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In their proof-of-concept device, consisting of an array of 20 tunable microresonators, the team demonstrated that each multiplexed microresonator produced high-quality entangled photon pairs as compared to the best resonators they produced in previous work — design elements of the components in that paper have found their way into Cisco Systems’ newly unveiled quantum entanglement chip.

Concentrating light in a volume as small as the wavelength itself is a challenge that is crucial for numerous applications. Researchers from AMOLF, TU Delft, and Cornell University in the USA have demonstrated a new way to focus light on an extremely small scale. Their method utilizes special properties of a photonic crystal and works for a broader spectrum of wavelengths than alternative methods.

Optical characterization of the synthesized AA-stacked hBN revealed enhanced second-harmonic generation (SHG)—a hallmark of non-centrosymmetric crystal structures—indicating promising applications in nonlinear optics. Additionally, the material exhibited sharp band-edge emission in the DUV region, suggesting its potential for high-efficiency optoelectronic devices operating in the DUV spectrum.

The new device involves a tiny silicon beam that vibrates at 5 gigahertz and couples to a microwave resonator—essentially a nanoscale box in which photons bounce around, also at 5 GHz. Using a technique called electrostatic actuation, developed previously by the Mirhosseini lab for quantum applications, a microwave photon gets converted within that box to a mechanical vibration of the beam, and that mechanical oscillation, with the help of laser light, gets converted by the r

Physicists in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created a compact laser that emits extremely bright, short pulses of light in a useful but difficult-to-achieve wavelength range, packing the performance of larger photonic devices onto a single chip.

In twisted moiré photonic crystals, how the layers twist and overlap can change how the material interact with light. By changing the twist angle and the spacing between layers, these materials can be fine-tuned to control and manipulate different aspects of light simultaneously — meaning the multiple optical components typically needed to simultaneous measure light’s phase, polarization, and wavelength could be replaced with one device.