News & Views in 2019

Judicious scaling of the waveguide properties of a simple hollow capillary fibre filled with helium allows for powerful pulse temporal compression down to the sub-femtosecond level, further enabling the efficient generation of ultrafast ultraviolet light.

Josephson vortices are observed at the boundary between two exciton-polariton condensates, with lasers used to create the required local phase twist. The finding opens new opportunities for exploring fundamental physics and engineering novel quantum devices.

The time it takes for a particle to tunnel through a potential barrier, and even the interpretation of this phenomenon, have long drawn debate. By performing an attosecond angular streaking experiment in connection with ab initio calculations, researchers have concluded that tunnelling is instantaneous for atomic hydrogen.

Emerging data reveal that amyloid fibrils possess intrinsic photonic activity, showing luminescence over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum from the ultraviolet to the near-infrared.

Ultra-long phosphorescence with an emission colour that can be tuned from violet to green is obtained from an organic phosphor featuring several different emitting centres. Such ‘smart’ materials are promising for applications in displays, sensors and bioimaging.

Organic microcavity optical transistors open up opportunities for real-world optical switching at room temperature. Now, an all-optical switch at room temperature, using an organic exciton medium with high quantum yield, brings us a step closer to all-optical logical networks.

A phonon laser made from a levitated silica nanosphere held in a controllable optical trap offers a useful tool for studying phonon–photon interactions.

High-speed optical modulators based on silicon, quantum cascade detectors, a photothermal phase-contrast microscope and spin light-emitting diodes with low threshold current density were highlights of the Japan Society of Applied Physics Spring Meeting.

The injection of rare-earth-doped upconversion nanoparticles into the eyes of mice allows them to visualize near-infrared light with a wavelength of ~1 μm.

Synthetic gauge fields that enable controllable confinement and guiding via bound states in the continuum are demonstrated, offering new ways to confine and manipulate localization of radiation in space and opportunities to new applications of artificial gauge fields in photonics.

The race of distributing provable-secure encryption keys by means of quantum key distribution over ever-increasing distances is on. A surprising development has now led to a new result that may affect how we build future quantum networks.

High-amplitude optical phase modulation has been challenging to achieve in nanophotonic integrated structures. Coherently combining multiple optomechanical modulators on a nanophotonic chip offers an approach to address this challenge.

The observation of a room-temperature stable liquid phase of electrons and holes in a quasi-two-dimensional photocell paves the way towards optoelectronic devices that harness collective phenomena.

The cost of infrared detectors has limited the deployment of multispectral imagers and sensors. Researchers now demonstrate simple quantum-dot devices that promise fast, sensitive and low-cost cameras that can switch between short- and mid-wavelength infrared.

A type of near-field curved light field generated right at the output of a dielectric cuboid is experimentally observed. It is expected to have interesting applications in imaging and manipulation.

By tailoring the anisotropy of light scattering along the surface of a macroscopic flat object, mechanical stabilization can be achieved without focused incident light or excessive constraints on the shape, size or material composition of the object.