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Capturing fleeting changes in “nanoscale light”—femtosecond nano-imaging reveals ultrafast optical control of phonon polariton
In this study, researchers developed an ultrafast infrared near-field optical microscopy technique that combines nanoscale spatial resolution and an approximately 150-femtosecond temporal resolution with a spectral resolution of about 10 cm⁻¹.


New Quantum Microscopy Trick Quadruples Microscope Resolution
Credit: Caltech Three years after a team of Caltech scientists showed that pairs of entangled photons could double the resolution of a light microscope, the same lab has figured out a way to double down on that improvement. They have now achieved a fourfold resolution boost compared to a classical microscope, using a new optical design that sends one of the entangled photons through the microscope's optics three times rather than just once. The work, led by Lihong Wang, the B


Skin mode tunability and self-healing effect in photonic Floquet lattices
Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China have demonstrated skin mode tunability in photonic Floquet lattices. A potential applied at one boundary isolates a skin mode at the opposite boundary, turning it into a self-healing state that recovers its profile after disturbance. The approach enables control of non-Hermitian wave dynamics for mode routing and optical switching. Published in PhotoniX.


Shaping light like never before – with photonic time crystals
An international team from École polytechnique, Collège de France, and HZDR has experimentally realized an all-optical photonic time crystal. Using HZDR’s TELBE terahertz source, they strongly modulated the optical properties of a plasmonic metamaterial on picosecond timescales. This enables ultrafast control of light in the terahertz range and opens paths toward new lasers and optical technologies. Published in Nature.


Unveiling the ultrafast formation of a photoinduced hidden state in metal–organic frameworks
Researchers observe how a photoinduced hidden state forms within 30 femtoseconds


Wits and UEA researchers reveal a new free-space route to chiral light for sensing and photonics
Wits and UEA researchers reveal a new free-space route to chiral light for sensing and photonics.


Programmable metasurfaces steer light generated by fast electrons
When fast-moving electrons pass over nanostructured materials, they can make those materials emit light — a phenomenon called cathodoluminescence, already widely used in electron microscopy. The catch has always been controlling where that light goes once it's generated. Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark, with collaborators at ICFO and AMOLF, have now proposed a theoretical fix: programmable metasurfaces built from individually tunable nanoscale elements, us


Researchers measure giant light-conversion effect in chiral carbon nanotubes
A sheet of twisted carbon nanotubes has revealed a hidden talent scientists suspected for decades but had never managed to measure.


Making ‘light’ work of computing
Penn physicists led by Bo Zhen have created hybrid light-matter particles that interact strongly enough to compute, pointing toward ultrafast, low-energy optical AI hardware.


Powerful shrinking technique could enable devices that compute with light
MIT engineers have developed a way to generate 3D photonic devices with nanoscale features, by shrinking them after fabrication. In their new study, they created devices in a variety of shapes, including helices and a shape inspired by the wing of a butterfly.


Light responsive hydrogels enable fast and precise control of soft materials
Light-responsive hydrogels are attractive materials for mimicking dynamic microstructures in nature, providing platform for tunable devices in photonics, sensing, and biomedicine.


Twisted nanoparticles sorted by light
Light near the surface of ultra-thin optical fibers allows sorting of chiral nanoparticles based on their handedness
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