Optics and photonics articles within Nature Physics

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  • News & Views |

    By exploiting the optical Stark effect, the valley degree of freedom in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides can be selectively manipulated and detected using all-optical methods.

    • Xiaoqin Li
    •  & Galan Moody

  • Letter |

    Light can be used to directly excite phonon modes in condensed matter. Simultaneously exciting several modes in an antiferromagnetic rare-earth orthoferrite drives behaviour that mimics the application of a magnetic field.

    • T. F. Nova
    • , A. Cartella
    •  & A. Cavalleri

  • News & Views |

    Micro-explosions triggered by the absorption of X-ray laser light in drops and jets of water result in shock waves and in rapid heating and expansion of the liquid — as now revealed in state-of-the-art experiments.

    • Susan Davis Allen

  • Article |

    An optomechanical system made of an optical cavity filled with superfluid liquid helium provides the means to study phenomena involving different degrees of freedom than those in traditional solid-state resonators.

    • A. D. Kashkanova
    • , A. B. Shkarin
    •  & J. G. E. Harris

  • Article |

    Light propagating through a cloud of cold atoms can be slowed down by exciting a certain type of spin wave in the atomic ensemble. This stationary light could find applications in quantum technologies.

    • J. L. Everett
    • , G. T. Campbell
    •  & B. C. Buchler

  • Letter |

    Valleys in momentum space provide a degree of freedom that could be exploited for applications. A demonstration of valley pseudospin control now completes the generation–manipulation–detection paradigm, paving the way for valleytronic devices.

    • Ziliang Ye
    • , Dezheng Sun
    •  & Tony F. Heinz

  • Article |

    A near-field optical microscopy study provides nanoscale insight into an insulator-to-metal transition and the interplay with a neighbouring structural phase transition in a prototypical correlated electron material.

    • A. S. McLeod
    • , E. van Heumen
    •  & D. N. Basov

  • Letter |

    Solitonic modes that are redshifted due to a Raman-related effect are reported in optical microcavities, and termed Stokes solitons.

    • Qi-Fan Yang
    • , Xu Yi
    •  & Kerry Vahala

  • Letter |

    Using a technique inspired by Ramsey spectroscopy it is now possible to coherently control free electrons in an electron microscope.

    • Katharina E. Echternkamp
    • , Armin Feist
    •  & Claus Ropers

  • Article |

    Parity–time symmetry in optics is studied in a warm atomic vapour, where its counterpart, anti-parity–time symmetry, as well as refractionless propagation, can also be observed.

    • Peng Peng
    • , Wanxia Cao
    •  & Yanhong Xiao

  • News & Views |

    Going around an exceptional point in a full circle can be a non-adiabatic, asymmetric process. This surprising prediction is now confirmed by two separate experiments.

    • Dieter Heiss

  • Letter |

    Using a superconducting transmon qubit coupled to a microwave photonic crystal one can study intriguing strong-coupling effects such as the emergence of localized cavity modes within the photonic bandgap.

    • Yanbing Liu
    •  & Andrew A. Houck

  • Commentary |

    Optics played a key role in the discovery of geometric phase. It now joins the journey of exploring topological physics, bringing bosonic topological states that equip us with the ability to make perfect photonic devices using imperfect interfaces.

    • Ling Lu
    • , John D. Joannopoulos
    •  & Marin Soljačić

  • Article |

    X-ray-induced explosions in water drops, examined using time-resolved imaging, show interacting high-speed liquid and vapour flows. This type of X-ray absorption dynamics is predictable and may be used for inducing particular dynamical liquid states.

    • Claudiu A. Stan
    • , Despina Milathianaki
    •  & Sébastien Boutet

  • Letter |

    Experiments showing that electron dynamics can be controlled on attosecond timescales suggest that wide-bandgap semiconductors could be exploited for petahertz signal processing technologies.

    • Hiroki Mashiko
    • , Katsuya Oguri
    •  & Hideki Gotoh

  • Letter |

    The change in pitch of a passing car engine is a classic example of the translational Doppler effect, but rotational Doppler shifts can also arise, as shown for circularly polarized light passing through a spinning nonlinear optical crystal.

    • Guixin Li
    • , Thomas Zentgraf
    •  & Shuang Zhang

  • News & Views |

    Intense light pulses irradiating a sample of K3C60 result in dramatic changes of its high-frequency (terahertz) conductivity. Could these be signatures of fleeting superconductivity at 100 K and beyond?

    • Jure Demsar

  • Research Highlights |

    • Luke Fleet

  • Letter |

    Quantum mechanics sets a fundamental upper limit for the flow of heat. Such quantum-limited heat conduction is now observed over macroscopic distances, extending to a metre, in superconducting transmission lines.

    • Matti Partanen
    • , Kuan Yen Tan
    •  & Mikko Möttönen

  • Letter |

    The detection of a single photon heralds the projection of two remote spins onto a maximally entangled state. This has been demonstrated for quantum-dot hole spins, featuring a fast generation rate that could enable quantum technology applications.

    • Aymeric Delteil
    • , Zhe Sun
    •  & Ataç Imamoğlu

  • Letter |

    Kohn’s theorem states that the electron cyclotron resonance is unaffected by many-body interactions in a static magnetic field. Yet, intense terahertz pulses do introduce Coulomb effects between electrons—holding promise for quantum control of electrons.

    • T. Maag
    • , A. Bayer
    •  & M. Kira

  • Letter |

    The strong confinement of plasmons in graphene makes them interesting for practical applications, but also difficult to excite. An all-optical technique can excite plasmons in graphene over a range of frequencies.

    • T. J. Constant
    • , S. M. Hornett
    •  & E. Hendry

  • Article |

    Using an artificial three-level lambda system realized in a superconducting transmon qubit in a microwave cavity one can observe coherent population trapping, electromagnetically induced transparency and superluminal pulse propagation.

    • S. Novikov
    • , T. Sweeney
    •  & B. S. Palmer

  • News & Views |

    A nonlinear Compton scattering experiment with X-ray photons using an X-ray free-electron laser exhibits an unexpected frequency shift — hinting at the breakdown of standard approximations.

    • Adriana Pálffy

  • Letter |

    A theoretical study looks at the interplay between disorder and chiral symmetry in the photon statistics in a one-dimensional photonic lattice, predicting that for increased disorder coherent light becomes thermal.

    • H. Esat Kondakci
    • , Ayman F. Abouraddy
    •  & Bahaa E. A. Saleh

  • Article |

    Radiation–matter interactions can become highly nonlinear when using high-intensity X-ray free-electron lasers. Under such conditions, it is shown that nonlinear Compton scattering has an anomalous redshift, whose origin remains unclear.

    • Matthias Fuchs
    • , Mariano Trigo
    •  & David A. Reis

  • Letter |

    An interferometric measurement based on high-harmonic generation now provides direct access to the electron wavefunction during field-induced tunnelling.

    • O. Pedatzur
    • , G. Orenstein
    •  & N. Dudovich

  • Article |

    Light propagating through a scattering medium exhibits correlations in the transmission matrix. A theoretical and experimental study uncovers intensity correlations that survive multiple scattering, which could be exploited for imaging.

    • Benjamin Judkewitz
    • , Roarke Horstmeyer
    •  & Changhuei Yang

  • Article |

    Rogue waves in a sea of photons can localize light beyond the diffraction limit, but their rarity makes them difficult to study. These events can now be controllably triggered in a photonic crystal resonator.

    • C. Liu
    • , R. E. C. van der Wel
    •  & A. Fratalocchi

  • News & Views |

    Electrons moving in a one-dimensional crystal can acquire a geometrical phase. Sound waves in phononic crystals are now shown to display the same effect — underlining the similarity between conventional solids and acoustic metamaterials.

    • Julio T. Barreiro

  • News & Views |

    Photonic crystals can control the flow of light but they are extremely sensitive to structural disorder. Although this often degrades performance, disorder can actually be used to enhance light collimation.

    • Jorge Bravo-Abad

  • News & Views |

    The valley index of an electron is a magnetic moment that can be initialized optically and probed electrically. Now, experiments reveal how magnetic fields can break the degeneracy for states with different valley indices.

    • Bernhard Urbaszek
    •  & Xavier Marie

  • Article |

    By exploiting the interaction between light and phonons in a silica microsphere resonator it is possible to generate Brillouin scattering induced transparency, which is akin to electromagnetically induced transparency but for acoustic waves.

    • JunHwan Kim
    • , Mark C. Kuzyk
    •  & Gaurav Bahl

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