Optical physics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The bulk photovoltaic effect holds promise for various optoelectronic applications, but it is usually restricted to non-centrosymmetric materials operating in the visible range. Here, the authors report a surface photogalvanic effect spanning from visible to midinfrared wavelengths in a centrosymmetric topological insulator, Ag2Te.

    • Xiaoyi Xie
    • , Pengliang Leng
    •  & Faxian Xiu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors demonstrate a novel regime of coherent harmonic modulation yielding resonances (termed acceleration beats) with energy spacing and temporal correlations controlled by the modulation amplitude. These features are associated with accelerated energy-change rates during the harmonic cycle.

    • A. S. Kuznetsov
    • , K. Biermann
    •  & P. V. Santos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors report a terahertz detector with a Q value of 1017, embedded in a Tamm cavity and offers a 469 MHz bandwidth. It features an Nb5N6 microbolometer in an Si/air DBR and metal reflector, with tunable resonant frequency via substrate layer thickness.

    • Xuecou Tu
    • , Yichen Zhang
    •  & Peiheng Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnons offer a variety of attractive features for information processing: low dissipation, controllable non-linearity, short wavelengths at typical frequencies used in information technologies. Here, Metzger et al demonstrate control of a strongly coupled two-magnon-one-phonon state in antiferromagnetic CoF2.

    • Thomas W. J. Metzger
    • , Kirill A. Grishunin
    •  & Evgeny A. Mashkovich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors demonstrate the experimental generation and mode conversion of spatiotemporal Laguerre/Hermite-Gaussian wavepackets with controllable dual quantum numbers by imprinting two-dimensional complex modulation onto the spectrum of ultrashort laser pulses, opening new possibilities for spatiotemporally sculpturing of light.

    • Xin Liu
    • , Qian Cao
    •  & Qiwen Zhan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Authors demonstrate a fidelity-restorable universal integrated linear optical circuit that relies on a novel 4 × 4 silicon photonic crossbar architecture. Its experimental characterization yields a fidelity of 99.93 ± 0.06%, calculated over 10,000 matrices.

    • Miltiadis Moralis-Pegios
    • , George Giamougiannis
    •  & Nikos Pleros

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Authors measure the amplification of electromagnetic waves scattered by a rotating metallic cylinder, gaining mechanical rotational energy from the body, as predicted by Zel’dovich in 1971.

    • M. C. Braidotti
    • , A. Vinante
    •  & H. Ulbricht

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasmons polaritons, or collective excitations of electrons and electromagnetic fields, have been rarely studied in layered correlated materials. Shiravi et al. report hyperbolic plasmon polaritons in thin flakes of the Kagome metal CsV3Sb5 and discuss correlation effects on their formation and tunability.

    • H. Shiravi
    • , A. Gupta
    •  & G. X. Ni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A cascadable all-optical NOT gate is a requirement for full-logic in optical computing. By introducing the concept of non-ground-state polariton amplification in organic semiconductor microcavities, the authors realized the operation of an all-optical cascadable universal gate.

    • Denis A. Sannikov
    • , Anton V. Baranikov
    •  & Pavlos G. Lagoudakis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lasers drive modern research and technology. The modes of laser resonators are crucial for understanding complex cavities, beam propagation, and structured light. Here, the authors experimentally observe a new family of fundamental laser modes with inherent parabolic symmetry: the Boyer-Wolf Gaussian modes.

    • Konrad Tschernig
    • , David Guacaneme
    •  & Miguel A. Bandres

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors demonstrate a cavity enhancement of single artificial atoms at telecommunication wavelengths in silicon by coupling them to highly optimized photonic crystal cavities, showing intensity enhancement and highly pure single-photon emission.

    • Valeria Saggio
    • , Carlos Errando-Herranz
    •  & Dirk Englund

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors develop a subwavelength nonreciprocal optical component harnessing the effect is thermal phase transition of VO2 boosted by the Mie resonant response of the dielectric meta-surface.

    • Aditya Tripathi
    • , Chibuzor Fabian Ugwu
    •  & Sergey S. Kruk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors present a diffractive optical processor that approximates optical phase conjugation operation without any digital computing. This compact and all-optical wavefront processor can be used for various applications, including turbidity suppression and aberration correction.

    • Che-Yung Shen
    • , Jingxi Li
    •  & Aydogan Ozcan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Topological waves and their exotic properties are attracting intense research interest. Here, the authors report on the discovery of supertoroidal electromagnetic pulses with robust skyrmionic topology that persists upon propagation over arbitrarily long distances.

    • Yijie Shen
    • , Nikitas Papasimakis
    •  & Nikolay I. Zheludev

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently, long spin coherence times have been predicted for spin defects in simple oxides. Here, by using high-throughput first-principles calculations, the authors identify promising spin defects in CaO, with electronic properties similar to those of NV centers but with longer coherence times.

    • Joel Davidsson
    • , Mykyta Onizhuk
    •  & Giulia Galli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perturbing a physical system, for example, picking a guitar string to make it vibrate, tells a lot about its intrinsic properties. Here the authors show that such concepts hold even for quantum gases of light, which respond to a perturbation with the same dynamics as they fluctuate on their own.

    • Alexander Sazhin
    • , Vladimir N. Gladilin
    •  & Julian Schmitt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors observe THz emission from Ni/Pt heterostructure due to long-range ballistic orbital transport. The velocity of orbital current can be optically tuned by laser fluence, opening the avenue for future optorbitronic devices.

    • Sobhan Subhra Mishra
    • , James Lourembam
    •  & Ranjan Singh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    By resonant pumping the organic cation in 2D perovskite, Fu et al. report the electronic and mechanical couplings between the organic and inorganic sublattices, evidenced by the reduced bandgap and modified lattice degree of freedom within the inorganic sublattice, and slow heat transfer process.

    • Jianhui Fu
    • , Tieyuan Bian
    •  & Tze Chien Sum

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lee et al. developed ultrathin metallic (metal filling ratios of > 70 %) metamaterials that exhibit perfect transmission at a specific radar frequency. These characteristics enable microwave transparent, low-sheet-resistance radar heaters for safe autonomous driving in extreme weather.

    • Eun-Joo Lee
    • , Jun-Young Kim
    •  & Sun-Kyung Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum emitters in Si show promise for applications in quantum information processing and communication due to their potential as spin-photon interfaces. Jhuria et al. report the formation of selected telecom emitters in Si using local writing and erasing by fs laser pulses and annealing in a hydrogen atmosphere.

    • K. Jhuria
    • , V. Ivanov
    •  & T. Schenkel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metasurface-based architectures enhance light-matter interactions between a terahertz photonic mode and glucose vibrational resonance. This platform allows new physical and chemical properties of hybrid light-matter states to be exploited.

    • Ahmed Jaber
    • , Michael Reitz
    •  & Jean-Michel Ménard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors study the [Nb/V/Ta] superconducting artificial superlattice, known to support a superconducting diode effect, by pulsed THz spectroscopy and simultaneous transport. They found a non-monotonic switching between the superconducting and normal state, which can be explained if the THz-driven vortex depinning determines the critical current.

    • Fumiya Sekiguchi
    • , Hideki Narita
    •  & Yoshihiko Kanemitsu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stark spectroscopy of molecules in liquid solutions was once challenging due to orientation effects, solved by freezing but limiting ambient studies. Now, THz Stark spectroscopy with intense terahertz pulses enables dynamic analysis of molecules in both non-polar and polar solvents at any temperature, advancing conventional methods.

    • Bong Joo Kang
    • , Egmont J. Rohwer
    •  & Thomas Feurer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors demonstrated an unprecedented level of polarization squeezing of light generated by an atomic ensemble, and a new regime of continuous quantum measurements on a macroscopic material oscillator.

    • Christian Bærentsen
    • , Sergey A. Fedorov
    •  & Eugene S. Polzik

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The laser pulses that drive most laser wakefield accelerators have wavelengths near 1 micrometer and peak power > 100 terawatts. Here, the authors drive plasma wakes with 10 micrometer, 2-terawatt pulses, yielding relativistic electron beams with a collimated, narrow-energy-bandwidth component.

    • R. Zgadzaj
    • , J. Welch
    •  & M. C. Downer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Color centers in diamond have been proposed as a link between remote superconducting units in hybrid quantum systems, where their orbital degree of freedom is utilized. Here the authors report coherent electric-field control of the orbital state of a neutral NV center in diamond.

    • Hodaka Kurokawa
    • , Keidai Wakamatsu
    •  & Hideo Kosaka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Surface acoustic wave devices enable modern electronics and are desirable for quantum systems. Here the authors access and control these devices optically, enabling high acoustic quality factors, materials spectroscopy, and hybrid quantum systems.

    • Arjun Iyer
    • , Yadav P. Kandel
    •  & William H. Renninger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carbon nanotube-based single photon emitters allow for room-temperature operation, but suffer from vanishing indistinguishability due to strong dephasing. Following a theoretical proposal, the authors tackle the problem experimentally by using a cavity to enhance the photon coherence time and the emission spectral density in the regime of incoherent good cavity-coupling.

    • Lukas Husel
    • , Julian Trapp
    •  & Alexander Högele

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Achieving acoustic waveguides with low loss, tailorability, and easy fabrication is a considerable challenge. Here, the authors introduce suspended anti-resonant acoustic waveguides with superior confinement and high selectivity of acoustic modes, supporting both forward and backward SBS on chip.

    • Peng Lei
    • , Mingyu Xu
    •  & Xiaopeng Xie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Abbe’s diffraction limit has been a defining concept for microscopy. With finite photon, photon noise remains one essential factor yet to be considered in the theoretical resolution limit. Here, the authors introduced information-based resolution limit allowing for photon-considered resolution assessment of various microscopy and super-resolution modalities.

    • Yilun Li
    •  & Fang Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Caustics, as a unique type of singularity in wave phenomena, occur in diverse physical systems. Here, the authors realize multi-dimensional customization of caustics with 3D-printed metasurfaces. This arbitrary caustic engineering is poised to bring new revolutions to many domains.

    • Xiaoyan Zhou
    • , Hongtao Wang
    •  & Cheng-Wei Qiu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A promising strategy for scaling trapped-ion-based quantum technologies is to use fully integrated optical waveguides to deliver light to numerous ions at multiple sites. Here, the authors. optically address three ions using on-chip waveguides to deliver three distinct wavelengths per ion, and perform Rabi flopping on each ion simultaneously.

    • Joonhyuk Kwon
    • , William J. Setzer
    •  & Hayden J. McGuinness

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Room-temperature phosphorescence usually occurs immediately after the removal of excitation. Here the authors achieve combined instant and delayed phosphorescence through introduction of phosphines into carbazole emitters.

    • Guang Lu
    • , Jing Tan
    •  & Hui Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic time crystal refers to a material whose dielectric properties oscillate in time. Here the authors theoretically show such behaviour in the excitonic insulator candidate Ta2NiSe5 under optical excitation and use it to explain the enhanced THz reflectivity recently observed in pump-probe experiments

    • Marios H. Michael
    • , Sheikh Rubaiat Ul Haque
    •  & Eugene Demler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    All holographic displays and imaging techniques are fundamentally limited by the étendue supported by existing spatial light modulators. Here, the authors report on using artificial intelligence (AI) to learn an étendue expanding element that effectively increases étendue by two orders of magnitude.

    • Ethan Tseng
    • , Grace Kuo
    •  & Felix Heide

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An efficient way of realising a large number of telecom single-photon emitters for quantum communication is still missing. Here, the authors use a wide-field imaging technique for fast localization of single InAs/InP quantum dots, which are then integrated into circular Bragg grating cavities featuring high single-photon purity and indistinguishability.

    • Paweł Holewa
    • , Daniel A. Vajner
    •  & Elizaveta Semenova

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