Reviews & Analysis

Reconfigurable optical chips made from 2D meshes of connected waveguides could pave the way for programmable, general purpose microwave photonics processors.

Compact monochromatic X-ray sources based on graphene plasmons may soon become a reality.

Methods to improve the transmission distance of quantum communication, to combat channel loss and to implement an optical Ising machine were just some of the topics discussed at QCrypt 2015 in Tokyo, Japan.

Extracting a single photon from a light pulse is deceptively complicated to accomplish. Now, a deterministic experimental implementation of photon subtraction could bring a host of opportunities in quantum information technology.

Various optical schemes that can detect single molecules without the need of fluorescence are discussed.

Last year the common notion that signal disturbance has to be monitored in a quantum cryptographic link to guarantee secrecy was challenged by a new protocol. The formidable task of demonstrating it experimentally has now been achieved.

The deployment of LED lighting that can communicate with portable electronics could provide a faster alternative to WiFi.

Heating LEDs from room temperature to 615 K is found to increase their emission power fourfold. The finding suggests that thermophotonics could remove the need for heat sinks for high-power devices.

Diode lasers represent a viable alternative to light sources used in many biomedical applications. Their ongoing development will further increase their importance, offering not only multiple wavelength ranges, but also higher power levels.

This Review article provides an overview of the fundamental origins and important applications of the main spin–orbit interaction phenomena in modern optics that play a crucial role at subwavelength scales.

This Progress Article details the latest achievements and underlying principles of light carrying transverse spin.The capabilities and future applications of this young yet already advanced field are highlighted.

Techniques for determining Stokes parameters, which fully define the polarization state of a wave, require multiple measurements, thus potentially leading to inaccuracies. Researchers now show how to simultaneously determine the parameters for visible light using periodic metal structures.

Crossing two focused laser beams with opposite circular polarization makes the production and application of circularly polarized light in the extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray spectral regions considerably easier and more efficient.

Next-generation wireless communication, high-harmonic generation of sub-cycle pulses and ultrafast probing of the excitation dynamics of materials were all topics of discussion at this year's IRMMW-THz conference in Hong Kong.

Integrated nano-optical memories may help overcome the limitations of communication speeds and energy costs in electronic chips. Now, using nanoscale phase-change materials researchers have realized the first multi-bit all-optical non-volatile memories with a very small footprint.

Hyperbolic phonon polaritons confined to the subdiffraction limit exhibit encouragingly long lifetimes and group velocities as slow as 0.002c. Researchers use a time-resolved set-up sensitive to nanometre-scale optical fields to shed light on the exciting optical properties of hyperbolic materials.