Photonic devices that exhibit both sensitivity and robustness have long been sought; yet, these characteristics are thought to be mutually exclusive; through sensitivity, a sensor responds to external stimuli, whereas robustness e

In general relativity, a gravitational “white hole” is a hypothetical region of space that cannot be entered from outside. It is the reverse of a “black hole” from which light and information cannot escape. We report an optical de

Lanthanide-based microlasers have attracted considerable attention owing to their large anti-Stokes shifts, multiple emission bands, and narrow linewidths. Various applications of microlasers, such as optical communication, optica

The collective response of macroscopic quantum states under perturbation is widely used to study quantum correlations and cooperative properties, such as defect-induced quantum vortices in Bose–Einstein condensates and the non-des

Structured light fields embody strong spatial variations of polarization, phase, and amplitude. Understanding, characterization, and exploitation of such fields can be achieved through their topological properties. Three-dimension

The control of thermal emission is of great importance for emerging applications in energy conversion and thermometric sensing. Usually, thermal emission at ambient temperature is limited to the mid- to far-infrared, according to

It is experimentally verified that nonreciprocal photonic systems with continuous translation symmetry may have an ill-defined topology. The topological classification of such systems is only feasible when the material response is

Materials that exhibit visible luminescence upon X-ray irradiation show great potential in the medical and industrial fields. Pure organic materials have recently emerged as promising scintillators for X-ray detection and radiogra

Optical chaos generated by perturbing semiconductor lasers has been viewed, over recent decades, as an excellent entropy source for fast physical random bit generation (RBG) owing to its high bandwidth and large random fluctuation

Programmable metasurfaces enable real-time control of electromagnetic waves in a digital coding manner, which are suitable for implementing time-domain metasurfaces with strong harmonic manipulation capabilities. However, the time

Entanglement-based quantum key distribution (QKD) promises enhanced robustness against eavesdropping and compatibility with future quantum networks. Among other sources, semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) can generate polarization-e

Optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) have been widely applied in spectroscopy, squeezed light, and correlated photons, as well as quantum information. Conventional OPOs usually suffer from a high power threshold limited by weak h

Integrated photonics provides a route to both miniaturization of quantum key distribution (QKD) devices and enhancing their performance. A key element for achieving discrete-variable QKD is a single-photon detector. It is highly d

We predict theoretically a regime of photon-pair generation driven by the interplay of multiple bound states in the continuum resonances in nonlinear metasurfaces. This nondegenerate photon-pair generation is derived from the hype

As a new-generation light source, free-electron lasers (FELs) provide high-brightness x-ray pulses at the angstrom-femtosecond space and time scales. The fundamental physics behind the FEL is the interaction between an electromagn

Optical superoscillation refers to an intriguing phenomenon of a wave packet that can oscillate locally faster than its highest Fourier component, which potentially produces an extremely localized wave in the far field. It provide

In ultrafast optical imaging, it is critical to obtain the spatial structure, temporal evolution, and spectral composition of the object with snapshots in order to better observe and understand unrepeatable or irreversible dynamic

Tunneling ionization of atoms and molecules induced by intense laser pulses contains the contributions of numerous quantum orbits. Identifying the contributions of these orbits is crucial for exploring the application of tunneling

Abbe’s resolution limit, one of the best-known physical limitations, poses a great challenge for any wave system in imaging, wave transport, and dynamics. Originally formulated in linear optics, the Abbe limit can be broken using

The fundamental properties of laser-induced plasma in liquid water, such as the ultrafast electron migration and solvation, have not yet been clarified. We use 1650-nm femtosecond laser pulses to induce the plasma in a stable free

Nonlinear holography has been identified as a vital platform for optical multiplexing holography because of the appearance of new optical frequencies. However, due to nonlinear wave coupling in nonlinear optical processes, the non

A new optical microscopy technique, termed high spatial and temporal resolution synthetic aperture phase microscopy (HISTR-SAPM), is proposed to improve the lateral resolution of wide-field coherent imaging. Under plane wave illum

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a useful tool for determination of elements in solids, liquids, and gases. For nanosecond LIBS (ns-LIBS), the plasma shielding effect limits its reproducibility, repeatability, and si

Microbubbles acting as lenses are interesting for optical and photonic applications such as volumetric displays, optical resonators, integration of photonic components onto chips, high-resolution spectroscopy, lithography, and ima

Optical vortices, which carry orbital angular momentum, offer special capabilities in a host of applications. A single-laser source with dual-beam-mode output may open up new research fields of nonlinear optics and quantum optics.

Terahertz (THz) wave generation from laser-induced air plasma generally requires a short temporal laser pulse. In contrast, it was observed that THz radiation from ionized liquid water prefers a longer pulse, wherein the mechanism

The mode-locked fluoride fiber laser (MLFFL) is an exciting platform for directly generating ultrashort pulses in the mid-infrared (mid-IR). However, owing to difficulty in managing the dispersion in fluoride fiber lasers, MLFFLs

We present a fully automated laser system with low-intensity noise for coherent Raman scattering microscopy. The robust two-color system is pumped by a solid-state oscillator, which provides Stokes pulses fixed at 1043 nm. The tun

In many optical metrology techniques, fringe pattern analysis is the central algorithm for recovering the underlying phase distribution from the recorded fringe patterns. Despite extensive research efforts for decades, how to extr