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Researchers demonstrate one-dimensional photonic crystal lasing with the aid of a cold atom cloud that provides both gain and distributed feedback. Distributed feedback is due to the periodic distribution of the atoms trapped in a one-dimensional lattice enabling Bragg reflection, and parametric gain is provided by four-wave mixing.
Researchers demonstrate a high-efficiency polymer solar cell whose device architecture is compatible with a large-scale roll-to-roll process. Enhanced charge collection in the inverted polymer solar cell design and certified power conversion efficiencies of around 7.4% are reported.
Researchers observe a continuous change in photon correlations from strong antibunching to bunching by tuning either the probe laser or the cavity mode frequency. These results, which demonstrate unprecedented strong single-photon nonlinearities in quantum dot cavity system, are explained by the photon blockade and tunnelling in the anharmonic Jaynes–Cummings model.
Researchers describe a mechanism capable of compressing fast and intense X-ray pulses through the rapid loss of crystalline periodicity. It is hoped that this concept, combined with X-ray free-electron laser technology, will allow scientists to obtain structural information at atomic resolutions.
Scientists demonstrate strong coupling between distant nanocavities separated by more than 100 wavelengths as well as dynamic control over the coupling state. The strong coupling state can be stopped on demand by irradiating one of the nanocavities with a control pulse, thus freezing the photon state.
Researchers investigate the optical phonon modes of bulk diamond at room temperature. Ultrafast Raman scattering measurements show an extended and highly non-classical state in the optical phonon modes of bulk diamond. The researchers also demonstrate a terahertz-bandwidth quantum memory based on transient ultrafast Raman scattering from the optical phonons.
Researchers demonstrate a reconfigurable integrated quantum photonic circuit. The device comprises a two-qubit entangling gate, several Hadamard-like gates and eight variable phase shifters. The set-up is used to generate entangled states, violate a Bell-type inequality with a continuum of partially entangled states and demonstrate the generation of arbitrary one-qubit mixed states.
Using laser-driven spinning birefringent spheres to create a localized microfluidic flow, scientists show that they can control the direction of growth of individual nerve fibres. The approach is potentially useful for the development of nerve systems, as well as for nerve repair and regeneration.
Researchers demonstrate a scheme that combines the high spatial resolution of full-field transmission X-ray microscopy (TXM) with high-spectral-resolution near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS). The idea could lead to a wide range of new material studies that combine high-resolution spectroscopic techniques with nanoscale tomographic imaging.
Scientists present the first experimental observations of bright polariton solitons in a strongly coupled semiconductor microcavity. The findings should pave the way to the investigation of a variety of fundamental phenomena, such as interactions between solitons with different spins and the formation of soliton molecules.
Scientists report the fabrication of a nonreciprocal optical resonator with a small length footprint of 290 µm on a silicon-on-insulator substrate. The device achieves unidirectional optical transmission with an isolation ratio of up to 19.5 dB near the telecommunications wavelength of 1,550 nm in a homogeneous external magnetic field.
Researchers use femtosecond laser pulses to create acoustic pulses that strain quantum dots and modulate their transition energies. When the quantum dots are housed in a microcavity, tuning the quantum dots to the optical resonance of the cavity causes the emission output to be enhanced by more than two orders of magnitude.
Using a thin-film outcoupling enhancement method consisting of a weak optical cavity on a flexible substrate with a non-indium-tin-oxide anode, researchers demonstrate phosphorescent organic LEDs with an external quantum efficiency of up to 63% at green wavelengths, which remains as high as 60% at luminous intensities of >10,000 cd m−2.
Using a new form of spectroscopic optical coherence tomography, researchers demonstrate three-dimensional molecular imaging of both endogenous and exogenous chromophores with high spectral fidelity. This scheme has significant implications for a range of biomedical applications, including ophthalmology, early cancer detection and understanding fundamental disease mechanisms such as hypoxia and angiogenesis.
Researchers use plasmonic nanofocusing of near-infrared pulses in metallic tapered gap waveguides to generate ultrashort extreme-ultraviolet pulses. They calculate that the electromagnetic field intensity is around 350 times higher than that of a reference untapered waveguide, allowing harmonics up to the 43rd to be realized at a modest incident intensity of ∼1011 W cm−2.
Directly embedding single nitrogen–vacancy centres into ordered arrays of plasmonic nanostructures can enhance their radiative emission rate and thus give greater scalability over previous bottom-up approaches for the realization of on-chip quantum networks.
Researcher demonstrate the line-by-line pulse shaping of frequency combs generated in silicon nitride ring resonators, and observe two distinct paths to comb formation that exhibit strikingly different time domain behaviours.
Photovoltages generated from semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes are often too small for most practical solar-energy-harvesting applications. Here, researchers demonstrate that virtual contacts can be used to multiply photovoltages from around 0.2 V to 1.0 V.
Researchers report an all-optical signal processing architecture that enables the multilevel all-optical quantization of phase-encoded optical signals. Using four-wave-mixing and two-pump parametric processes, they experimentally demonstrate up to six levels of quantization.
Researchers use a pre-orienting layer to achieve nearly single-crystalline GaN pyramidal arrays on amorphous glass substrates. The polycrystalline morphology can be controlled by placing a hole-patterned SiO2 layer on the low-temperature GaN nucleation layer. Light-emitting diodes fabricated by this technique exhibited a luminance of 600 cd m−2.