News & Comment

Surface-emitting terahertz quantum-cascade lasers offer better slope efficiencies than their edge-emitting counterparts

Microdisks provide strong light confinement for erbium-doped silicon lasers

Solitons maintain their confinement as they are manipulated to change direction

Controlled spatial alignment is critical to cavity quantum electrodynamics in solid-state systems

Photonic crystals enhance the light emission from silicon–germanium quantum dots

Composite photonic crystal structures offer more flexible superlens designs

Photons find fundamental quantum limit to heat transfer

Fluorescence modulation advances three-dimensional optical data storage

Epitaxial growth of thin zinc telluride layers could advance the development of terahertz emitters and detectors

Grooves guide terahertz surface plasmon polaritons to subwavelength confinement

Quantum dots help to guide light at the subdiffraction limit

Long-range interactions are observed between optical solitons

Studies reveal new ways in which chiral molecules get a grip over light

Sinusoidal gating enables InGaAs avalanche photodiodes to operate at 800 MHz

Terahertz microchip offers a sensitive nose to sniff out drugs

Nonlinearity in fibre Bragg gratings reduces broadening of slow light pulses

Superposition of off-axis holograms drives three-dimensional imaging to subdiffraction limit

Surface plasmons strongly improve performance of mid-infrared photodetectors

Controlling the birth of attosecond light pulses

Fibre lasers offer a new method of secure communication