Impact Factor: 6.6

Journal Open Access

Nanophotonics

Editor-in-Chief: Stefan Maier
Edited by: Dennis Couwenberg

Language: English

First published: February 1, 2012

Publication Frequency: 24 issues per year

View latest issue

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Submit Manuscript Author Information

About this journal

--------------------------------------------------

From 1 October 2025, the journal will transition to a new publisher. Please submit all manuscripts through the new submission site: https://submission.wiley.com/journal/NAP2 .

You can find more information on the new Journal Homepage.

--------------------------------------------------

Nanophotonics covers recent international research results, specific developments in the field and novel applications and is published in partnership with Sciencewise. It belongs to the top journals in the field and publishes research articles, reviews (by invitation only), letters, and perspectives.

Aims and Scope

Nanophotonics focuses on the interaction of photons with nano-structures, such as carbon nano-tubes, nano metal particles, nano crystals, semiconductor nano dots, photonic crystals, tissue and DNA. The journal covers the latest developments for physicists, engineers and material scientists, working in fields related to:

Plasmonics: metallic nanostructures and their optical properties
Meta materials, fundamentals and applications
Nanophotonic concepts and devices for solar energy harvesting and conversion
Near-field optical microscopy
Nanowaveguides and devices
Nano Lasers
Nanostructures, nanoparticles, nanotubes, nanowires, nanofibers
Photonic crystals
Integrated silicon photonics
Semiconductor quantum dots
Quantum optics & Quantum information
Ultrafast and nonlinear pulse propagation in nano materials and structures
Light-matter interaction, optical manipulation techniques
Nano-biophotonics
Optofluidics
Optomechanics
System applications based on nanophotonic devices
Nanofabrication techniques, thin film processing, self-assembly

Your Benefits

As a Nanophotonics author, you will benefit from:

High impact and high quality – Nanophotonics authors are the leading researchers in the field
Fast, fair, and constructive peer review
A continuous publication model and quick online publication of accepted papers (two weeks from acceptance to publication)
No limitations on colour figures and word count in published articles
All published articles being freely available worldwide through Open Access
Extensive promotion of published articles to a global audience
Retaining copyright as all articles are published with a CC-BY license by default
Distribution of published articles to open access directories, such as DOAJ, and thousands of libraries worldwide
Secure archiving by De Gruyter and independent archiving service Portico, meaning your work will be permanently available

---------------------

Publication Metrics

Average time from submission to initial Editorial Manager assessment: 5 days
Average time from submission to final decision (all article types): 57 days
Average time from acceptance to publication: 13 days

---------------------

TOC alerts

and WeChat:

---------------------

Photonics Innovation Award in honor of Federico Capasso

Created to honor the innovative contributions of Federico Capasso to the field of photonics, the Photonics Innovation Award is a new prize of €4,000 from the Nanophotonics journal.

The winners will be announced in June 2025.

---------------------

Early Career Award

Nanophotonics supports young scientists by organizing the annual Early Career Award. This prestigious award acknowledges four early career scientists every year for their accomplishments, giving them recognition for their outstanding work in the field of nanophotonics.

Nominations for the 2025 award open soon.

Visit the award webpage for more information on previous winners, application criteria, and how to submit your nomination.

This award is fully sponsored by Nanophotonics.

---------------------

Article Processing Charges

To sustain the production of our fully refereed open access journal, each article accepted for publication in Nanophotonics is subject to an article processing charge of 2,650. This fee is used to cover the costs of the peer review process, professional typesetting, and copyediting, as well as online hosting, long-term preservation and extensive promotion to potential readers.

Information regarding payment of these charges will be provided following article acceptance. Enquiries concerning article processing charges should be addressed to the Publishing Editor. More information can be found in the Article Processing Charges policy document.

---------------------

Publication Ethics and Editorial Policies

Information on De Gruyter's Publishing Ethics can be found here. For further information on publication ethics, please refer to COPE's guidelines.
Guidelines for Author and Ethics Statements can be found in the Submit tab or downloaded from the Supplementary Materials below.

Open Access
Defect-insensitive bound states in the continuum in antisymmetric trapezoid metasurfaces in the visible range

October 7, 2025

Chenyu Liao, Lidan Zhou, Baohua Wen, Xiangyi Ye, Hongjiang Zhu, Ji Yang, Guohua Li, Zhangkai Zhou, Jianhua Zhou, Jingxuan Cai

Download PDF

Symmetry-protected bound states in the continuum (SP-BIC) enable flexible tuning of the wavelengths and linewidths of high-Q resonances, showing great potential in high-performance photonic devices. However, the implementation of SP-BIC at shorter wavelengths, such as in the visible range, requires precise control of smaller feature sizes, which imposes stringent fabrication requirements. This trade-off between geometric accuracy and manufacturing complexity limits the practical application of SP-BIC metasurfaces. This work presents a defect-insensitive design strategy for SP-BIC metasurfaces by constructing position-detuned arrays composed of periodically arranged antisymmetric trapezoidal unit cells. Theoretical studies show that under x-polarized incidence, the dominant resonance mode is a magnetic dipole, with electric fields strongly enhanced in the inter-pillar gap rather than inside the structures body. This field distribution provides high robustness against geometric deformation. The geometric dependence of this mode under x-polarized light is approximately 1/10 to 1/20 that of the electric dipole-dominated mode under y-polarized light, and the design is demonstrating strong tolerance to typical fabrication defects encountered in nanofabrication. Experimental validation is being conducted using metasurfaces fabricated with intentional defects. Overall, this work is offering a practical, fabrication-tolerant approach to realizing high-performance dielectric BIC metasurfaces.
Open Access
What is next for LLMs? Pushing the boundaries of next-gen AI computing hardware with photonic chips

October 6, 2025

Renjie Li, Qi Xin, Wenjie Wei, Sixuan Mao, Erik Ma, Zijian Chen, Jingxing Gao, Malu Zhang, Haizhou Li, Zhaoyu Zhang

Download PDF

Large language models (LLMs) are rapidly pushing the limits of contemporary computing hardware. For example, training GPT-3 has been estimated to consume around 1,300 MWh of electricity, and projections suggest future models may require city-scale (gigawatt) power budgets. These demands motivate exploration of computing paradigms beyond conventional von Neumann architectures. This review surveys emerging photonic hardware optimized for next-generation generative AI computing. We discuss integrated photonic neural network architectures (e.g. Mach–Zehnder interferometer meshes, lasers, wavelength-multiplexed microring-resonators) that perform ultrafast matrix operations. We also examine promising alternative neuromorphic devices and platforms, including 2D materials and hybrid spintronic–photonic synapses, which combine memory and processing. The integration of two-dimensional materials (graphene, TMDCs) into silicon photonic platforms is reviewed for tunable modulators and on-chip synaptic elements. Transformer-based LLM architectures (self-attention and feed-forward layers) are analyzed in this context, introducing the mathematical operations associated with the transformers and identifying strategies and challenges for mapping dynamic matrix multiplications onto these novel photonic hardware systems. Overall, we broadly introduce state-of-the-art photonic components, AI algorithms, and system integration methods, highlighting key advances and open issues in scaling such photonic systems to mega-sized LLM models. We find that photonic computing systems could potentially surpass electronic processors by orders of magnitude in throughput and energy efficiency, but require breakthroughs in memory especially for long-context windows and long token sequences and in storage of ultra-large datasets, among others. This survey provides a comprehensive roadmap for AI hardware development, emphasizing the role of cutting-edge photonic components and technologies in supporting future LLMs.
Open Access
Transmissive hybrid metal–dielectric metasurface bandpass filters for mid-infrared applications

October 2, 2025

Amr Soliman, Timothy D. Wilkinson

Download PDF

Mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy plays a pivotal role in molecular identification and biosensing due to its ability to probe characteristic vibrational fingerprints of biomolecules. Plasmonic nanostructures have been explored for MIR applications but suffer from low efficiencies and broad spectral responses caused by intrinsic ohmic losses. All-dielectric metasurfaces, with low optical losses, offer an attractive alternative; however, their functionality is often restricted to reflection-mode operation. This work introduces a hybrid metal–dielectric metasurface designed to operate in transmission mode, specifically tailored for molecular identification in MIR biosensing applications. The metasurface comprises germanium (Ge) on aluminum (Al) cylinders atop a calcium fluoride (CaF 2 ) substrate, optimized to exhibits a high transmission efficiency of 80 % at a wavelength of λ = 4.2 µm, with a narrow full-width-half-maximum of 0.5 µm. By leveraging the hybridization of modes between the Ge and Al layers, the device enables precise spectral filtering. We demonstrate the potential of this metasurface for molecular identification and biosensing applications through numerical simulations and experimental validation. The straightforward fabrication process further highlights the practicality of this approach, paving the way for miniaturized MIR biosensing platforms.
Open Access
Gigahertz thermoelastic acousto-optic modulation in lithium niobate integrated photonic device

September 30, 2025

Zheng Zheng, Hanke Feng, Ahmet Tarık Işık, Peter J.M. van der Slot, Cheng Wang, David Marpaung

Download PDF

Tailoring the interaction between acoustic waves and optical waves in integrated photonic circuits has emerged as a promising avenue for quantum optics and high-speed information processing. Among various approaches, on-chip acousto-optic modulation (AOM) has been extensively explored in the past decade and successfully demonstrated across many integrated photonics platforms. In this paper, we design and fabricate metallic gratings with periods varying from 0.4 μm to 3 μm deposited on a half-etched thin film lithium niobate (TFLN) device cladded by 1-μm thick silica. By illuminating the metallic grating with an intensity-modulated pump beam, we can generate thermoelastically driven SAWs with frequencies up to 6.58 GHz, and a linewidth of 1.8 MHz at a center frequency of 1.41 GHz. This thermoelastic approach eliminates reliance on a piezoelectric material response, offering broader compatibility for integrated photonics applications.
Open Access
Nonreciprocal transmission based on quasi-bound states in the continuum via scaled lattice constants

September 30, 2025

Ran Li, Junqiang Sun

Download PDF

Nonreciprocal devices are key technologies for modern photonic applications, and nonlinearly induced nonreciprocity based on metasurface platforms opens up the potential for compactness and miniaturization of such devices in free-space optical paths. In this work, a design of quasi-bound states in the continuum (QBICs) via scaled lattice constants is employed, featuring a plate-hole tetramer unit cell with single-step etching. Under normal incidence, QBICs exhibit polarization-insensitive excitation, with the scattering dominated by the combination term of magnetic dipoles, magnetic toroidal dipoles, electric quadrupoles as well as electric toroidal quadrupoles – rendering the vertical field distribution sensitive to parametric variations. Embedding Kerr nonlinearity yields nonreciprocal responses under upper and lower port excitation. The steep edges between peaks and valleys in the Fano-line-shaped transmission spectra facilitate balancing the nonreciprocal intensity range (NRIR) and isolation. The NRIR originates from electromagnetic asymmetry introduced by varying the substrate refractive index and can be flexibly tuned via structural parameters – validated by simulations of nonreciprocal responses with varying plate thickness alone. Additionally, Rabi splitting from varying hole depth induces abrupt electromagnetic asymmetry changes in the strong coupling region, offering a new NRIR tuning freedom. This design strategy provides fresh insights for nonreciprocal device research, with the structure holding promise for sensing and nonlinear applications.
Open Access
POST: photonic swin transformer for automated and efficient prediction of PCSEL

September 30, 2025

Qi Xin, Hai Huang, Chenyu Li, Kewei Shi, Zhaoyu Zhang

Download PDF

This work designs a model named POST based on the vision transformer (ViT) approach. Across single, double, and even triple lattices, as well as various non-circular complex hole structures, POST enables prediction of multiple optical properties of photonic crystal layers in photonic crystal surface emitting lasers (PCSELs) with high speed and accuracy, without requiring manual intervention, which serves as a comprehensive surrogate for the optical field simulation. In the predictions of quality factor ( Q ) and surface-emitting efficiency (SE) for PCSEL, the R-squared values reach 0.909 and 0.779, respectively. Additionally, it achieves nearly 5,000 predictions per second, significantly lowering simulation costs. The precision and speed of POST predictions lay a solid foundation for future ultra-complex model parameter tuning involving dozens of parameters. It can also swiftly meet designers’ ad-hoc requirements for evaluating photonic crystal properties. The database used for training the POST model is derived from predictions of different photonic crystal structures using the coupled-wave theory (CWT) model. This dataset will be made publicly available to foster interdisciplinary research advancements in materials science and computer science.
Open Access
Transparent metafilms for enhanced thermal regulation in energy-efficient windows

September 29, 2025

Biyuan Wu, Yue Ren, Xiqiao Huang, Meijie Chen, Yong Li, Jiangtao Li, Yang Kou, Xiaohu Wu

Download PDF

Transparent metafilms with spectrally selective properties have shown great potential in energy-efficient window systems. Most previous studies focused on optimizing materials and thicknesses to enhance visible transmittance and near-infrared (NIR) reflectance. However, few have considered how the position of the metafilms on the glass affects overall optical and thermal performance, especially in the mid-infrared (MIR) range critical for radiative cooling. In this work, we propose and analyze a five-layer TiO 2 /Ag/TiO 2 /Ag/TiO 2 structure and systematically evaluate its performance under two typical installation scenarios. Numerical simulations based on the transfer matrix method show that both configurations maintain a high visible transmittance (∼0.88) and an effective NIR reflectance (∼0.98). Notably, a substantial difference is observed within the atmospheric transparency window 8–14 μm, where the interior-coated configuration possesses a high emissivity of 0.8. This value significantly exceeds the average emissivity of 0.01 found for the exterior-coated configuration, thereby resulting in superior passive radiative cooling capability. Moreover, we also compared the net radiative cooling power under the two configurations. These findings reveal that the position of the transparent metafilms critically influences MIR radiation. Coating placement on the interior surface not only maintains favorable solar modulation but also markedly enhances the thermal dissipation. This study offers theoretical guidance and practical insight into the design and implementation of metafilms in energy saving window systems aimed at reducing energy consumption, especially in regions with hot climates.
Open Access
Azimuth-controlled multicolor shifting based on subwavelength sinusoidal grating

September 24, 2025

Tuo Yang, Yihang Zhou, Hongguang Li, Zefeng Rong, Yanyan Huang, Ping Xu, Haixuan Huang, Xia Yuan, Xulin Zhang, Lei Lei, Guijun Li, Yuanyang Wu, Yutong Di, Shuai Geng, Yunpeng Cui, Mengyu Wang, Yuchao Ma, Wenjie Kuang

Download PDF

Subwavelength grating-based color-shifting devices exhibit dynamically tunable spectral responses under specific resonant conditions, offering advanced applications in optical anticounterfeiting and surface decoration. However, conventional devices remain limited by structural complexity, narrow tuning ranges, low energy efficiency, and high manufacturing costs. Thereby, we propose a design methodology for multicolor shifting devices capable of dynamic color shifts through azimuthal angle rotation (i.e., in-plane rotation of the device). The proposed evaluation function can be adjusted to yield the desired spectral response, enabling diverse color shifts from a single template. Optimization of the geometric parameters and azimuth angles of rectangular gratings using rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) and an immune algorithm, followed by conversion into a sinusoidal structure to simplify large-area fabrication while maintaining performance. Using this approach, quad- and penta-color shifting devices based on subwavelength sinusoidal gratings were designed, achieving peak reflectance exceeding 45 % for all target colors, with maxima reaching 89 %. Additionally, the quad-color shifting device was fabricated using low-cost exposed holographic interferometry, validating the method. The results simplify the structure compared to conventional subwavelength grating filters, while enhancing optical performance and fabrication feasibility, offering a new approach for cost-effective, high-performance dynamic optical devices.
Open Access
Geometric phases and coherent states for commensurate bichromatic polarization and astigmatic cavities

September 22, 2025

Miguel A. Alonso

Download PDF

Both the polarization state of coherent bichromatic fields produced by harmonic generation and a class of anisotropic paraxial optical cavities are examples of commensurate two-dimensional harmonic oscillators. The geometric phase for these systems is studied here, both in the classical/ray and quantum/wave regimes. The quantum geometric phase is described in terms of the coherent states of the system, for which recursive expressions are derived that yield the exact result and are numerically stable even for high modal orders.
Open Access
Optical phased arrays for wavefront shaping in forward scattering media

September 22, 2025

Filip Milojković, Niels Verellen, Roelof Jansen, Frédéric Peyskens, Xavier Rottenberg, Pol Van Dorpe

Download PDF

High-resolution optical imaging in thick tissue samples remains elusive, mainly because of the scattering exhibited by the tissue. With increasing depth, the number of nonscattered photons exponentially decreases – limiting the use of conventional imaging techniques at depth. Wavefront shaping is a novel technique that aims to enable imaging at depth by refocusing the scattered light. However, significant wavefront-control hardware improvements are necessary to unlock the applications in in vivo microscopy. Optical phased arrays (OPAs), realized in integrated photonics, can provide improvements in the pixel pitch, operation speed, and system compactness compared to conventionally employed spatial light modulators. We compare different OPA designs for focusing in tissue-like forward-scattering samples. OPA design trade-offs, such as the array pitch, number of antennas, and antenna emission profile, are experimentally studied, and their influence on the device performance is highlighted. We do this for increasing thickness of the forward-scattering sample and observe two distinct regimes. The devices, operating at the wavelength of λ = 852 nm, were fabricated on a SiN photonics platform suitable for both near-infrared (NIR) and visible (VIS) light.
Open Access
A nonlocal metasurface for optical edge detection in the far-field

September 19, 2025

Doyoon Lee, Huu Lam Phan, Minkyung Kim

Download PDF

Recent studies on nonlocal metasurfaces have shown possibilities of optical image processing, such as edge detection, without the need for Fourier optics and have significantly reduced the form factor. However, the analog edge detection using nonlocal metasurfaces still requires the use of multiple lenses to image the edge-enhanced results, and the edge-detected image generally suffers from image distortion originating from the free space propagation before reaching the detector otherwise. In this work, we propose a nonlocal metasurface that not only enhances the edge features but also delivers them to the far-field with considerably less distortion by combining the conventional edge detection metasurface with a uniaxial slab that has a transfer function of the free space with a negative propagation length. This space expander cancels out the diffraction of the edge-enhanced image that occurs during the free space propagation, the thickness of which reaches several orders of magnitude larger than the slab thickness. This nonlocal metasurface for the far-field edge detection will open a path towards compact optical systems for high-quality analog image processing.
Open Access
Strong broadband intensity noise squeezing from infrared to terahertz frequencies in lasers with nonlinear dissipation

September 19, 2025

Sahil Pontula, Jamison Sloan, Nicholas Rivera, Marin Soljačić

Download PDF

The generation and application of squeezed light have long been central goals of quantum optics. Intensity noise squeezing of bright (coherent) states (“bright squeezing”), in contrast to squeezed vacuum, is relatively underdeveloped. The current state of the art has generally been restricted to narrow operating wavelength ranges and does not natively support strong intracavity and broadband output squeezing. Here, we show how lasers with sharp intensity-dependent dissipation can support strong intensity noise squeezing from infrared (IR) to terahertz (THz) wavelengths, the latter of which has eluded quantum light generation. Our protocol realizes strongly ( > 10 ${ >} 10$ dB) intensity noise-squeezed intracavity quantum states as well as output squeezing surpassing gigahertz bandwidths. Furthermore, we show how the same systems also support self-pulsing and bistability, enabling control of light in both the mean field and noise domains. Our protocol could enable advances in low-noise communication, cavity QED, and quantum sensing across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Open Access
Corrigendum to: Janus metagrating for tailoring direction-dependent wavefronts

September 19, 2025

Zhen Tan, Jianjia Yi, Shah Nawaz Burokur

Download PDF
Open Access
3-dimensional plasmonic nanomotors enabled by independent integration of optical pulling and lateral forces

September 19, 2025

Guillermo Serrera, Yoshito Y. Tanaka, Pablo Albella

Download PDF

Light–matter interactions generally involve momentum exchange between incident photons and the target object giving rise to optical forces and torques. While typically weak, they become significant at the nanoscale, driving intense research interest in the exploitation of photon recoil to drive micro- and nanostructures. While great progress has been attained in controlling transversal degrees of freedom, three-dimensional movement remains challenging, particularly due to the impractical realization of pulling forces that oppose the direction of incident light. Here we theoretically present a novel nanomotor design that enables independent control over both transverse and longitudinal motion. This design exploits coupling between an azimuthally polarized Bessel beam and a dielectric glass cylinder to realistically achieve optical pulling forces. At the same time, asymmetric plasmonic dimers, embedded within the cylinder, provide lateral motion, through asymmetric scattering under plane wave illumination. We further demonstrate that unwanted displacements and rotations can be restrained, even at long illumination times. Our design unlocks a new degree of freedom in motion control, allowing for pulling, pushing, and lateral movement by simply tuning the polarization or switching between plane waves and Bessel beams.
Open Access
Neural network enabled wide field-of-view imaging with hyperbolic metalenses

September 18, 2025

Joel Yeo, Deepak K. Sharma, Saurabh Srivastava, Aihong Huang, Emmanuel Lassalle, Egor Khaidarov, Keng Heng Lai, Yuan Hsing Fu, N. Duane Loh, Arseniy I. Kuznetsov, Ramon Paniagua-Dominguez

Download PDF

The ultrathin form factor of metalenses makes them highly appealing for novel sensing and imaging applications. Amongst the various phase profiles, the hyperbolic metalens stands out for being free from spherical aberrations and having one of the highest focusing efficiencies to date. For imaging, however, hyperbolic metalenses present significant off-axis aberrations, severely restricting the achievable field-of-view (FOV). Extending the FOV of hyperbolic metalenses is thus feasible only if these aberrations can be corrected. Here, we demonstrate that a Restormer neural network can be used to correct these severe off-axis aberrations, enabling wide FOV imaging with a hyperbolic metalens camera. Importantly, we demonstrate the feasibility of training the Restormer network purely on simulated datasets of spatially-varying blurred images generated by the eigen-point-spread function (eigenPSF) method, eliminating the need for time-intensive experimental data collection. This reference-free training ensures that Restormer learns solely to correct optical aberrations, resulting in reconstructions that are faithful to the original scene. Using this method, we show that a hyperbolic metalens camera can be used to obtain high-quality imaging over a wide FOV of 54° in experimentally captured scenes under diverse lighting conditions.
Open Access
Goos–Hänchen effect singularities in transdimensional plasmonic films

September 18, 2025

Svend-Age Biehs, Igor V. Bondarev

Download PDF

We identify and classify topologically protected singularities for the reflection coefficient of transdimensional plasmonic systems. Originating from nonlocal electromagnetic response due to vertical electron confinement in the system, such singularities lead to lateral (angular) Goos–Hänchen shifts on the millimeter (milliradian) scale in the visible range, greatly exceeding those reported previously for artificially designed metasurfaces, offering new opportunities for quantum material development.
Open Access
All-photon logic gate calculation based on phase change materials

September 18, 2025

Jiapeng Sun, Jinhua Mou, Jiaxing Gao, Jianwei Wang, Yuxin Liu, Wei Jin, Yu Zhang, Lu Liu, Hanyang Li, Zhihai Liu

Download PDF

Information modulation plays a crucial role in the contemporary development of photonic information networks. However, prevailing optical modulators exhibit challenges such as structural complexity, high cost, elevated insertion losses, and crosstalk issues in optoelectronic conversion. To address these concerns, we propose a novel all-photonic non-volatile fiber device based on Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 (GST), integrating a dual peanut-shaped microstructure and GST. The state of GST is manipulated through external laser modulation, enabling repeatable or randomly accessible ten-level data storage. The all-photonic modulator features non-volatility, a contrast ratio of 21 dB, and repeatability (0.2 dB). Furthermore, by configuring the all-photonic modulator in both series and parallel connections, we successfully implement logical gate functions “AND” and “OR”, showcasing significant potential in information network control.
Open Access
Vortex beam nanofocusing and optical skyrmion generation via hyperbolic metamaterials

September 18, 2025

Wenhao Li, Jacob LaMountain, Evan Simmons, Jiaren Tan, Hooman Barati Sedeh, Anthony Clabeau, Robel Y. Bekele, Jason D. Myers, Takashige Omatsu, Jesse Frantz, Viktor A. Podolskiy, Natalia M. Litchinitser

Download PDF

While spin angular momentum is limited to ± ℏ , orbital angular momentum (OAM) is, in principle, unbounded, enabling tailored optical transition rules in quantum systems. However, the large optical size of vortex beams hinders their coupling to nanoscale platforms such as quantum emitters. To address this challenge, we experimentally demonstrate the subdiffraction focusing of an OAM-carrying beam using a hypergrating, a flat meta-structure based on a multilayered hyperbolic composite. We show that our structure generates and guides high-wave vector modes to a deeply subwavelength spot and experimentally demonstrate the focus of an OAM-carrying beam on a spot size of ∼ λ /3. We also show how the proposed platform facilitates the formation of an optical skyrmion with spin textures as small as λ /250, opening new avenues for controlling light–matter interactions.
Open Access
Arbitrary polarization and rotation multiplexed metasurface hologram

September 16, 2025

Zonge Che, Yisheng Dong, Tiaoming Niu, Jining Li, Guanmao Zhang, Ziyin Ma, Shujie Liu, Jingwei Zhang, Zhonglei Mei

Download PDF

Metasurface holograms, characterized by their ultra-small thickness, high efficiency, and low loss, hold significant potential for applications in optical information storage, optical field manipulation, and security encryption. This paper proposed a polarization switchable and rotation multiplexing metasurface based on simultaneous amplitude and phase modulation. By precisely designing meta-atoms, the geometric parameters and orientation angle are engineered to independently control the phase and amplitude distributions of the metasurface. Utilizing a polarization switching strategy, incident light with different polarization angles generates distinct holograms. Additionally, the rotation-multiplexing mechanism further enhances information storage capacity by rotating the metasurface disk, thereby increasing the diversity and degrees of freedom in hologram. The results demonstrate that this approach enables precise optical field manipulation across multiple degrees of freedom, facilitating the reconstruction of multichannel holograms. This method provides a novel technological pathway for high-density optical storage, information encryption, and dynamic optical display.
Open Access
Oxygen vacancy-driven bandgap tuning and ultrafast laser performance in Bi₂O₂Se

September 12, 2025

Qingling Tang, Zhongben Pan, Zeshang Ji, Hongwei Chu, Han Pan, Dechun Li

Download PDF

Bi 2 O 2 Se, with its excellent air stability, high mobility, and tunable bandgap, shows great potential for photonic modulators. This study proposes vacancy engineering as an effective method to refine its optical properties and enhance the nonlinear response. The optical properties of Bi 2 O 2 Se modified by oxygen vacancy defects were systematically investigated through theoretical simulations and experimental methods. Oxygen vacancies enhance photon–material interactions by introducing intermediate energy levels, altering the electronic structure, reducing the bandgap, inducing a redshift in the linear absorption spectrum, and forming a new absorption band near 1 μm. Argon annealing increased the concentration of oxygen vacancies, and the experimental absorption spectra showed excellent agreement with theoretical predictions. To evaluate the impact of oxygen vacancies on the nonlinear optical response, Bi 2 O 2 Se before and after annealing was employed as a saturable absorber in Q-switched and mode-locked lasers. The annealed Bi 2 O 2 Se exhibited a 4.42-fold increase in peak power, a 115.9 fs reduction in pulse width, and a 2.36 nm expansion in 3 dB spectral width. These findings indicate that vacancy engineering is a direct and effective strategy for optimizing the nonlinear optical properties of Bi 2 O 2 Se, which can contribute to advanced photon applications.
Open Access
Biomaterial-based random lasers achieved from peanut kernel doped with birch leaf–derived carbon dots

September 10, 2025

Zhihao Huang, Henry Opoku, Jiong Liu, Zefeng Wu, Junkai Ren, Wenfei Zhang, Jia Wang

Download PDF

The intrinsically disordered periodic architecture inherent in natural biomaterials exhibits significant potential for serving as resonant cavities, enabling the development of eco-friendly, biocompatible, and cost-effective microlaser systems. In this study, we demonstrate a biomaterial-based random laser utilizing birch leaf–derived carbon dots (CDs) as the gain medium. CDs ethanol solution was introduced into the peanut via microinjection, successfully fabricating CDs-doped peanut samples that preserved the fluorescence characteristics of the CDs in solution. Random lasing was observed on multiple surfaces of the CDs-doped peanut under pulsed laser excitation, with varying thresholds across different regions. This demonstrates that the natural disordered microstructure of biological materials can facilitate random lasing. Analysis of surface morphology and scattering patterns indicates that the lasing mechanism arises from multiple light scattering within the disordered structure of the peanut surface, forming coherent feedback loops. Furthermore, the intrinsic biocompatibility of bio-derived CDs effectively addresses the persistent toxicity concerns associated with synthetic laser materials. Such biomaterial-based random lasers could enable eco-friendly and cost-effective photonic applications.
Open Access
Phase-matched electron–photon interactions enabled by 3D-printed helical waveguides

September 10, 2025

Masoud Taleb, Mohsen Samadi, Nahid Talebi

Download PDF

The Smith–Purcell effect enables electromagnetic radiation across arbitrary spectral ranges by phase-matching the diffraction orders of an optical grating with the near-field of a moving electron. In this work, we introduce a novel approach using a helically shaped waveguide, where phase-matching is achieved through guided light within a helical optical fiber fabricated via two-photon polymerization using a 3D printer. Our results demonstrate that radiation from these structures precisely satisfies the phase-matching condition and is emitted directionally at specific angles, contrasting with the broad angular distribution characteristic of the traditional Smith–Purcell effect. Helical electron-driven photon sources establish a new paradigm, enabling 3D-printed structures to control electron-beam-induced radiation and, inversely, to facilitate light-induced efficient electron beam shaping and acceleration.
Open Access
Statistical regimes of electromagnetic wave propagation in randomly time-varying media

September 9, 2025

Seulong Kim, Kihong Kim

Download PDF

Wave propagation in time-varying media enables unique control of energy transport by breaking energy conservation through temporal modulation. Among the resulting phenomena, temporal disorder – random fluctuations in material parameters – can suppress propagation and induce localization, analogous to Anderson localization. However, the statistical nature of this process remains incompletely understood. We present a comprehensive analytical and numerical study of electromagnetic wave propagation in spatially uniform media with randomly time-varying permittivity. Using the invariant imbedding method, we derive exact moment equations and identify three distinct statistical regimes for initially unidirectional input: gamma-distributed energy at early times, negative exponential statistics at intermediate times, and a quasi-log-normal distribution at long times, distinct from the true log-normal. In contrast, symmetric bidirectional input yields genuine log-normal statistics across all time scales. These findings are validated using two complementary disorder models – delta-correlated Gaussian noise and piecewise-constant fluctuations – demonstrating that the observed statistics are robust and governed by input symmetry. Momentum conservation constrains the long-time behavior, linking the statistical outcome to the initial conditions. Our results establish a unified framework for understanding statistical wave dynamics in time-modulated systems and offer guiding principles for the design of dynamically tunable photonic and electromagnetic devices.
Open Access
Deterministic time rewinding of waves in time-varying media

September 8, 2025

Seulong Kim, Kihong Kim

Download PDF

Temporal modulation of material parameters offers unprecedented control over wave dynamics, enabling phenomena beyond the capabilities of static systems. Here we introduce and analyze a robust mechanism for time rewinding, whereby a temporally evolved wave is fully restored to its original state through a carefully engineered sequence of temporal modulations. In electromagnetic systems, time rewinding emerges from impedance-matched or anti-matched hierarchical bilayer structures with matched modulation durations, exploiting total transmission or reflection and reversed phase accumulation. In Dirac systems, it arises via complete interband transition driven by time-dependent vector potentials. Unlike time-reversal holography or quantum time mirrors, which produce wave echoes but only partial waveform recovery, our approach achieves deterministic and complete reconstruction of the entire wave state, including both amplitude and phase. Analytical conditions for robust amplitude and phase restoration are derived and validated through simulations of discrete and continuous modulations, demonstrating resilience to modulation complexity and temporal asymmetry. These findings establish a versatile platform for secure information retrieval, temporal cloaking, programmable metamaterials, and wave-based logic devices.
Open Access
Resonant metasurface-enabled quantum light sources for single-photon emission and entangled photon-pair generation

September 5, 2025

Feng Pan, Priyanuj Bordoloi, Chih-Yi Chen, Jennifer A. Dionne

Download PDF

Light encodes information in multiple degrees of freedom (e.g., frequency, amplitude, and phase), enabling high-speed, high-bandwidth communication through fiber optics. Unlike classical light, quantum light (single or entangled photons) can transmit quantum states over long distances without loss of coherence, thereby coherently interconnecting quantum nodes for distributed quantum entanglement. Quantum light sources are critical for developing scalable quantum networks aimed at distributed quantum computing, quantum teleportation, and secure quantum communications. However, existing quantum light sources suffer from limited integrability, insufficient spectral and spatial tunability, and inefficiencies in achieving mass-produced, deterministic, on-demand quantum light generation. These limitations significantly hinder progress toward direct, on-chip integration with quantum processing units and detectors – an essential step toward scalable quantum networks. Resonant metasurfaces that leverage photonic modes – such as Mie resonances, guided-mode resonances, or symmetry-protected bound states in the continuum – offer strong spatial and temporal confinement of electromagnetic fields, characterized by high quality factors and small mode volumes. These metasurfaces greatly enhance linear and nonlinear light-matter interactions, making them ideal for efficient on-chip quantum light generation and manipulation. Here, we describe recent advances in nanoscale quantum light sources and quantum photonic state manipulation enabled by resonant metasurfaces. We also provide an outlook on next-generation miniaturized quantum light sources achievable through materials innovations in quantum emitters, the co-design of resonant metasurfaces, and ultimately, the heterogeneous integration of emerging layered van der Waals materials with resonant metasurfaces.
Open Access
Hybrid LiDAR–radar at 9 μm wavelength with unipolar quantum optoelectronic devices

September 1, 2025

Livia Del Balzo, Djamal Gacemi, Jihye Baik, Bruno Martin, Axel Evirgen, Grégoire Beaudoin, Konstantinos Pantzas, Isabelle Sagnes, Angela Vasanelli, Carlo Sirtori

Download PDF

Unipolar quantum optoelectronics is emerging as a promising semiconductor platform for developing mid-infrared applications, particularly spectroscopy and free-space communications. In this work, we present a proof of principle of a unipolar quantum optoelectronic hybrid Lidar – Radar for the measurement of the position and speed of a moving target. The system operates at 9 µm wavelength and is composed of a quantum cascade laser, a Stark modulator and a metamaterial quantum well infrared photodetector. The laser amplitude is modulated with a chirped radio-frequency subcarrier, and the backscattered light is detected coherently on the metamaterial quadratic receiver. With our system we have measured a ranging distance of 150 cm with an intrinsic resolution of 15 cm. Our demonstration is a first milestone towards combined communication and ranging systems in a transparency window of the atmosphere.
Open Access
Surface-emitting ring quantum cascade lasers

August 28, 2025

Rolf Szedlak, Benedikt Schwarz, Gottfried Strasser

Download PDF

This review highlights the development and diverse applications of surface-emitting ring quantum cascade lasers. These lasers, featuring a ring-shaped cavity and a second-order distributed feedback grating, enable controlled surface emission, stable single-mode operation, and collimated, circularly symmetric beams. These advancements have expanded their use in scientific and industrial applications, with significant progress in extending their operation from the mid-infrared to the terahertz regime. Innovations such as microring designs, phase-shifted gratings and buried heterostructures have enhanced their scalability, beam quality, and suitability for continuous-wave operation at room temperature, unlocking opportunities in spectroscopy, imaging, and communication. On-chip optical solutions and integrated architectures combining emission and detection within a single chip further pave the way for compact and efficient systems for remote sensing and gas monitoring. Progress in miniaturization, thermal stability, and wavelength consistency strengthens the role of ring-based lasers in industrial, environmental, and medical diagnostics. These advancements, alongside scalable fabrication techniques and enhanced modulation schemes, position ring quantum cascade lasers as key enablers for the next generation of robust, energy-efficient sensors tailored to diverse scientific and industrial needs.
Open Access
Aspects of cavity engineering in THz quantum cascade laser frequency combs

August 28, 2025

Lukas Seitner, Michael A. Schreiber, Michael Rinderle, Niklas Pichel, Michael Haider, Christian Jirauschek

Download PDF

Terahertz quantum cascade laser (QCL) frequency combs are a disruptive technology for spectroscopy, imaging, and quantum technologies in this spectral range. For advanced development and tailoring of frequency comb properties, detailed modeling of the QCL device is necessary. Recent achievements in the field of THz QCLs have unveiled that custom modifications of the laser cavity by dispersion engineering or tapered waveguide sections significantly influence the laser’s behavior. In this article, we present a numerical model based on the Maxwell-density matrix formalism that captures such cavity effects in detail, yielding a better understanding of the QCL dynamics and opening the possibility of designing cavities for custom laser applications. We show that waveguide engineering in terms of dispersion compensation and field enhancement can stabilize an unlocked multimode state into frequency comb operation and even shape its properties, such as the bandwidth or the mode spacing of harmonic frequency combs.
Open Access
Solitons in ultrafast semiconductor lasers with saturable absorber

August 28, 2025

Luigi Lugiato, Franco Prati, Massimo Brambilla, Lorenzo Luigi Columbo

Download PDF

We describe structure localization and dissipative solitons in a semiconductor laser with a saturable absorber exhibiting gain/absorption recovery times shorter than the photon lifetime. Under assumptions compatible with QCL characteristics and graphene-based absorbers, we study the existence and stability of solitons, along with their dynamical behavior. Numerical simulations confirm the robustness of our predictions. This evidence hints at promising pathways to realize passive mode locking in ultrafast lasers, implying highly valuable application prospects.
Open Access
Combining quantum cascade lasers and plasmonic metasurfaces to monitor de novo lipogenesis with vibrational contrast microscopy

August 27, 2025

Steven H. Huang, Dias Tulegenov, Gennady Shvets

Download PDF

The combination of a tunable quantum cascade laser (QCL) and plasmonic mid-infrared (MIR) metasurface is a powerful tool enabling high-content microscopy of hydrated cells using the vibrational contrast of their constituent biomolecules. While the QCL provides a high-brightness source whose frequency can be rapidly tuned to that of the relevant molecular vibration, the metasurface is used to overcome water absorption of MIR light. Here we employ the resulting metasurface-enabled inverted reflected-light infrared absorption microscopy (MIRIAM) tool for non-destructive monitoring of the vital process of de novo lipogenesis (DNL), by which fat tissue cells (adipocytes) synthesize fatty acids from glucose and store them inside lipid droplets. Using 13 C-labeled glucose as a metabolic probe, we produce spatially- and temporally-resolved images of 13 C incorporation into lipids and proteins, observed as red-shifted vibrational peaks in the MIR spectra. These findings demonstrate MIRIAM’s capability for studying metabolic pathways with molecular specificity, offering a powerful platform for metabolic imaging.
Open Access
Exciton–polariton condensation in MAPbI₃ films from bound states in the continuum metasurfaces

August 27, 2025

Marco Marangi, Andrea Zacheo, Alexander M. Dubrovkin, Giorgio Adamo, Cesare Soci

Download PDF

Exciton–polariton condensation in optical resonators is a fascinating pathway to realise ultra-coherent states of light, underpinned by Bose–Einstein quasiparticles. Bearing inherently non-radiative nature, bound states in continuum (BIC) have proven to be an excellent platform to achieve polariton condensation. Here, we report exciton–polariton condensation in a solution-processed perovskite thin film hybridized with a silicon BIC metasurface. Thanks to the high quality factor of the BIC, the polariton condensation exhibits low fluence threshold, narrow linewidth, and large spatial and temporal coherence. These results demonstrate the feasibility of integration of perovskite polaritonic devices in scalable silicon photonic platforms.
Open Access
Temporal interface in dispersive hyperbolic media

August 5, 2025

Grigorii Ptitcyn, Diego M. Solís, Mohammad Sajjad Mirmoosa, Nader Engheta

Download PDF

Spatial inhomogeneity, temporal modulation, and engineered anisotropy of parameters of electromagnetic media offer numerous opportunities for manipulating light–matter interaction over the past decades. Here, we investigate a scenario in which we deal with the temporal interface, hyperbolic anisotropy in the form of layered structures, and frequency dispersion. We theoretically investigate how a monochromatic uniform plane wave – propagating in an unbounded, homogeneous, isotropic dielectric medium – undergoes changes due to the rapid temporal variation of such medium into a hyperbolic dispersive medium formed by the stack of thin metal–dielectric bilayers, in which the metal follows the lossless Drude dispersion and the dielectric is assumed to be dispersionless. We corroborate our analytical results by numerical simulations. We observe several interesting phenomena, such as conversion of the original frequency into three pairs of frequencies, resulting in three sets of forward (FW) and backward (BW) waves. We present the amplitudes and the time-averaged Poynting vectors for such FW and BW waves and discuss some of the salient features of such temporal interface.
Open Access
Inhomogeneous broadening in the time domain

August 5, 2025

Ludmila J. Prokopeva, Alexander V. Kildishev

Download PDF

Forty-five years after the initial attempts – first by Efimov–Khitrov in 1979, then by Brendel–Bormann in 1992 – we present a comprehensive, causal, and physically consistent framework for modeling the dielectric function with inhomogeneous (non-Lorentzian) broadening, where scattering becomes frequency- or time-dependent. This theoretical framework is based on spectral diffusion, described in the frequency domain by a complex probability density function and in the time domain by a matching characteristic function. The proposed approach accurately models the lineshapes resulting from multiple broadening mechanisms and enables the retrieval of intrinsic homogeneous linewidths as well as inhomogeneous disorder-controlled material dispersion features. To implement the new general dispersion function in time-domain Maxwell solvers, we have designed a constrained minimax-based semi-analytical approximation method (MiMOSA) that generates the shortest possible numerical stencils for a given approximation error. Application examples of exact and approximate MiMOSA models include the Gauss–Lorentz oscillator, Gauss–Debye relaxation, and Gauss–Drude conductivity. Although this study primarily focuses on the optical domain, the resulting models, which account for the Doppler shift, are equally applicable to other wave propagation phenomena in disordered dispersive media in a broad range of areas, including acoustics, magnonics, astrophysics, seismology, plasma, and quantum technologies.
Open Access
Measurement of the cavity dispersion in quantum cascade lasers using subthreshold luminescence

August 1, 2025

Barbara Schneider, Jérôme Faist

Download PDF

The measurement of the cavity dispersion is a key ingredient in the characterization of a laser frequency comb due to its fundamental role in predicting the multimode laser dynamics. In this work, we discuss the measurement of the modal refractive index dispersion in quantum cascade lasers obtained through the analysis of their sub-threshold luminescence measured using Fourier-transform spectrometers. In particular, we demonstrate the effects of apodization and zero-padding. Finally, we use selected examples to show the effects of different cold-cavity dispersion profiles on the lasing state of the laser. Our results provide a comprehensive guide for determining the cavity dispersion of Fabry–Pérot quantum cascade lasers, which is essential for designing high-performance frequency combs.
Open Access
From far-infrared detectors to THz QCLs

July 28, 2025

Qing Hu

Download PDF

On this special occasion as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of quantum cascade lasers (QCLs), the author would like to reflect his own journey from the previous research on far-infrared superconducting devices to the development of THz QCLs. The initial phase of this journey spanned over 12 years (1990–2002) till we finally reached the lasing threshold, and it involved three generations of graduate students (Jurgen Smet, Bin Xu, and Ben Williams). The journey was not totally smooth, but full of joy from learning new things that are quite different from the author’s previous background to the eventual witness of laser operation of the very first THz QCL developed in the author’s group. This article is mostly a memoir of the author’s own process in the development of THz QCLs with many unpublished episodes, and it is by no means intended as a review article of the overall field. As such, work from other groups working in the field will not be cited thoroughly.
Open Access
Experimental analysis of the thermal management and internal quantum efficiency of terahertz quantum cascade laser harmonic frequency combs

July 28, 2025

M. Alejandro Justo Guerrero, Elisa Riccardi, Lianhe Li, Mark Rosamond, A. Giles Davies, Edmund H. Linfield, Miriam S. Vitiello

Download PDF

Quantum cascade laser (QCL) harmonic state frequency combs (HFCs) have recently attracted considerable interest for applications ranging from the generation of tones of high spectral purity, high data rate wireless communication networks, radiofrequency arbitrary waveform synthesis, and for fundamental light-matter investigations in quantum physics. However, a detailed knowledge of the nature of the electronic and thermal energy distribution in these devices is of paramount importance for the refinement of their thermal management and quantum efficiency, which are key to the widespread adoption of QCL HFC technology in a new generation of integrated optical quantum platforms. Here, we perform a comparative study of the thermal and electronic properties of Fabry–Perot and micro-ring HFC QCLs, operating in the terahertz frequency range, using micro-probe band-to-band photoluminescence. By monitoring the lattice temperature and the electron cooling above the threshold for stimulated emission, we extract the device thermal resistances and the internal quantum efficiencies, highlighting the key role of the resonator architecture.
Open Access
Real-time tuning of plasmonic nanogap cavity resonances through solvent environments

July 4, 2025

Eunso Shin, Rachel E. Bangle, Maiken H. Mikkelsen

Download PDF

Nanogap cavity metasurfaces – an array of metallic nanoparticles separated from a metal plane by a nanometer-scale dielectric material – can manipulate electromagnetic waves across a wide wavelength range. Through this, they can profoundly modify the optical processes of molecules and materials relevant to quantum communications, photocatalysis, and optoelectronics. Interactions between nanocavities and light, however, require overlap between the cavity resonance and the energy of the incident photon or optical transition, demanding labor-intensive fabrication of bespoke metasurfaces for each desired application. Here, we dynamically tune the resonance wavelength of nanogap cavity metasurfaces by modulating the refractive index of the surrounding medium using solvents. We achieve precise, reversible, and broadband resonance control for narrow nanogap cavity resonances (full width half max <500 nm) over a range of 1–5 µm, while maintaining high absorption efficiency (60–98 %). Resonance tuning up to 300 nm for a single metasurface was achieved by changing the dielectric environment from air to solvents with controlled refractive indexes n = 1.3–1.7 without any discernable metasurface degradation. This opens new possibilities for applications in optical sensing with significantly increased nanofabrication tolerances, such as tunable photonic devices and adaptive optical systems, where precise control over light–matter interactions is critical.
Open Access
Modulation of the type and excitation region of plasmonic topological quasiparticles in a metasurface by tailoring the excitation light

July 4, 2025

Xinru An, Peng Lang, Xuefeng Shi, Boyu Ji, Feng Lin, Yihe Lin, Yang Xu, Xiaowei Song, Jingquan Lin

Download PDF

We propose and demonstrate to manipulate the generation of plasmonic skyrmion and meron as well as their field spatial distribution with a metasurface composed of T-shaped nanoslit arrays by tuning the wavelength and spin of the excitation light. Simulation results show that plasmonic skyrmion and meron can be constructed and their field distribution can be manipulated within the proposed metasurface. Controllable unidirectional propagation of surface plasmon polaritons, which depends on the wavelength and spin of the incident circularly polarized light via the geometric phase introduced by the T-shaped nanoslit array, supports the formation of plasmonic topological quasiparticles. Scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) is employed to image the field profile of the plasmonic topological quasiparticles under the different excitation conditions, and it is found out that the field profile obtained by SNOM is in good agreement with the simulation result.
Open Access
Machine-learning-assisted photonic device development: a multiscale approach from theory to characterization

July 3, 2025

Yuheng Chen, Alexander Montes McNeil, Taehyuk Park, Blake A. Wilson, Vaishnavi Iyer, Michael Bezick, Jae-Ik Choi, Rohan Ojha, Pravin Mahendran, Daksh Kumar Singh, Geetika Chitturi, Peigang Chen, Trang Do, Alexander V. Kildishev, Vladimir M. Shalaev, Michael Moebius, Wenshan Cai, Yongmin Liu, Alexandra Boltasseva

Download PDF

Photonic device development (PDD) has achieved remarkable success in designing and implementing new devices for controlling light across various wavelengths, scales, and applications, including telecommunications, imaging, sensing, and quantum information processing. PDD is an iterative, five-step process that consists of: (i) deriving device behavior from design parameters, (ii) simulating device performance, (iii) finding the optimal candidate designs from simulations, (iv) fabricating the optimal device, and (v) measuring device performance. Classically, all these steps involve Bayesian optimization, material science, control theory, and direct physics-driven numerical methods. However, many of these techniques are computationally intractable, monetarily costly, or difficult to implement at scale. In addition, PDD suffers from large optimization landscapes, uncertainties in structural or optical characterization, and difficulties in implementing robust fabrication processes. However, the advent of machine learning over the past decade has provided novel, data-driven strategies for tackling these challenges, including surrogate estimators for speeding up computations, generative modeling for noisy measurement modeling and data augmentation, reinforcement learning for fabrication, and active learning for experimental physical discovery. In this review, we present a comprehensive perspective on these methods to enable machine-learning-assisted PDD (ML-PDD) for efficient design optimization with powerful generative models, fast simulation and characterization modeling under noisy measurements, and reinforcement learning for fabrication. This review will provide researchers from diverse backgrounds with valuable insights into this emerging topic, fostering interdisciplinary efforts to accelerate the development of complex photonic devices and systems.
Open Access
Polarization-sensitive diffractive optics and metasurfaces: “Past is Prologue”

June 30, 2025

Noah A. Rubin, Yeshaiahu Fainman

Download PDF

Polarization control and switchability are among the most unique features of “metasurfaces” as compared with diffractive optics technologies of the past. Here, we review how the polarization control afforded by the advent of present-day metasurfaces compares to diffractive elements of previous decades, clarifying from a functional perspective what is new, and what is not.
Open Access
Compact, thermoelectrically cooled surface emitting THz QCLs operating in an HHL housing

June 30, 2025

Sebastian Gloor, Adrian Weisenhorn, Léo Hetier, Urban Senica, Richard Maulini, Mattias Beck, Jérôme Faist, Giacomo Scalari

Download PDF

Terahertz (THz) technology is experiencing rapid progress thanks to recent advancements in sources and detectors. We present a 3.9 THz quantum cascade laser operating in a compact high heat load (HHL) housing. The device features a loop mirror back reflector and a dry-etched surface-emitting antenna that shapes the far-field pattern to optimize coupling to user-defined devices. A peak power of 1.8 mW and average power of 4.5 μW at 185 K are measured experimentally, and the device output is easily detected with a room-temperature THz camera.
Open Access
Extended spectral response of cavity-based terahertz photoconductive antennas and coherent detection of quantum cascade lasers

June 26, 2025

Anna De Vetter, James Normansell, José Palomo, Martin Mičica, Li Chen, Juliette Mangeney, Jerome Tignon, Lianhe H. Li, Alexander Giles Davies, Edmund H. Linfield, Joshua R. Freeman, Sukhdeep S. Dhillon

Download PDF

Coherent ultrafast detection has become an important method to study the temporal response of terahertz (THz) quantum cascade lasers (QCLs), bringing insights into the dynamics of modelocking and frequency comb operation in these complex structures. Coherent detection has been typically based on the use of nonlinear crystals and electro-optic sampling, which are less sensitive to QCLs operating at high THz frequencies. This is because their response drops rapidly with frequency owing to phase matching conditions. Here, we develop coherent detection based on THz photoconductive antennas in vertical quarter-wavelength cavities, where we can freely engineer the spectral response to enhance the THz detection at frequencies greater than 2 THz. We develop thick low temperature grown GaAs that is transferred onto polymer and metal coated substrates to create a cavity with an THz response that exceeds the response of non-cavity detectors. This vertical THz cavity also permits the planar electrode geometry to be designed independently. Indeed, we show that the THz cavity can be combined with large surface area single contact electrodes to further enhance the spectral response. Although this proof-of-principle coherent detection is not fully optimised, it is used to coherently resolve the temporal response of a double-metal THz QCL operating at 3 THz. This approach opens up perspectives to tune the response of THz photoconductive antennas and enhance their spectral response at a desired frequency.
Open Access
Micro-mirror aided mid-infrared plasmonic beam combiner monolithically integrated with quantum cascade lasers and detectors

June 23, 2025

Georg Marschick, Mauro David, Xaver Gsodam, Nikola Opačak, Dominik Koukola, Elena Arigliani, Axel Evirgen, Virginie Trinité, Salvatore Pes, Stefania Isceri, Hermann Detz, Werner Schrenk, Aaron M. Andrews, Bernhard Lendl, Benedikt Schwarz, Gottfried Strasser, Borislav Hinkov

Download PDF

The development of novel mid-infrared (MIR) devices and systems is crucial for addressing applications in biomedical analysis, chemical reaction-monitoring, or high-bitrate free-space telecommunication. Combining multiple functional elements on one chip into complex miniaturized photonic integrated circuits (PICs), is the next step in these developments, yet limited by existing material and technology constraints. In this work, we introduce a new concept for realizing fully monolithic MIR-PICs based on low-loss on-chip plasmonic guiding and beam combining. The core of our study demonstrates a monolithic beam combiner by integration of active quantum cascade (QC) devices at ∼8 µm (laser and detector) with tailored passive waveguides based on weakly-coupled Ge/Au plasmonics and on-chip micro-mirror optics. The on-chip gold-coated micro-mirrors enhance the directional control and beam combining capabilities of the plasmon waveguides while minimizing energy dissipation typically associated with tight plasmon confinement. We discuss the MIR-PIC beam combiner design, micro-fabrication, and characterization and compare it to the routing concept of simple plasmonic Ge/Au y-couplers exploiting strong-confinement.
Open Access
MoS₂ based 2D material photodetector array with high pixel density

June 20, 2025

Russell L. T. Schwartz, Hao Wang, Chandraman Patil, Martin Thomaschewski, Volker J. Sorger

Download PDF

Arrays of photodetector-based pixel sensors are ubiquitous in modern devices, such as smart phone cameras, automobiles, drones, laptops etc. Two-dimensional (2D) material-based photodetector arrays are a relevant candidate, especially for applications demanding planar form factors. However, shortcomings in pixel density and prototyping without cross contamination limit technology adoption and impact. Also, while 2D material detectors offer high absorption, graphene’s closed bandgap results in undesirably high dark currents. Here, we introduce the experimental demonstration of dense planar photodetector arrays. We demonstrate a micrometer-narrow pitched 2D detector pixels and show this approach’s repeatability by verifying performing of a 16-pixel detector array. Such dense and repeatable detector realization is enabled by a novel, selective, contamination-free 2D material transfer system, that we report here in automated operation. The so realized photodetectors responsivity peaks at a high 0.8 A/W. Furthermore, we achieve uniform detector performance via bias voltage tuning calibration to maximize deployment. Lastly, we demonstrate 2D arrayed photodetectors not only on a silicon chip platform but verify array performance on flexible polymer substrates. Densley-arrayed, flat, bendable, and uniform performing photodetector pixels enable emerging technologies in the space where lightweight and reliable performance is required, such as for the smart phone and emerging VR/AR markets, but also for smart gadgets, wearables, and also for size-weight-power-constrained aviation and space platforms.
Open Access
Energy-efficient thermally smart windows with tunable properties across the near- and mid-infrared ranges

June 17, 2025

Julien Legendre, Georgia T. Papadakis

Download PDF

Space heating and cooling account for approximately 15 % of the world’s energy consumption, underscoring the pressing need for improved thermal management. Macroscopic temperature regulation can be significantly optimized by improving radiative heat control, in particular through radiative cooling in summer and sunlight capture for heating in winter. These processes are typically tailored independently and thereby remain passive. In this article, we propose thermally smart windows with radiative properties that adapt to a building’s heating and cooling demands in a tunable manner. To achieve this, one ought to control, simultaneously, the window’s response to near- and mid-infrared (IR) radiation for solar heating and radiative cooling, respectively. We propose device architectures to realize such operations using phase-change materials and liquid crystals. Compared to conventional silica glass, the proposed architectures may reduce the energy demand of buildings at the latitude of Barcelona by more than 40 %, showcasing the potential of tunable materials for radiative thermal management in the energy transition. We discuss that significant promise lies in the development of materials that can warrant near-unity modulation of NIR reflectance, which should be the key property to reach as much as 64 % reduction in energy consumption.
Open Access
Designing the response-spectra of microwave metasurfaces: theory and experiments

June 17, 2025

Yixiang Xu, Yufei Song, Han Zhu, Yifei Wang, Qiong He, Zhuo Wang, Lei Zhou

Download PDF

Metasurfaces composed by arrays of coupled plasmonic resonators have attracted tremendous attention due to their extraordinary abilities to manipulate electromagnetic (EM) waves. However, existing theories for such systems are either empirical with model parameters obtained by fitting with simulations, or can only be applied to high-frequency systems where metals exhibit finite permittivity. Here, we extend our recently established leaky-eigenmode (LEM) theory to the microwave regime where metals exhibit infinite permittivity, with all parameters directly computable without fitting procedures. After validating our theory with both simulations and experiments on a benchmark metasurface, we illustrate how to utilize the theory to guide designing microwave metasurfaces with freely tailored line-shapes, including particularly the generation of a bound state in the continuum. All theoretical predictions are verified by experiments and simulations. Our study provides a powerful tool to guide designing functional microwave meta-devices for various applications.
Open Access
Experimental generation of optimally chiral azimuthally-radially polarized beams

June 13, 2025

Albert Herrero-Parareda, Nicolas Perez, Filippo Capolino, Daryl Preece

Download PDF

We implement a paraxial azimuthally-radially polarized beam (ARPB), a novel class of structured light beams that can be optimal chiral (OC), leading to maximum chirality density at a given energy density. By using vectorial light shaping techniques, we successfully generated a paraxial ARPB with precise control over its features, validating theoretical predictions. Our findings demonstrate the ability to finely adjust the chirality density of the ARPB across its entire range by manipulating a single beam parameter. Although our experimental investigations are primarily focused on the transverse plane, we show that fields whose transverse components satisfy the optimal chirality condition are optimally chiral in all directions, and our results highlight the promising potential of OC structured light for applications in the sensing and manipulation of chiral particles. We show that helicity density is more general than the concept of handedness. This work represents a significant advancement toward practical optical enantioseparation and enantiomer detection at the nanoscale.
Open Access
3D-printed mirror-less helicity preserving metasurface “mirror” for THz applications

June 9, 2025

Jiaruo Yan, Ioannis Katsantonis, Savvas Papamakarios, Panagiotis Konstantakis, Michael Loulakis, Thomas Koschny, Maria Farsari, Stelios Tzortzakis, Maria Kafesaki

Download PDF

Stimulated by seminal works on generalized reflection and refraction laws, metasurfaces have evolved to a highly promising research direction, as they allow a multitude of different functionalities by optically thin wave-control elements/structures. Among them, structures functioning in the low THz regime are of extensive research interest, due to their high potential in communication and sensing applications. In this paper we propose a simple THz metasurface design that exhibits ideally perfect cross-polarized reflection for linear polarization and perfect helicity-preserving reflection with a geometric (Pancharatnam–Berry) phase for circular polarization, without the presence of any back-reflector. Numerical calculations demonstrating the structure response are justified by analytical models, which provide physical insights on this response. The designed metasurfaces are fabricated using the direct laser writing 3D-printing technology, metallized with electroless silver plating, and are characterized by THz time domain spectroscopy, with the experimental results validating the corresponding theoretical ones. Applications including beam steering and focusing, exploring the Pancharatnam–Berry phase, are also demonstrated numerically. Besides those applications, the helicity preserving mirror response of our metasurfaces can be valuable, among others, also in molecular chirality sensing applications, an issue that is also highlighted here.
Open Access
Effective discrete-level density matrix model for unipolar quantum optoelectronic devices

June 5, 2025

Christian Jirauschek

Download PDF

Increasingly, unipolar quantum optoelectronic devices such as quantum cascade lasers are employed for the targeted generation of dynamic waveforms in the mid-infrared and terahertz regime. These include for example short-pulse trains, frequency combs and solitons. For the theoretical investigation and targeted development of these devices, suitable semiclassical models such as Maxwell–Bloch type equations have been developed, which employ a two- or multilevel density matrix description for the electron dynamics and a classical propagation equation for the optical resonator field. Unipolar devices typically utilize quantized conduction band states as optical levels. For quantum well and wire structures, the electron states are additionally characterized by a wavevector associated with free motion in the non-confined directions. This degree of freedom can give rise to nonparabolicity effects as well as Bloch gain, both leading to gain asymmetry and linewidth enhancement. However, fully accounting for the wavevector greatly increases the computational cost of the density matrix approach. Here, we introduce an effective discrete-level density matrix model, which includes these effects via correction factors obtained by suitable wavevector averaging. These parameters can be extracted from carrier transport simulations along with other required input data, yielding a self-consistent model. Coupling the effective density matrix description to optical propagation equations results in an effective Maxwell-density matrix approach, which is well-suited for dynamic simulations of quantum optoelectronic devices.
Open Access
Nonlinear analog processing with anisotropic nonlinear films

June 5, 2025

Michele Cotrufo, Domenico de Ceglia, Hyunseung Jung, Igal Brener, Dragomir Neshev, Costantino De Angelis, Andrea Alù

Download PDF

Digital signal processing is the cornerstone of several modern-day technologies, yet in multiple applications it faces critical bottlenecks related to memory and speed constraints. Thanks to recent advances in metasurface design and fabrication, light-based analog computing has emerged as a viable option to partially replace or augment digital approaches. Several light-based analog computing functionalities have been demonstrated using patterned flat optical elements, with great opportunities for integration in compact nanophotonic systems. So far, however, the available operations have been restricted to the linear regime, limiting the impact of this technology to a compactification of Fourier optics systems. In this paper, we introduce nonlinear operations to the field of metasurface-based analog optical processing, demonstrating that nonlinear optical phenomena, combined with nonlocality in flat optics, can be leveraged to synthesize kernels beyond linear Fourier optics, paving the way to a broad range of new opportunities. As a practical demonstration, we report the experimental synthesis of a class of nonlinear operations that can be used to realize broadband, polarization-selective analog-domain edge detection.
Open Access
Tutorial: Hong–Ou–Mandel interference with structured photons

May 26, 2025

Tareq Jaouni, Xuemei Gu, Mario Krenn, Alessio D’Errico, Ebrahim Karimi

Download PDF

The Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) effect, an effective two-photon interference phenomenon, is a cornerstone of quantum optics and a key tool for linear optical quantum information processing. While the HOM effect has been extensively studied both theoretically and experimentally for various photonic quantum states, particularly in the spectral domain, detailed overviews of its behaviour for structured photons – those with complex spatial profiles – under arbitrary spatial mode measurement schemes are still lacking. This tutorial aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive theoretical analysis of the HOM effect for structured photons, including an arbitrary mode projection on quantum interference outcomes. The tutorial also provides analytical, closed-form expressions of the HOM visibility under different measurement conditions.
Open Access
Nonlocal metasurfaces: universal modal maps governed by a nonlocal generalized Snell’s law

May 22, 2025

Adam Overvig, Francesco Monticone

Download PDF

In this opinion, we describe the potential of an emerging class of flat optics known as “nonlocal metasurfaces” to manipulate light in both real space and momentum space. While the ultimate form of a conventional “local” metasurface can be viewed as a universal generator of any desired waveform from a fixed input wavefront, the ultimate form of a nonlocal metasurface would instead act as a universal “map” from a given set of input waveforms to a set of orthogonal output waveforms. Here, we discuss how this implies four-dimensional information capacity, drastically enhancing information density compared to local metasurfaces. We discuss a framework using scattering matrices and a nonlocal generalized Snell’s law to describe nonlocal metasurfaces. We comment on the potential, progress, and practicality of this ambitious vision, suggesting limitations and next steps.
Open Access
Quasi-bound states in the continuum in finite waveguide grating couplers

May 22, 2025

Torgom Yezekyan, Roza Gabrielyan, Sergey I. Bozhevolnyi

Download PDF

Finite-size effects occurring for quasi-bound states in the continuum (qBICs) formed in symmetric and asymmetric all-dielectric waveguide grating couplers are investigated using numerical simulations for different configuration parameters. We find that the beam size plays a crucial role in the formation of additional qBIC resonances originating in forbidden for plane-wave incidence BIC resonances, whose manifestation is strongly influenced by the beam divergence. Another parameter is the strength of Bragg reflection, determining the spatial extension of a distributed Bragg resonator (DBR): in configurations with strong Bragg reflection, the excited and Bragg reflected counterpropagating waveguide modes are confined within the footprint of the incident beam. Conversely, the DBR formed in configurations with weak Bragg reflection extends well beyond the incident beam footprint, resulting in high sensitivity of the system response to the grating width and incident beam position. We believe that our findings provide valuable insights for optimizing photonic devices that leverage qBIC resonances in finite-sized structures under realistic excitation conditions.
Open Access
Polaritonic quantum matter

May 6, 2025

D.N. Basov, Ana Asenjo-Garcia, P. James Schuck, Xiaoyang Zhu, Angel Rubio, Andrea Cavalleri, Milan Delor, Michael M. Fogler, Mengkun Liu

Download PDF

Polaritons are quantum mechanical superpositions of photon states with elementary excitations in molecules and solids. The light–matter admixture causes a characteristic frequency-momentum dispersion shared by all polaritons irrespective of the microscopic nature of material excitations that could entail charge, spin, lattice or orbital effects. Polaritons retain the strong nonlinearities of their matter component and simultaneously inherit ray-like propagation of light. Polaritons prompt new properties, enable new opportunities for spectroscopy/imaging, empower quantum simulations and give rise to new forms of synthetic quantum matter. Here, we review the emergent effects rooted in polaritonic quasiparticles in a wide variety of their physical implementations. We present a broad portfolio of the physical platforms and phenomena of what we term polaritonic quantum matter. We discuss the unifying aspects of polaritons across different platforms and physical implementations and focus on recent developments in: polaritonic imaging, cavity electrodynamics and cavity materials engineering, topology and nonlinearities, as well as quantum polaritonics.
Open Access
Active metasurface designs for lensless and detector-limited imaging

May 5, 2025

Julie Belleville, Prachi Thureja, Harry A. Atwater

Download PDF

The emergence of metasurfaces has enabled lightweight, compact imaging with degrees of freedom which previously required complex optical setups to achieve, such as polarization, wave vector, and spectrum. To date, most metasurface-enabled imaging systems have thus far been ‘passive’, and therefore subject to fundamental information and thickness limits set by the coupling of light to their sensor arrays. We discuss the use of active metasurfaces in low form-factor and low pixel-count imaging systems and introduce a prototypical lensless imaging system concept which employs an active metasurface as a high-frequency, continuously tunable amplitude and phase modulation aperture, coupled to a discrete single-pixel detector. We analyze the scalability of such a platform and computationally demonstrate that a scalable ‘perimeter-control’ addressing architecture – in which a M × N rectangular array of scattering elements is addressed by only M + N voltages – is sufficient for image collection, even when scatterers exhibit limited 272 ◦ $\left({272}^{{\circ}}\right)$ phase control, and undesired amplitude variations. We also address fundamental limits in information collection, image aberrations, and signal-to-noise ratio, highlighting key advantages, limitations, and trade-offs for active metasurface imaging. We generalize our discussion to other active metasurface-enabled imaging configurations and applications. Finally, we consider promising active metasurface material platforms with an outlook towards new directions to enable high-efficiency imaging.
Open Access
The theory of the quantum walk comb laser

May 5, 2025

Alexander Dikopoltsev, Ina Heckelmann, Barbara Schneider, Mathieu Bertrand, Jérôme Faist

Download PDF

The development of on-chip optical frequency comb devices paves the way for novel applications in environmental tracking, fast ranging and smart communication solutions. Recently, a new type of frequency comb device, based on a modulated ring quantum cascade laser, was introduced and demonstrated. Here we present a rigorous theoretical study of this type of device, also known as the quantum walk comb laser. We show that resonant phase modulation of a fast gain laser with a dispersive circular cavity is sufficient to support a broadband comb. This method requires the gain to have a sufficiently fast recovery time to support quasi-instantaneous suppression of intensity fluctuations. When this condition is met, the modulation leads to quantum walk dynamics, and then to stabilization onto a stable and controllable frequency comb. We show this type of dynamics through simulations using realistic parameters and reveal the impact of higher-order contributions from gain and dispersion. We also study the resilience of this type of mode-locked laser to noise injection and show its superiority to that of active mode-locking. We believe that this work will allow the development of comb devices with high wall-plug efficiency, arbitrary output spectral shaping and increased stability properties.
Open Access
High Q-contrast terahertz quantum cascade laser via bandgap-confined bound state in the continuum

May 1, 2025

Hanyu Liu, Jieyuan Cui, Qian Wang, Lianhe Li, Alexander Giles Davies, Edmund Harold Linfield, Qi Jie Wang

Download PDF

Photonic bound states in the continuum (BICs) are optical modes that remain highly localized despite co-existing with radiating waves in the continuum, attracting considerable attention for both fundamental studies and technological innovations. Conventional single-mode BIC lasers predominantly focus on maximizing the Q-factor of a specific mode, often overlooking the critical role of Q-contrast – the difference in Q-factors between the highest-Q BIC mode and competing modes – which is crucial for achieving stable single-mode lasing. In this study, we present a compact, high Q-contrast BIC laser, enabled by strategically optimizing the alignment of the TM 1 band of the core domain with the shell domain to confine the high Q-factor mode within the core. Using a quantum cascade laser chip operating in the terahertz (THz) regime, this design achieves a Q-contrast ratio of approximately 2.3, resulting in stable single mode lasing across the dynamic region with a side-mode suppression ratio of ∼20 dB. These findings underscore the pivotal role of Q-contrast in photonic lasers, with promising implications for applications in THz lasers, sensors, harmonic signal generators and modulators.
Open Access
Supershift properties for nonanalytic signals

April 30, 2025

Fabrizio Colombo, Irene Sabadini, Daniele Carlo Struppa, Alain Yger

Download PDF

The phenomenon of superoscillations is of great interest in microscopy, antenna design, and material sciences. This phenomenon has been generalized and has given rise to the concept of supershift, which is a far reaching extension that applies to functions that may present discontinuous derivatives. From this perspective, this is a notion that might have significant applications. This paper will provide an up to date report on the complex connections between the concept of supershift and that of analyticity.
Open Access
Optical levitation of Janus particles within focused cylindrical vector beams

April 28, 2025

Alessandro Magazzù, Iryna Kasianiuk, Denis Kasyanyuk, Agnese Callegari, Giovanni Volpe, Onofrio M. Maragò, Luca Biancofiore

Download PDF

The confinement and manipulation of Janus particles have recently garnered significant interest due to their potential applications in fields such as nanotechnology and biophysics, where, under specific circumstances, they can act as microengines and drug carriers. However, the dynamics of Janus particles mostly rely on chemical reactions or thermal gradients, limiting their precision application. To tackle these limitations, we propose the 3D manipulation of Janus particles using focused cylindrical vector beams with a doughnut shaped intensity profile above the focal spot. In particular, we study the behaviour, orientation and manipulation of different highly reflective Janus particles composed of silica or polystyrene with a gold cap in the presence of optical potentials generated by focused cylindrical vector beams. Where the radiation pressure predominantly affects the gold cap rather than the bare particle body of the particle. We demonstrated the potential of the proposed levitation technique for controlling a wide range of Janus particles and real-life complex objects with high reflectivity.
Open Access
Topological chiral-gain in a Berry dipole material

April 25, 2025

Filipa R. Prudêncio, Mário G. Silveirinha

Download PDF

Recent studies have shown that low-symmetry conductors under static electric bias offer a pathway to realize chiral gain, where the non-Hermitian optical response of the material is controlled by the spin angular momentum of the wave. In this work, we uncover the topological nature of chiral gain and demonstrate how a static electric bias induces topological bandgaps that support unidirectional edge states at the material boundaries. In our system, these topological edge states consistently exhibit dissipative properties. However, we show that, by operating outside the topological gap, the chiral gain can be leveraged to engineer boundary-confined lasing modes with orbital angular momentum locked to the orientation of the applied electric field. Our results open new possibilities for loss-compensated photonic waveguides, enabling advanced functionalities such as unidirectional, lossless edge-wave propagation and the generation of structured light with intrinsic orbital angular momentum.
Open Access
Mid-infrared wavelength multiplexers on an InP platform

April 24, 2025

Kevin Zhang, Rudolf Mayer, Dominik Burghart, Gerhard Boehm, Mikhail A. Belkin

Download PDF

We demonstrate mid-infrared multiplexers based on evanescent couplers in In 0.53 Ga 0.47 As/InP ridge waveguides. Multiplexing of λ = 5.2 µm and λ = 8 µm input wavelengths in TM 00 modes to a single TM 00 output was achieved with 0.7 dB insertion loss. The demonstrated multiplexing bandwidth is significantly broader than is achievable using typical arrayed waveguide gratings, while displaying comparable insertion loss. These devices will be essential toward the development of broadband multi-color mid-infrared photonic integrated circuits for multi-species gas sensing and multi-band mid-infrared free-space communications.
Open Access
Compound meta-optics: there is plenty of room at the top

April 24, 2025

Ahmed H. Dorrah

Download PDF

Metasurfaces have been widely exploited in imaging and sensing, holography, light–matter interaction, and optical communications in free space and on chip, thanks to their CMOS compatibility, versatility and compact form. However, as this technology matured from novelty to performance, stringent requirements on diffraction efficiency, scalability, and complex light control have also emerged. For instance, the limited thickness of single-layer meta-optics poses fundamental constraints on dispersion engineering and lossless transmission over large-scale devices, whereas in-plane symmetry limits the polarization transformations that can be realized. Cascaded and multi-layer flat optics can alleviate these constraints, offering new possibilities for realizing high-efficiency devices, full polarization control, and achromatic response. In this perspective, recent advances in multi-layer metasurfaces including inherent challenges and opportunities will be discussed. Compound meta-optics hold the promise for enabling complex optical systems with enhanced performance and unprecedented functionality for a diverse set of applications in sensing, imaging, high-capacity communications, and beyond.
Open Access
Non-linear bistability in pulsed optical traps

April 24, 2025

Alex J. Vernon, Francisco J. Rodríguez-Fotuño, Anatoly V. Zayats

Download PDF

Optical trapping, also known as optical tweezing or optical levitation, is a technique that uses highly focused laser beams to manipulate micro- and nanoscopic particles. In optical traps driven by high-energy pulses, material non-linearity can result in unusual opto-mechanical effects, such as displaced equilibrium points. However, existing theoretical models of non-linear optical force on small particles consider smooth material dependence on the incident field strength alone, and not the feedback between the particle permittivity and internal field strength, which is, in turn, a function of the permittivity. The hysteresis effects of optical bistability in pulsed optical traps, therefore, elude existing optical force models. Here, we investigate a bistable optical trap, set up by counter-propagating ultrashort pulses, in which the optical force exerted on a particle depends not only on the field at its current location but on the historic trajectory of the particle in the trap. The developed formalism will be important for designing optical traps and nanoparticle manipulation in pulsed field for various applications, including potentially time crystal demonstrations.
Open Access
Monoclinic nonlinear metasurfaces for resonant engineering of polarization states

April 23, 2025

Ivan Toftul, Dhruv Hariharan, Pavel Tonkaev, Fangxing Lai, Qinghai Song, Yuri Kivshar

Download PDF

Polarization is a fundamental property of light that can be engineered and controlled efficiently with optical metasurfaces. Here, we employ chiral metasurfaces with monoclinic lattice geometry and achiral meta-atoms for resonant engineering of polarization states of light. We demonstrate, both theoretically and experimentally, that a monoclinic metasurface can convert linearly polarized light into elliptically polarized light not only in the linear regime but also in the nonlinear regime with the resonant generation of the third-harmonic field. We reveal that the ellipticity of the fundamental and higher-harmonic fields depends critically on the angle of the input linear polarization, and the effective chiral response of a monoclinic lattice plays a significant role in the polarization conversion.
Open Access
Perspective on tailoring longitudinal structured beam and its applications

April 21, 2025

Alan E. Willner, Huibin Zhou, Xinzhou Su

Download PDF

Tailoring structured beams with varying lightwave properties along the longitudinal dimension has recently gained much interest. This paper gives a perspective on the advances of longitudinally structured beams, their potential applications, and future opportunities.
Open Access
Diagnostic oriented discrimination of different Shiga toxins via PCA-assisted SERS-based plasmonic metasurface

April 17, 2025

Massimo Rippa, Alessia Milano, Valentina Marchesano, Domenico Sagnelli, Bryan Guilcapi, Amalia D’Avino, Giovanna Palermo, Giuseppe Strangi, Luciano Consagra, Maurizio Brigotti, Stefano Morabito, Joseph Zyss, Lucia Petti

Download PDF

Plasmonic biosensors are powerful platforms for detecting various types of analytes. Specifically, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) can enable label-free and selective detection. Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) represents zoonotic pathogens that cause severe diseases, such as hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), the most important cause of acute renal failure in children. To date, there are no effective therapies for STEC infection, and the available diagnostic methods are complex and inconclusive. Here, a novel nanopattern fabricated by electron beam lithography with remarkable plasmonic properties is employed as SERS substrate for realizing the specific recognition of Stx1a, Stx2a, and of a third variation of the latter. A limit of detection (LOD) of 6.8 pM for Stx1a and 2 pM for Stx2a was achieved. Our approach supported using the principal component analysis (PCA) appears to be a valid alternative to conventional methods, allowing real-time and fast in situ analysis.
Open Access
Tailoring optical response of MXene thin films

April 3, 2025

Jeffrey Simon, Kyu Ri Choi, Stefano Ippolito, Ludmila Prokopeva, Colton Fruhling, Vladimir M. Shalaev, Alexander V. Kildishev, Yury Gogotsi, Alexandra Boltasseva

Download PDF

Due to their attractive optical properties, 2D MXenes have garnered interest in nanophotonic and optoelectronic applications. However, tuning their properties typically requires the iterative synthesis of MXenes with a specific set of properties, such as the absorption band position, electronic conductivity, and dielectric constant. We demonstrate how to tailor the optical properties of MXene thin films over a broad 1500-nm wavelength range by mixing different ratios of highly conductive Ti 3 C 2 T x with poorly conductive Nb 2 CT x . By changing the MXene film composition, the epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) point, where the optical properties transit from dielectric to metallic, was varied in the spectral range from 1.1 to 2.6 µm. Additionally, we observed a reduction in absorption in some compositions compared to the absorption of the pure MXene films. Compared to other methods, this approach enables simple and continual tuning of MXene optical properties without requiring multiple time-consuming synthesis steps.
Open Access
Quantum-enhanced detection of viral cDNA via luminescence resonance energy transfer using upconversion and gold nanoparticles

March 31, 2025

Shahriar Esmaeili, Navid Rajil, Ayla Hazrathosseini, Benjamin W. Neuman, Masfer H. Alkahtani, Dipankar Sen, Qiang Hu, Hung-Jen Wu, Zhenhuan Yi, Robert W. Brick, Alexei V. Sokolov, Philip R. Hemmer, Marlan O. Scully

Download PDF

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted global economies and healthcare systems, revealing critical vulnerabilities in both. In response, our study introduces a sensitive and highly specific detection method for cDNA, leveraging Luminescence Resonance Energy Transfer (LRET) between upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), and achieves a detection limit of 242 fM for SARS-CoV-2 cDNA. This innovative sensing platform utilizes UCNPs conjugated with one primer and AuNPs with another, targeting the 5′ and 3′ ends of the SARS-CoV-2 cDNA, respectively, enabling precise differentiation of mismatched cDNA sequences and significantly improving detection specificity. Through rigorous experimental analysis, we established a quenching efficiency range from 10.4 % to 73.6 %, with an optimal midpoint of 42 %, thereby demonstrating the superior sensitivity of our method. Our work uses SARS-CoV-2 cDNA as a model system to demonstrate the potential of our LRET-based detection method. This proof-of-concept study highlights the adaptability of our platform for future diagnostic applications. Instrumental validation confirms the synthesis and formation of AuNPs, addressing the need for experimental verification of the preparation of nanomaterial. Our comparative analysis with existing SARS-CoV-2 detection methods revealed that our approach provides a low detection limit and high specificity for target cDNA sequences, underscoring its potential for targeted COVID-19 diagnostics. This study demonstrates the superior sensitivity and adaptability of using UCNPs and AuNPs for cDNA detection, offering significant advances in rapid, accessible diagnostic technologies. Our method, characterized by its low detection limit and high precision, represents a critical step forward in developing next-generation biosensors for managing current and future viral outbreaks. By adjusting primer sequences, this platform can be tailored to detect other pathogens, contributing to the enhancement of global healthcare responsiveness and infectious disease control.
Open Access
Quantum emitter interacting with a dispersive dielectric object: a model based on the modified Langevin noise formalism

March 31, 2025

Giovanni Miano, Loris Maria Cangemi, Carlo Forestiere

Download PDF

In this paper, we model the interaction of a quantum emitter with a finite-size dispersive dielectric object in unbounded space within the framework of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics, using the modified Langevin noise formalism. The quantized electromagnetic field consists of two contributions: the medium-assisted field, which accounts for the electromagnetic field generated by the noise polarization currents of the dielectric, and the scattering-assisted field, which takes into account the electromagnetic field incoming from infinity and scattered by the dielectric. We show that the emitter couples to two distinct bosonic reservoirs: a medium-assisted reservoir and a scattering-assisted reservoir, each characterized by its own spectral density. We then use emitter-centered modes to reduce the degrees of freedom of both reservoirs. Eventually, we identify the conditions under which the electromagnetic environment composed of these two reservoirs can be effectively replaced by a single bosonic reservoir so that the reduced time evolution of the quantum emitter remains unchanged. In particular, when the initial states of the medium- and scattering-assisted reservoirs are thermal quantum states at the same temperature, we find that a single bosonic bath with a spectral density equal to the sum of the medium- and scattering-assisted spectral densities is equivalent to the original electromagnetic environment.
Open Access
Large tuning of the optical properties of nanoscale NdNiO₃ via electron doping

March 28, 2025

Yeonghoon Jin, Teng Qu, Siddharth Kumar, Nicola Kubzdela, Cheng-Chia Tsai, Tai-De Li, Shriram Ramanathan, Nanfang Yu, Mikhail A. Kats

Download PDF

We synthesized crystalline films of neodymium nickel oxide (NdNiO 3 ), a perovskite quantum material, switched the films from a metal phase (intrinsic) into an insulator phase (electron-doped) by field-driven lithium-ion intercalation, and characterized their structural and optical properties. Time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) showed that the intercalation process resulted in a gradient of the dopant concentration along the thickness direction of the films, turning the films into insulator–metal bilayers. We used variable-angle spectroscopic ellipsometry to measure the complex refractive indices of the metallic and insulating phases of NdNiO 3 . The insulator phase has a refractive index of n ∼ 2 and low absorption in the visible and near-infrared, and analysis of the complex refractive indices indicated that the band gap of the insulating phase is roughly 3–4 eV. Electrical control of the optical band gap, with corresponding large changes to the optical refractive indices, creates new opportunities for tunable optics.
Open Access
Flat nonlinear optics with intersubband polaritonic metasurfaces

March 21, 2025

Jonas H. Krakofsky, Raktim Sarma, Igal Brener, Andrea Alù, Jongwon Lee, Mikhail A. Belkin

Download PDF

Nonlinear intersubband polaritonic metasurfaces produce some of the strongest second- and third-order nonlinear optical responses reported for condensed matter systems at infrared frequencies. These metasurfaces are fabricated as two-dimensional arrays of nanoresonators from multi-quantum-well semiconductor heterostructures, designed to produce strong nonlinear responses associated with intersubband transitions. By optimally coupling the optical modes of the nanoresonators to vertically polarized intersubband transitions in semiconductor heterostructures, one can boost the nonlinear response associated with intersubband transitions, make intersubband transitions interact with free-space radiation at normal incidence, and hence produce optically thin flat nonlinear optical elements compatible with free-space optical setups. As a result of the strong nonlinear response in these systems, significant nonlinear conversion efficiencies (>0.1 %) can be attained in deeply subwavelength optical films using modest pumping intensities of only 10–100 kW/cm 2 . Subwavelength metasurface thickness relaxes phase-matching constraints limiting the operation of bulk nonlinear crystals. Furthermore, the amplitude and phase of the nonlinear optical response in intersubband polaritonic metasurfaces can be tailored for a specific pump wavelength and a nonlinear process of interest through the co-optimization of quantum engineering of electron states in semiconductor heterostructures and photonic engineering of the metasurface nanoresonators design. Additionally, an applied voltage can dynamically control the amplitude and phase of the nonlinear optical response at a nanoresonator level. Here, we review the current state of the art in this rapidly expanding field, focusing on nonlinear processes supporting second-harmonic generation, saturable absorption, and optical power limiting.
Open Access
Enhancing radiative heat transfer with meta-atomic displacement

March 20, 2025

Cheng-Long Zhou, Shuihua Yang, Yang Huang, Yong Zhang, Hong-Liang Yi, Mauro Antezza, Cheng-Wei Qiu

Download PDF

Controlling and manipulating radiative heat transfer remains a pivotal challenge in both scientific inquiry and technological advancement, traditionally tackled through the precise geometric design of metastructures. However, geometrical optimization cannot break the inherent shackles of local modes within individual meta-atoms, which hinders sustained progress in radiative heat transfer. Here, we propose a comprehensive strategy based on interatomic displacement to achieve superior heat transfer performance while obviating the need for increasingly complex structural designs. This meta-atomic displacement strategy enables a shift from quasi-isolated localized resonances to extended nonlocal resonant modes induced by strong interactions among neighboring meta-atoms, resulting in a radiative heat conductance that surpasses other previously reported geometrical structures. Furthermore, this meta-atomic displacement strategy can be seamlessly applied to various metastructures, offering significant implications for advancing thermal science and next-generation energy devices.
Open Access
Deep neural networks for inverse design of multimode integrated gratings with simultaneous amplitude and phase control

March 14, 2025

Ali Mohajer Hejazi, Vincent Ginis

Download PDF

We present a photonic mode converter based on a grating structure, modeled and inversely designed by deep neural networks. The neural network maps the physical parameters of the grating to the grating responses, i.e., complex scattering parameters representing the reflected modes from the grating structure. We design different neural networks to output the magnitudes and the phases of the scattering parameters associated with the multiple reflected modes. Following the training process, we use the trained networks to perform inverse design of the grating based on the desired magnitudes of the scattering parameters. The inverse design effort provides a full control on the magnitudes and the phases of the reflected modes from the mode converter. Our techniques help in creating a rich landscape of multiple interfering waves that provide higher control on optical near fields, complex resonators, and their relevant nanophotonic applications.
Open Access
Tailoring propagation-invariant topology of optical skyrmions with dielectric metasurfaces

March 13, 2025

Nilo Mata-Cervera, Zhaoyang Xie, Chi Li, Haoyi Yu, Haoran Ren, Yijie Shen, Stefan A. Maier

Download PDF

Optical Stokes skyrmions represent an emerging class of structured light characterized by intricate topological polarization textures in the beam’s transverse plane. Traditional methods for generating Stokes skyrmions rely on bulky optical setups, driving significant interests in compact, single-device solutions. However, existing approaches fail to ensure propagation-invariant topology, an imperative requirement for advancing applications in this field. In this paper we address this fundamental challenge with a metasurface design based on structural birefringence and geometric phase which manipulates light in dynamic phase iso-curves, achieving arbitrary co-polarization to cross-polarization conversion while maintaining a constant dynamic phase. This design enables propagation-invariant topological features of optical skyrmions produced by a single generation device. Our framework offers a compact platform for shaping topologically stable optical skyrmions, which may stimulate their applications for long-range optical information transfer.
Open Access
Long lived surface plasmons on the interface of a metal and a photonic time-crystal

March 11, 2025

Lior Bar-Hillel, Yonatan Plotnik, Ohad Segal, Mordechai Segev

Download PDF

We predict the existence of surface plasmon polaritons at the interface between a metal and a periodically modulated dielectric medium, and find an unusual multi-branched dispersion curve of surface and bulk modes. The branches are separated by momentum gaps indicating intense amplification of modes, and display high and low group velocity ranging from zero to infinity at short wavelengths. We simulate how these SPP modes are formed by launching a properly engineered laser beam onto the metallic interface and examine their space-time evolution. The amplification of the surface plasmons at the interface of a photonic time-crystal offers a path to overcome plasmonic losses, which have been a major challenge in plasmonics.
Open Access
Skyrmion bag robustness in plasmonic bilayer and trilayer moiré superlattices

March 10, 2025

Julian Schwab, Florian Mangold, Bettina Frank, Timothy J. Davis, Harald Giessen

Download PDF

Twistronics is studied intensively in twisted 2D heterostructures and its extension to trilayer moiré structures has proven beneficial for the tunability of unconventional correlated states and superconductivity in twisted trilayer graphene. Just recently, the concept of twistronics has been applied to plasmonic lattices with nontrivial topology, demonstrating that bilayer moiré skyrmion lattices harbor multi-skyrmion textures called skyrmion bags. Here, we explore the properties of plasmonic trilayer moiré superlattices that are created by the interference of three twisted skyrmion lattices. More specifically, we explore the properties of periodic superlattices and their topological invariants. We also demonstrate that twisted trilayer skyrmion lattices harbor the same skyrmion bags as twisted bilayer skyrmion lattices. We quantify the robustness of these skyrmion bags by the stability of their topological numbers against certain disturbance fields that leads to experimental designs for topological textures with maximum robustness.
Open Access
Towards field-resolved visible microscopy of 2D materials

March 7, 2025

Daewon Kim, Mikhail Mamaikin, Ferenc Krausz, Nicholas Karpowicz

Download PDF

The investigation of interaction of light with various materials on the sub-cycle time scale requires field sampling techniques with incredibly high temporal resolution. Electro-optic sampling (EOS) provides the sub-wavelength resolution both in time and space giving the opportunity for ultrafast microscopy to observe response of electrons and quasiparticles in real time. For the frequencies approaching the petahertz scale, the oscillations of light are incredibly hard to resolve. In particular, EOS has not been demonstrated for wavelengths below 700 nm. In this perspective, we discuss the potential extension of EOS to cover complete visible spectrum and the impact that it can give to the nanophotonics and material science. Specifically, we describe how the ultrafast dynamics of quasiparticles in some 2D materials can be tracked using the space-resolved EOS.
Open Access
Tunable holographic metasurfaces for augmented and virtual reality

February 17, 2025

Akeshi Aththanayake, Andrew Lininger, Cataldo Strangi, Mark A. Griswold, Giuseppe Strangi

Download PDF

Augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) is transforming how humans interact with technology in a wide range of fields and industries, from healthcare and education to entertainment. However, current device limitations have impeded wider integration. Tunable holographic metasurfaces represent a promising platform for revolutionizing AR/VR devices by precisely controlling light at the subwavelength scale. This article examines current challenges and opportunities from both the AR/VR and holographic metamaterial perspectives and explores how improvements to state-of-the-art approaches can address these challenges. In particular, we propose a focus on easily manufacturable and broadly electrically tunable metasurface technologies including liquid crystal integration and excitonic tuning in 2D materials. Advanced metasurface optimization techniques including machine learning will also be crucial for exploring the large design space.
Open Access
Overcoming stress limitations in SiN nonlinear photonics via a bilayer waveguide

February 14, 2025

Karl J. McNulty, Shriddha Chaitanya, Swarnava Sanyal, Andres Gil-Molina, Mateus Corato-Zanarella, Yoshitomo Okawachi, Alexander L. Gaeta, Michal Lipson

Download PDF

Silicon nitride (SiN) formed via low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) is an ideal material platform for on-chip nonlinear photonics owing to its low propagation loss and competitive nonlinear index. Despite this, LPCVD SiN is restricted in its scalability due to the film stress when high thicknesses, required for nonlinear dispersion engineering, are deposited. This stress in turn leads to film cracking and makes integrating such films in silicon foundries challenging. To overcome this limitation, we propose a bilayer waveguide scheme comprised of a thin LPCVD SiN layer underneath a low-stress and low-index PECVD SiN layer. We show group velocity dispersion tuning at 1,550 nm without concern for film-cracking while enabling low loss resonators with intrinsic quality factors above 1 million. Finally, we demonstrate a locked, normal dispersion Kerr frequency comb with our bilayer waveguide resonators spanning 120 nm in the c-band with an on-chip pump power of 350 mW.
Open Access
On the generalized Snell–Descartes laws, shock waves, water wakes, and Cherenkov radiation

January 17, 2025

Patrice Genevet, Nate Wright, Jayden Johnson, Aloke Jana, Emil Marinov, Loubnan Abou-Hamdan

Download PDF

The modification of light’s trajectory after refracting through a boundary separating two media is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature. The laws governing such refraction/reflection, known today as the Snell–Descartes laws of reflection and refraction, were established over four centuries ago and have since become foundational to the field of classical optics. Presently, with the advent of nano-photonic technology, a generalized version of these laws has been developed and implemented, vastly broadening the breadth of light manipulation methods. Despite their popularity, however, a simple and accessible derivation of the Snell–Descartes laws is still lacking, and their generalization is still largely missing from the physics curricula. Here, we use simple analogies between light’s refraction and reflection and other a priori unrelated radiating wave systems, namely, shock waves, water wakes, and Cherenkov radiation to derive both the classical and generalized Snell–Descartes laws, relying solely on simple and intuitive arguments. The basis of the derivation considers the excitation of a surface perturbation, induced by light incident at an angle on a boundary, that propagates at a velocity exceeding the phase velocity of light in the medium. The perturbation thereafter acts as a radiative source that reflects and refracts light away from the interface, at angles satisfying the classical Huygens interference condition. These derivations are meant to be accessible to a broad range of readers, including students of all levels, middle/high school teachers, and beyond.
Open Access
High-harmonic generation from subwavelength silicon films

January 16, 2025

Kent Hallman, Sven Stengel, Wallace Jaffray, Federico Belli, Marcello Ferrera, Maria Antonietta Vincenti, Domenico de Ceglia, Yuri Kivshar, Neset Akozbek, Shroddha Mukhopadhyay, Jose Trull, Crina Cojocaru, Michael Scalora

Download PDF

Recent years have witnessed significant developments in the study of nonlinear properties of various materials at the nanoscale. Often, experimental results on harmonic generation are reported without the benefit of suitable theoretical models that allow assessment of conversion efficiencies compared to the material’s intrinsic properties. Here, we report experimental observations of even and odd harmonics up to the 7 th, generated from a suspended subwavelength silicon film resonant in the UV range at 210 nm, the current limit of our detection system, using peak power densities of order 3 TW/cm 2 . We also highlight the time-varying properties of the dielectric function of silicon, which exhibits large changes under intense illumination. We explain the experimental data with a time domain, hydrodynamic-Maxwell approach broadly applicable to most optical materials. Our approach accounts simultaneously for surface and magnetic nonlinearities that generate even optical harmonics , as well as linear and nonlinear material dispersions beyond the third order to account for odd optical harmonics , plasma formation, and a phase locking mechanism that makes the generation of high harmonics possible deep into the UV range, where semiconductors like silicon start operating in a metallic regime.
Open Access
XUV yield optimization of two-color high-order harmonic generation in gases

January 16, 2025

Ann-Kathrin Raab, Melvin Redon, Sylvianne Roscam Abbing, Yuman Fang, Chen Guo, Peter Smorenburg, Johan Mauritsson, Anne-Lise Viotti, Anne L’Huillier, Cord L. Arnold

Download PDF

We perform an experimental two-color high-order harmonic generation study in argon with the fundamental of an ytterbium ultrashort pulse laser and its second harmonic. The intensity of the second harmonic and its phase relative to the fundamental are varied while keeping the total intensity constant. We extract the optimum values for the relative phase and ratio of the two colors which lead to a maximum yield enhancement for each harmonic order in the extreme ultraviolet spectrum. Within the three-step model, the yield maximum can be associated with a flat electron return time versus return energy distribution. An analysis of different distributions allows to predict the required relative two-color phase and ratio for a given harmonic order, total laser intensity, fundamental wavelength, and ionization potential.
Open Access
Space-time wedges

January 7, 2025

Amir Bahrami, Klaas De Kinder, Zhiyu Li, Christophe Caloz

Download PDF

Space-time–modulated systems have attracted significant interest over the past decade due to their ability to manipulate electromagnetic waves in unprecedented ways. Here, we introduce a new type of space-time–modulated structure, the space-time wedge , consisting of two interfaces moving at different velocities, which results in either closing or opening wedges. Using moving boundary conditions, we derive closed-form solutions for the scattering of electromagnetic waves in such a wedge and leverage these solutions to unveil the underlying physics, including multiple space-time scattering and Doppler shifting. The space-time wedge holds potential for various optical and photonic applications.
Open Access
Silicon rich nitride: a platform for controllable structural colors

October 31, 2024

Oren Goldberg, Noa Mazurski, Uriel Levy

Download PDF

High refractive index dielectric materials like silicon rich nitride (SRN) are critical for constructing advanced dielectric metasurfaces but are limited by transparency and complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process compatibility. SRN’s refractive index can be adjusted by varying the silicon to nitride ratio, although this increases absorption, particularly in the blue spectrum. Dielectric metasurfaces, which utilize the material’s high dielectric constant and nano-resonator geometry, experience loss amplification due to resonance, affecting light reflection, light transmission, and quality factor. This study explores the impact of varying the silicon ratio on structural color applications in metasurfaces, using metrics such as gamut coverage, saturation, and reflection amplitude. We found that a higher SRN ratio enhances these metrics, making it ideal for producing vivid structural colors. Our results show that SRN can produce a color spectrum covering up to 166 % of the sRGB space and a resolution of 38,000 dots per inch. Fabricated samples vividly displayed a parrot, a flower, and a rainbow, illustrating SRN’s potential for high-resolution applications. We also show that SRN can provide a better CIE diagram coverage than other popular metasurfaces materials. These findings highlight the advantages of SRN for photonic devices, suggesting pathways for further material and application development.

Special Issue: Guided Nonlinear Optics for Information Processing

Special Issue: Quantum Light: Creation, Integration, and Applications

Issue 10

Special Issue: Emerging phenomena in nanophotonics

Issue 9

Issue 8

Special Issue: Metamaterials and Plasmonics in Asia

Issue 7

Issue 6

Special Issue: Spatiotemporal Optical Fields

Special Issue: Current Trends in Nanophotonics

Special Issue: New Frontiers in Nonlinear Nanophotonics

Special Issue: Strong Coupling of Organic Molecules

Issue 13

Issue 12

Special Issue: Programmable Nano-optics and Photonics

Issue 11

Special Issue: Nanophotonics out of Equilibrium

Issue 10

Special Issue: Infrared and Terahertz Quantum Technologies

Issue 9

Issue 8

Special Issue: Metamaterials and Plasmonics in Asia

Issue 7

Special Issue: New Frontiers of Nanophotonics through Metamaterials, Photonic Crystals, and Plasmonics

Issue 6

Issue 5

Special Issue: Thermal Photonics for Sustainability

Special Issue: Nanophotonics in support of Ukrainian Scientists

Issue 13

Special Issue: Metamaterials and plasmonics in Asia, a tribute to Byoungho Lee

Special Issue: Nanofabrication

Issue 7

Issue 6

Issue 5

Special Issue: Neural network learning with photonics and for photonic circuit design

Issue 4

Issue 3

Special Issue: Quantum Nanophotonics

Issue 2

Issue 1

Issue 22

Special Issue: Novel Two-Dimensional Materials Based Bio-Nanophotonic

Special Issue: Tunable Nanophotonics

Special Issue: New Trends in Nanophotonics and Advanced Photonic Materials

Issue 10

Issue 9

Special Issue: Metamaterials and Plasmonics in Asia

Special Issue: Photonic Angular Momentum

Special Issue: Nonradiating photonics with resonant dielectric nanostructures

Issue 16

Issue 15

Issue 14

Special Issue: Honorary Issue for Mark Stockman

Issue 13

Issue 12

Special Issue: Nanophotonics and immunotherapy for cancer; Guest Editors: Feifan Zhou, Tayyaba Hasan, Celine Frochot, Wei R. Chen

Special Issue: Photonics for Enhanced Perovskite Optoelectronics; Guest Editors: Hairen Tan, Li Na Quan and Michael Saliba

Special Issue: Frontiers of Optics and Photonics; Guest Editors: Federico Capasso and Dennis Couwenberg

Special Issue: Photonics for Computing and Computing for Photonics, Guest Editors: Daniel Brunner, Aydogan Ozcan, Alireza Marandi, Wim Bogaerts

Issue 12

Special Issue: Interdisciplinary Nanophotonics; Guest Editors: Hatice Altug, Laura Na Liu

Issue 11

Issue 10

Special Issue: Metamaterials and Plasmonics in Asia; Guest Editors: Jeong Weon Wu, Teruya Ishihara, Lei Zhou, Cheng-Wei Qiu

Issue 9

Issue 8

Special Issue: 2D materials for nanophotonics: from fundamentals to applications, II. Applications; Guest Editors: Xiantao Jiang, Meng Zhang, Xi Ling, Pablo Alonso González, Han Zhang

Issue 7

Special Issue: 2D materials for nanophotonics: from fundamentals to applications, I. Fundamentals; Guest Editors: Xiantao Jiang, Meng Zhang, Xi Ling, Pablo Alonso González, Han Zhang

Issue 6

Issue 5

Special Issue: New trends in nanophotonics; Guest Editors: Sunae So, Namkyoo Park, Hak Joo Lee, Junsuk Rho

Issue 4

Issue 3

Issue 2

Special Issue: Proceedings of Surface Plasmon Photonics Conference (SPP9); Guest Editors: N. Asger Mortensen, Pierre Berini, Uriel Levy, Sergey Bozhevolnyi

Issue 1

Issue 12

Issue 11

Special Issue: Quantum Nanophotonics in Emerging Materials; Guest Editors: A. Alkauskas, L. C. Bassett; A. L. Exarhos; Kai-Mei Fu

Issue 10

Issue 9

Special Issue: Interdisciplinary Nanophotonics; Guest Editors: E. Di Fabrizio and M. Stockman

Issue 8

Special Issue: Topological Nanophotonics; Guest Editors: Niels Asger Mortensen, Sergey I. Bozhevolnyi, Andrea Alù

Special Issue: Plasmon-Exciton Coupling; Guest Editors: Matthew Pelton, Matthew Sheldon, and Jacob Khurgin

Honorary issue for Federico Capasso on “Metamaterials & Metasurfaces”

Special Issue: 2D Materials

Issue 5

Issue 4

Special Issue: Optical Bio Sensors

Issue 3

Special Issue: Optical Computing

Special Issue: Quantum Photonics

Issue 2

Special Issue: Frequency Comb Generation

Issue 1

Special Issue: Smart Nanophotonics for Renewable Energy and Sustainability / Guest Editors: Alexander V. Kildishev, Svetlana Boriskina and Vivian Ferry

Issue 4

Issue 3

Issue 2

Special Issue: Emerging Materials for Nanophotonics / Guest Editors: Jenifer Dionne, Alexandra Boltasseva and Luke Sweatlock

Issue 1

Issue 6

Issue 4-5

Special issue: Silicon Photonic Integrated Devices / Guest Editors: Chris Doerr, Haisheng Rong and Michal Lipson

Issue 3

Issue 1-2

Special Issue: Near-field Optics: Generality in Super-Resolution Imaging in 3D \ Guest Editor: Aaron Lewis

Issue 5-6

Special Issue: Fiber Optic Nanotechnology / Guest Editors: Ming-Jun Li, David J. DiGiovanni, Alan E. Willner

Nanophotonics publishes special and thematic issues focussed on important and emerging topics in the field of study. The journal has established a rigorous process to ensure that any special issue manuscripts follow the same high-quality standards and peer review processes as regular manuscripts. For further information on the journal’s peer review policy please see the "Instructions for Authors".

Recent Special Issues

Journal Impact Factor	6.6	2024, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2025)
5-year Journal Impact Factor	7.3	2024, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2025)
Journal Citation Indicator	1.13	2024, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2025)
CiteScore	12.1	2024, Scopus (Elsevier B.V., 2025)
SCImago Journal Rank	1.765	2024, SJR (Scimago Lab, 2025; Data Source: Scopus)
Source Normalized Impact per Paper	1.686	2024, CWTS Journal Indicators (CWTS B.V., 2025; Data Source: Scopus)

More information about journal rankings

Submission

From 1 October 2025, the journal will transition to a new publisher. Please submit all manuscripts through the new submission site: https://submission.wiley.com/journal/NAP2 .

You can find more information on the new Journal Homepage.

FOUNDING EDITOR
Federico Capasso, Harvard University, USA

EDITOR IN CHIEF
Stefan Maier, Monash University, Australia
Email: stefan.maier@monash.edu

PUBLISHING EDITOR
Dennis Couwenberg, Science Wise Publishing, The Netherlands
Email: dcouwenberg@nanophotonics-journal.com

MANAGING EDITORS
Antonio I. Fernández-Domínguez, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
Dangyuan Lei, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Yongmin Liu, Northeastern University College of Engineering, USA
Junsuk Rho, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Korea
Matthew Sheldon, University of California, Irvine, USA
Giulia Tagliabue, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
Kiyoul Yang, Harvard University, USA

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Javier Garcia de Abajo, IQFR-CSIC, Spain
Andrea Alu, City University of New York, USA
Dimitri Basov, Columbia University, USA
Mark Brongersma, Stanford University, USA
Jennifer Dionne, Stanford University, USA
Nader Engheta, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Shaya Fainman, UC San Diego, USA
Shanhui Fan, Stanford University, USA
Harald Giessen, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Michael Hochberg, University of Washington, USA
Frank Koppens, ICFO, Spain
Uriel Levy, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Michal Lipson, Cornell University, USA
Tony Low, University of Minnesota, USA
Asger Mortensen, DKU, Denmark
Evgenii Narimanov, Purdue University, USA
Masaya Notomi, NTT Basic Research Laboratories, Japan
Rupert Oulton, Imperial College London, UK
Aydogan Ozcan, UCLA, USA
Romain Quidant, ICFO, Spain
Vladimir Shalaev, Purdue University, USA
Volker Sorger, University of Florida, USA (Editor-in-Chief, 2015-2020)
Takuo Tanaka, RIKEN, Japan
Jelena Vuckovic, Stanford University, USA
Hongxing Xu, Wuhan University, China
Anatoly Zayats, King’s College London, UK
Xiang Zhang, UC Berkeley, USA
Nikolay Zheludev, University of Southampton, UK

Journal Coordinator
Justyna Zuk, De Gruyter
E-mail: nanophotonics.editorial@degruyter.com

Nanophotonics is covered by the following services:

Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Baidu Scholar
Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) - CAplus
Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) - SciFinder
Chronos Hub
CNKI Scholar (China National Knowledge Infrastructure)
CNPIEC - cnpLINKer
Dimensions
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
EBSCO (relevant databases)
EBSCO Discovery Service
Ei Compendex
Engineering Village
Genamics JournalSeek
GoOA
Google Scholar
Inspec
Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)
J-Gate
Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition
JournalGuide
Naver Academic
Naviga (Softweco)
Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers
Primo Central (ExLibris)
ProQuest (relevant databases)
Publons
PubMed
PubMed Central
QOAM (Quality Open Access Market)
ReadCube
Reaxys
ScienceON (Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information)
Scilit
SCImago (SJR)
SCOPUS
Semantic Scholar
Sherpa/RoMEO
Summon (ProQuest)
TDNet
TEMA Technik und Management
Ulrich's Periodicals Directory/ulrichsweb
WanFang Data
Web of Science - Current Contents/Engineering, Computing, and Technology
Web of Science - Current Contents/Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences
Web of Science - Science Citation Index Expanded
WorldCat (OCLC)
X-MOL
Yewno Discover

Supplementary Materials

Article_Processing_Charges

Author Statement Template

Author_Statement_Template

Guidance for Reviewers

Instructions_for_Authors

LaTeX_Article_Template

License To Publish

Submission_checklist_download_version

Word_Article_Template

Topics

Engineering Electrical Engineering Sensor Technology

Materials Sciences Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology

Physics Nanotechnology

Physics Electromagnetism, Optics and Photonics

Online Submission of Manuscripts

Nanophotonics on Twitter

Nanophotonics Mirror Home Page With Graphical Abstracts

Privacy Statement

Publishing Ethics

Repository Policy

Journal information

Additional information

eISSN:

2192-8614

Language:

English

Publisher:

De Gruyter

Additional information

First published:

February 1, 2012

Publication Frequency:

24 issues per year

Search journal Search the content of this journal

eISSN: 2192-8614

Audience(s) for this journal

Physicists, Engineers and Material Scientists, in public and private research.

Creative Commons
BY 4.0

Nanophotonics

Overview

About this journal

Your Benefits

Ahead of Publication / Just Accepted

Issues

Special issues

Ranking

Submit

Editorial

Abstracting and Indexing

Supplementary Materials

Supplementary Materials

Topics

Topics

External Links

Bibliographic data