{"title":"Evolution of dispersion-engineered metasurfaces: Debye relaxation and folded path concept","authors":"Hammad Ahmed, Buxiong Qi, Xianzhong Chen","doi":"10.1038/s41377-025-01890-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01890-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Dispersion engineering is advancing with recent breakthroughs in metasurfaces using the 2nd-order Debye relaxation and the folded-path concept, greatly improving relevant applications such as imaging, beam shaping, and cloaking.</p>","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144371051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Observing half-integer topological winding numbers in non-Hermitian synthetic lattices","authors":"Mu Yang, Yu-Wei Liao, Hao-Qing Zhang, Yue Li, Zhi-He Hao, Zheng-Wei Zhou, Xi-Wang Luo, Jin-Shi Xu, Chuan-Feng Li, Guang-Can Guo","doi":"10.1038/s41377-025-01909-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01909-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Non-Hermitian (NH) systems have revealed unique topological phenomena that are not observed in Hermitian counterparts, such as novel topology classifications and the NH skin effect. In periodic NH systems, eigenenergies become complex and exhibit windings in the complex plane, while eigenstate winding numbers, which are strictly integers in Hermitian systems, can take half-integer values. However, direct experimental observation of NH winding of both eigenenergies and eigenstates, especially the half-integer winding, remains a significant challenge. In this work, we utilize the orbital angular momentum (OAM) synthetic dimension to construct an NH topological lattice and achieve direct observation of both eigenstate and eigenenergy windings. We report the first experimental observation of a half-integer eigenstate winding number, and reveal the intrinsic relationship between the direction in the NH skin dynamics and eigenenergy windings. Furthermore, by partitioning the OAM chain into two semi-infinite chains, we observe zero boundary modes and demonstrate that their distributions are jointly determined by the winding numbers of both the eigenstates and eigenenergies. This work provides comprehensive insights into NH topologies and offers a new experimental platform for exploring NH phenomena.</p>","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"64 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144371129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Luminescence lifetime thermometers based on hybrid cuprous halides with exceptional water resistance and giant thermal expansion","authors":"Chenliang Li, Luping Wang, Datao Tu, Xiaoying Shang, Mingjie Yang, Jiacheng Gong, Fei Wen, Yun Xing, Zhi Xie, Jiaxin Jiang, Shaohua Yu, Xueyuan Chen","doi":"10.1038/s41377-025-01910-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01910-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Optical probes hold great promise for temperature sensing owing to their attractive properties including rapid response, high spatial resolution, and remote non-invasive detection. However, the exploration of thermometric probes is hindered by their low relative sensitivity (<i>S</i><sub><i>r</i></sub>) or poor structural stability in water. Herein, we propose the first example of organic-inorganic metal halides based on TPP<sub>3</sub>Cu<sub>2</sub>Br<sub>2</sub> (TPP = triphenylphosphine) that simultaneously present excellent water resistance and sensitive temperature-dependent photoluminescence lifetime in water. Benefiting from the soft lattice induced by the organic molecule of TPP, giant thermal expansion and great lattice distortion were achieved with increasing temperature. As such, the self-trapped exciton luminescence lifetime of TPP<sub>3</sub>Cu<sub>2</sub>Br<sub>2</sub> can be shortened to 1.9% of the initial value from 280 to 380 K, resulting in the highest <i>S</i><sub><i>r</i></sub> of 12.82% K<sup>−1</sup> among the undoped metal halides based luminescent thermometers. Significantly, TPP<sub>3</sub>Cu<sub>2</sub>Br<sub>2</sub> displayed extraordinary water stability with emission intensity remaining nearly unchanged after immersing in water for 15 days. Moreover, high-precision luminescence lifetime based thermal sensing in water environment was successfully conducted, which proved to be inert to the detection depth in water with a small read-out error. This work offers new routes in the exploration of novel metal halides for highly sensitive thermometric probes toward versatile application scenarios.</p>","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144371128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Generation of femtosecond polygonal optical vortices from a mode-locked quasi-frequency-degenerate laser","authors":"Hongyu Liu, Lisong Yan, Liang Wang, Dongfang Li, Shenao Zhang, Xin Liu, Heyan Liu, Kunjian Dai, Qing Wang, Jinwei Zhang","doi":"10.1038/s41377-025-01902-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01902-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Polygonal optical vortices—a new subset of optical vortices—uniquely enable numerous applications due to the new degrees of freedom offered and their customizable light intensity structure. So far, their generation has only been reported for continuous wave. Here, we demonstrate the first femtosecond polygonal optical vortex pulses, which is also the first pulsed demonstration of such vortices in general. From a mode-locked Yb:KGW laser oscillator, femtosecond Hermit-Gaussian pulses at the quasi-frequency-degenerate state were generated and subsequently converted by astigmatic mode conversion to femtosecond polygonal optical vortices. They have light intensity distributions of square, pentagonal, and hexagonal shapes and carry orbital angular momentums. In all these variations, the average power and pulse duration are greater than one watt and less than 500 fs. These results open the way to new applications in the fields of femtosecond optical tweezer and three-dimensional microstructure fabrication.</p>","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"642 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144340831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yeonjeong Koo, Dong Kyo Oh, Jungho Mun, Artem N. Abramov, Mikhail Tyugaev, Yong Bin Kim, Inki Kim, Tae Ho Kim, Sera Yang, Yeseul Kim, Jonghwan Kim, Vasily Kravtsov, Junsuk Rho, Kyoung-Duck Park
{"title":"High momentum two-dimensional propagation of emitted photoluminescence coupled with surface lattice resonance","authors":"Yeonjeong Koo, Dong Kyo Oh, Jungho Mun, Artem N. Abramov, Mikhail Tyugaev, Yong Bin Kim, Inki Kim, Tae Ho Kim, Sera Yang, Yeseul Kim, Jonghwan Kim, Vasily Kravtsov, Junsuk Rho, Kyoung-Duck Park","doi":"10.1038/s41377-025-01873-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01873-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Dramatic fluorescence enhancement in two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals materials (vdWMs) coupled to plasmonic nanostructures has the potential to enable ultrathin, flexible, and high-brightness illumination devices. However, addressing the limitation of locally scattered small plasmon-enhanced areas remains challenging. Here, we present a 2D plasmonic enhancement of photoluminescence (PL) spanning nearly 800 μm<sup>2</sup>, enabled by surface lattice resonance (SLR) in a 2D vdWM-Au slot lattice hybrid. The Au slot lattice is designed and fabricated using Babinet’s principle and Rayleigh’s anomaly to maximize radiative decay rate and induce non-local photo-excitation in a MoSe<sub>2</sub> monolayer. For emitted PL coupled with SLR, enhanced by up to 32-fold, we investigate its in-plane directivity and long-range propagation using angle- and space-resolved spectroscopic PL measurements. Our experiment reveals that a nearly 800 μm<sup>2</sup> 2D luminescent sheet can be achieved regardless of the size of the MoSe<sub>2</sub> crystal, even with a sub-μm<sup>2</sup> flake. This work provides a new type of ultrabright, large-area 2D luminescent material, suitable for a range of optical illumination, communication, and sensing devices.</p>","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144328505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Non-contact and nanometer-scale measurement of PN junction depth buried in Si wafers using terahertz emission spectroscopy","authors":"Fumikazu Murakami, Shinji Ueyama, Kenji Suzuki, Ingi Kim, Inkeun Baek, Sangwoo Bae, Dougyong Sung, Myungjun Lee, Sungyoon Ryu, Yusin Yang, Masayoshi Tonouchi","doi":"10.1038/s41377-025-01911-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01911-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Buried channel array transistors enable fast and high-density integrated devices. The depth of the PN junction and carrier dynamics at the depletion layer in silicon wafers have a crucial influence on their performance and reliability. Therefore, rapid and non-contact/non-destructive inspection tools are necessary to accelerate the semiconductor industry. Despite the great efforts in this field, realizing a technique to probe the junction depth and carrier dynamics at the PN junction inside wafers remains challenging. Herein, we propose a new approach to access PN junctions embedded in wafers using terahertz (THz) emission spectroscopy. THz emission measurements and simulations demonstrate that the amplitude and polarity of THz emissions reflect the junction depth and carrier dynamics at the PN junctions. It allows us to evaluate the junction depth non-destructively with nanometer-scale accuracy, surpassing the limits of traditional techniques. Laser-induced THz emission spectroscopy is a promising method for the sensitive and non-contact/non-destructive evaluation of Si wafers and will benefit the modern semiconductor industry.</p>","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144328510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Shanshan Zeng, Ya Guo, Wentao Hao, Xin Luo, Xing Guo, Jianli Zhang, Jianqi Cai, Guangxu Wang
{"title":"Visual and non-visual effects of the phosphor-free white LED lamps rich in the 535–589-nm yellow-green light","authors":"Shanshan Zeng, Ya Guo, Wentao Hao, Xin Luo, Xing Guo, Jianli Zhang, Jianqi Cai, Guangxu Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41377-025-01896-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01896-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Despite an increasing number of researches focused on the photo-biological effects of lighting on visual and non-visual health, insights into the phosphor-free white LED lamps with different spectral power distributions remain unclear. In this study, human factors experiments were conducted with 30 participants. Variations in ocular physiological parameters and melatonin circadian rhythms were assessed for participants in an ordinary lamp, a full-spectrum lamp, and four phosphor-free white LED lamps rich in the 535–589 nm yellow-green light. It was observed that ocular functions exhibited significantly higher improvements under the four phosphor-free LED lamps compared to the ordinary and full-spectrum lamps, indicating the advantageous effects of phosphor-free lamps rich in the 535–589 nm yellow-green light on both visual and non-visual health.</p>","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"624 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144328507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nanoscale ultrafast camera unveils light-matter dynamics in real time and space","authors":"Jae Won Ryu, Kyoung-Duck Park","doi":"10.1038/s41377-025-01908-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01908-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Ultrafast tip-based microscopy has evolved to meet three critical parameters in optical characterization: spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution. This advancement provides deep insights into light-matter interactions in both real time and real space. In particular, it allows direct observation of polaritons, quantum states, and nonequilibrium dynamics, especially in low-dimensional quantum materials.</p>","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144328508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"State-multiplexing approach for optimized expansion of entanglement-based quantum networks","authors":"Anahita Khodadad Kashi, Michael Kues","doi":"10.1038/s41377-025-01892-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01892-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>An optimized quantum network design is demonstrated by realizing a state-multiplexing quantum light source via a dual-excitation configuration technique. This approach optimizes the usage of the finite wavelength spectrum, facilitating the efficient expansion of entanglement-based fully-connected quantum networks across multiple users.</p>","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144328608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Johannes E. Fröch, Luocheng Huang, Zhihao Zhou, Virat Tara, Zhuoran Fang, Shane Colburn, Alan Zhan, Minho Choi, Arnab Manna, Andrew Tang, Zheyi Han, Karl F. Böhringer, Arka Majumdar
{"title":"Full color visible imaging with crystalline silicon meta-optics","authors":"Johannes E. Fröch, Luocheng Huang, Zhihao Zhou, Virat Tara, Zhuoran Fang, Shane Colburn, Alan Zhan, Minho Choi, Arnab Manna, Andrew Tang, Zheyi Han, Karl F. Böhringer, Arka Majumdar","doi":"10.1038/s41377-025-01888-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01888-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Silicon is a common material of choice for semiconductor optics in the infrared spectral range, due to its low cost, well-developed high-volume manufacturing methods, high refractive index, and transparency. It is, however, typically ill-suited for applications in the visible range, due to its large absorption coefficient, especially for green and blue light. Counterintuitively, we demonstrate how ultra-thin crystalline meta-optics enable full-color imaging in the visible range. For this purpose, we employ an inverse design approach, which maximizes the volume under the broadband modulation transfer function of the meta-optics. Beyond that, we demonstrate polarization-multiplexed functionality in the visible. This is particularly important as polarization optics require high index materials, a characteristic often difficult to obtain in the visible.</p>","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"100 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144311799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}