Giessen

  • Article |

    Spin models that can be emulated by quantum simulators are usually restricted to systems with conserved total magnetization. The tuning of photon-mediated interactions between atoms in a cavity enables the implementation of more general models also useful for quantum sensing tasks.

    • Chengyi Luo
    • , Haoqing Zhang
    •  & James K. Thompson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Control over electron populations in different conduction band minima in semiconductors can be used to store and process information. Now the ultrafast optical manipulation of such electrons at room temperature has been demonstrated in silicon and diamond.

    • Adam Gindl
    • , Martin Čmel
    •  & Martin Kozák

  • Article |

    Superconducting qubits operate at microwave frequencies, but it is much more efficient to transmit information optically. Now, a superconducting qubit has been controlled with an optical signal by using a microwave–optical quantum transducer.

    • Hana K. Warner
    • , Jeffrey Holzgrafe
    •  & Marko Lončar

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