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Artistic impression of a topologically protected quantum entanglement emitter on a silicon-photonics chip. Entangled states, which are immune to some defects and imperfections, are generated along the boundary of the chip, which emulates an anomalous Floquet topological insulator.
The field of flat lens research brings innovative nanophotonic design concepts to the world of macro-optics. However, when evaluating the performance of these lenses a lack of consistency prevents proper comparison of competing technologies. This problem can be solved by using methods developed in industry for conventional lenses.
A liquid crystal doped with a diarylethene enantiomer can be switched by light into stable reflection states of different colour, creating new opportunities for lasing and labelling.
Harnessing birefringence in a photonic chip featuring an array of coupled waveguides brings new opportunities for investigating quantum effects such as bunching and antibunching.
Directional control of the diffusion of excitons is desired for excitonic devices, but being neutrally charged they can’t be transported by applying a bias voltage as for conventional electronic transport. It is now shown that surface acoustic waves can direct the flux of excitons over micrometre distances, even at room temperature.
This Review details the fundamental photonics and thermodynamics concepts that underlie the processes of radiative cooling, and discusses a few emerging directions associated with radiative cooling research.
Polarization-dependent losses shape Hong–Ou–Mandel interference of photon pairs in birefringent waveguides. Seamless tunability of indistinguishable photon coincidences, all the way from enhancement to full suppression, is enabled by an appropriate choice of the observation basis.
By combining scanning tunnelling microscopy and attosecond technologies, the coherent electronic motion generated in molecules by carrier-envelope-phase-stable laser pulses is visualized at ångström-scale spatial resolution and subfemtosecond temporal resolution.
A custom-designed metasurface for sample illumination and light collection in optical coherence tomography overcomes the usual trade off in lateral resolution and depth of field.
Chiral liquid-crystal materials with optical properties that can be tuned, erased and reversed offer new opportunities in labelling, displays and anti-counterfeiting.
Researchers exploit Rayleigh waves and associated dynamic strains to control exciton transport in the weak coupling regime at room temperature. The findings may pave the way for new types of excitonic device for applications ranging from communications to energy.
A photonic anomalous Floquet insulator is emulated in a silicon photonic chip. Up to four-photon topologically protected entangled states are generated in a monolithically integrated emitter in ambient conditions through four-wave mixing on top of the edge modes of the insulator.