{"title":"Two-terminal β-Ga2O3 photo-synapse for diversified in-sensor computing via self-trapped holes engineering.","authors":"Yiyin Nie,Shujie Jiao,Xing Yang,Shiyong Gao,Dongbo Wang,Yongfeng Li,Jinzhong Wang,Liancheng Zhao","doi":"10.1038/s41377-026-02298-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-026-02298-2","url":null,"abstract":"The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence has propelled the development of β-Ga2O3 photo-synapses for solar-blind ultraviolet neuromorphic machine vision systems. However, existing β-Ga2O3 photo-synapses not only exhibit reduced stability but also display high weight update nonlinearity. Herein, we propose a novel strategy to construct β-Ga2O3 photo-synapses with low weight update nonlinearity based on self-trapped holes, aiming to achieve multi-level in-sensor computing tasks. Theoretical and experimental investigations revealed that the interaction between the larger effective mass of holes and local lattice distortions in β-Ga2O3 promoted the formation of self-trapped holes, which significantly reduced hole mobility and enhanced the persistent photocurrent effect. The fabricated β-Ga2O3 photo-synapses exhibited excellent short-term plasticity, which could be transited to long-term plasticity by adjusting the characteristics of 252 nm ultraviolet light. Moreover, the devices achieved a low weight update nonlinearity of 0.42, outperforming most previously reported photo-synapses. Finally, β-Ga2O3 photo-synapses were integrated into neuromorphic machine vision systems, enabling tasks ranging from low-level image classification to high-level motion recognition, achieving recognition accuracies of 99.48% and 92.70% on the MNIST and Fashion-MNIST datasets. It also maintained 100% target tracking accuracy under 60% Gaussian noise interference and reached a recognition accuracy of 94.94% for 10 motions in UTD-MHAD dataset. These results highlight great potential of β-Ga2O3 photo-synapses based on self-trapped holes engineering in the era of artificial intelligence.","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148348919","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":"Multi-dimensional spatial-temporal projection ultrafast compressed imaging.","authors":"Yizhao Meng,Pengfei Zhang,Jiaxin Yin,Yu Lu,Kaiduan Yue,Fei Yin,Qing Yang,Feng Chen","doi":"10.1038/s41377-026-02317-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-026-02317-2","url":null,"abstract":"Studying various non-repeatable transient phenomena such as the transfer of photosynthetic energy and protein folding is crucial for gaining in-depth insights into multiple disciplines, while single-shot ultrafast compressed imaging provides a potent method for revealing the ultrafast dynamic process. The principle of this technology involves projecting encoded transient phenomena along a one-dimensional spatial axis onto the focal plane array and reconstructing the transient data via compressed sensing, enabling an extremely high imaging sequence depth at THz frame rates. However, this imaging method relying on single-dimensional spatial-temporal projection (SSP) suffers from severe directional constraints on reconstruction resolution, due to the suppressing of spatial features along non-projection direction. Consequently, this bottleneck seriously restricts the observation of complex transient features, hindering this technology to balance both high sequence depth and ultra-high spatial resolution. In this paper, we propose a multi-dimensional spatial-temporal projection ultrafast compressed imaging technique (MSP), which integrates multi-angle spatial-temporal data projection module into traditional SSP system. By computationally coupling projection images from both systems, MSP effectively restores omnidirectional frequency information, significantly enhancing spatial resolution. Static experiments demonstrate that both the lateral resolution and longitudinal resolution of MSP have reached 813 lp mm-1 (620 nm spatial resolution). Using MSP, we have successfully observed the transient process of femtosecond laser-material interaction with sub-micron all-directional accuracy under a 60-frame acquisition in a single-shot. MSP provides a new method for observing complex and changeable transient processes, and shows important potential in promoting the basic research of transient phenomena.","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148348917","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":"Reading, decrypting, and actuating with light in soft-robotic materials.","authors":"Sieun Jeon,Dong Ki Yoon","doi":"10.1038/s41377-026-02383-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-026-02383-6","url":null,"abstract":"An optically interactive soft robotic system based on liquid crystal networks and silk fibroin integrates holographic command storage, encryption, visual display, and actuation into a single soft-matter platform. This approach moves soft robots beyond conventional stimulus-response systems toward architectures that embed information processing directly within the material.","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"251 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148335791","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":"Reconfigurable ferroelectric chiral nanostructures enable fast-switchable optical spatial differentiation.","authors":"Wen Chen,Dong Zhu,Su-Nan Chen,Yi-Heng Zhang,Si-Jia Liu,Rui Sun,Yi-Ming Wang,Lin Zhu,Shi-Hui Ding,Shi-Jun Ge,Yan-Qing Lu,Peng Chen","doi":"10.1038/s41377-026-02363-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-026-02363-w","url":null,"abstract":"Analog spatial differentiation is an emerging computational paradigm. By virtue of high speed and low-power consumption, optical method plays an important role in data compression, microscopy and computer vision. However, most developed optical differentiators are static and lack the reconfigurability of differentiation functions. Herein, we propose a reconfigurable space-variant ferroelectric chiral nanostructure to dynamically control the optical differentiation. Via switching the polarity of external electric field, 1st-order/2nd-order spatial differentiation or bright-field imaging can be actively selected with an ultra-short response time down to 62 μs. Edges of biological cells, as well as intensity objects, can be well identified, while their direct imaging is also achievable synchronously. Such fast-switchable differentiator shows excellent reliability and reversibility for over 1.8 million cycles and over 200 days. This work advances the ingenious building of ferroelectric nanostructures, and offers an important glimpse into their potential in neuromorphic photonics, biomedical microscopy and artificial intelligence.","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148335793","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":"Towards theoretical foundation for high-precision fringe projection profilometry system design and optimization.","authors":"Song Zhang","doi":"10.1038/s41377-026-02393-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-026-02393-4","url":null,"abstract":"A rigorous theoretical foundation for the design, evaluation, and optimization of high-precision FPP systems is critically needed. A recent article published in Light: Science & Applications marks an important step toward this goal.","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148335795","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}
Junhan Huang, Bingbing Zhu, Shanyue Li, Kun Ding, Zhensheng Tao
{"title":"Stabilization and destabilization of multimode solitons in nonlinear degenerate multi-pass cavities","authors":"Junhan Huang, Bingbing Zhu, Shanyue Li, Kun Ding, Zhensheng Tao","doi":"10.1038/s41377-026-02327-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-026-02327-0","url":null,"abstract":"Optical solitons in multimode nonlinear optical systems offer a unique platform for exploring the interplay of nonlinearity, dispersion, and spatial mode coupling, offering insights into complex nonlinear wave phenomena. Multi-pass cavities (MPCs) incorporating nonlinear Kerr media serve as prototypical systems, enabling high-efficiency supercontinuum generation and pulse compression. However, stabilizing femtosecond laser pulses in solid-medium-based MPCs (solid MPCs) under strong Kerr nonlinearity remains a significant challenge due to multimode coupling, which disrupts beam stability. In this work, we address this challenge by investigating the stability of laser pulses in MPCs using a Floquet and perturbative model. We identify novel mode-coupling-suppression (MCS) medium lengths, where destructive interference among multimode wave components suppresses coupling and facilitates soliton stabilization. Under MCS conditions, our simulations demonstrate stable beam propagation in solid MPCs with nonlinear phases up to 1.5π per pass, achieving >13-fold pulse compression with excellent spatio-spectral homogeneity. Our findings offer valuable guidance for designing advanced MPCs with tailored Kerr media.","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"207 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148336450","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":"Drastically magnetically tuned coupling strength and nonlinearity in CrSBr exciton-polaritons.","authors":"Chun Li,Chao Shen,Xuekai Ma,Kwok Kwan Tang,Yutong Zhang,Nai Jiang,Xinyi Deng,Qing Wan,Jiepeng Song,Jiaqi Guo,Tian Lan,Hailong Fu,Feng Li,Yilin Wang,Xinfeng Liu,Qing Zhang","doi":"10.1038/s41377-026-02371-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-026-02371-w","url":null,"abstract":"Two-dimensional van der Waals magnetic semiconductor CrSBr offers an ideal platform to achieve exciton-polaritons correlated with magnetic order for developing solid-state quantum, spintronic, and photonic devices. However, for the exciton-polaritons formed by lower-energy excitons (XL ≈ 1.37 eV), the coupling strength and nonlinear optical response are almost inert to the external magnetic field. Here, we demonstrate robust strong coupling between higher-energy excitons (XH ≈ 1.8 eV) and photons that persists up to room temperature, along with giant magnetic-field tunability. The Rabi splitting energy is tuned up to 100 meV within a moderate 0.45 T in-plane magnetic field due to changes in excitonic states during the spin transitions. Besides, we observe significantly enhanced polariton nonlinearity in the intermediate magnetic phase, which exhibits a distinct mode-number dependence and originates from magnon-assisted long-range attractive interactions and coupling strength reduction. These results advance the development of on-demand polariton platforms for spin-correlated quantum optoelectronics.","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"196 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148335790","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":"Operando tracking of ion kinetics and state-of-charge via multiresonant fiber-optic grating sensors in sodium-ion batteries.","authors":"Xile Han,Jinliang Li,Wen Wu,Jiajian Long,Xumiao Chen,Yongqi Li,Man Chen,Gaozhi Xiao,Yongjin Fang,Wenjie Mai,Tuan Guo","doi":"10.1038/s41377-026-02388-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-026-02388-1","url":null,"abstract":"Ion transport within the sub-micron diffusion layer at the electrode-electrolyte interface governs battery function, yet probing its rapid, confined dynamics under operating conditions remains a challenge. Here, we introduce a compact, highly sensitive multiresonant fiber-optic grating sensor that monitors these processes operando in sodium-ion batteries without interfering with their operation. Using this approach, we reveal an intermediate stage of ion transport between adsorption and diffusion at the interface. We find that a shorter duration of this intermediate stage correlates with superior fast-charging performance. Furthermore, by integrating the sensor's optical intensity in real time, we achieve state-of-charge quantification with unprecedented accuracy (>98%). This operando measurement platform offers a new capability for battery diagnostics and can inform the design of next-generation batteries with enhanced electrochemical properties.","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148335794","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":"Towards a physics-informed network paradigm with data generation and background noise removal for different distributed acoustic sensing applications","authors":"Yangyang Wan, Haotian Wang, Xuhui Yu, Jiageng Chen, Xinyu Fan, Zuyuan He","doi":"10.1038/s41377-026-02295-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-026-02295-5","url":null,"abstract":"Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) has attracted considerable attention across various fields, and artificial intelligence (AI) technology plays a vital role in DAS applications for event recognition and denoising. Existing AI models require real-world data (RWD), whether labeled or not, for training, which is contradictory to the reality of limited available event data in practical scenarios. Here, a physics-informed DAS neural network paradigm is proposed, which eliminates the need for real-world event data during training. By physically modeling the target events along with real-world and DAS system constraints, physical functions are derived to train a generative network for the synthesis of DAS event data. A DAS noise-removal network is then trained using the generated data to effectively eliminate background noise in DAS measurements. The effectiveness of the proposed paradigm is demonstrated in two applications: event identification based on a public DAS spatiotemporal dataset, and belt conveyor fault monitoring based on DAS time-frequency data. In both cases, the paradigm achieves comparable or superior performance to data-driven networks trained with RWD. Owing to the incorporation of physical information and the ability to remove background noise, the proposed approach shows strong generalization capability across different sites within the same application. Notably, a fault diagnosis accuracy of 91.8% is achieved in a real belt conveyor field using networks transferred from a simulation test site, without using any fault event data from the target field during training. The proposed paradigm offers a potential solution to the critical challenges of limited data availability and intense noise in practical DAS applications.","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148305292","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":"Deciphering optical coupled resonant systems with physics-data co-driven deep neural networks.","authors":"Song-Yi Liu,Hao-Tian Zhong,Xiao-Chong Yu,Bo-Lun Zhang,Liu-Yang Zhang,Yi Xu,Ning-Hua Zhu,Jin-Hui Chen,Hua-Shun Wen,Shan-Guo Huang,Da-Quan Yang","doi":"10.1038/s41377-026-02389-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-026-02389-0","url":null,"abstract":"Coupled mode theory (CMT) is a universal method for studying resonant systems in various disciplines in science. Combined with traditional fitting methods, implicit physical parameters of the resonant systems can be revealed. However, this methodology fails in tackling the scenario of multi-solution for a given resonant system, resembling a fundamental challenge that has not been addressed yet. In this work, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a CMT physics and data co-driven deep neural network (CMT-NN) that can predict the implicit physical parameters of complex resonant systems in a rapid and precise way. More importantly, the challenge of multi-solution is mitigated by incorporating physical eigenvalues and response of the system in evaluating the physics consistency of the neural network. The applicability and generality of CMT-NN are demonstrated by simulations and experiments, where the CMT-NN can capture subtle spectral features and learn the coupling physical properties effectively. Compared with the traditional fitting method, the average computation time has been reduced by three orders of magnitude and the prediction performance is improved by more than two orders of magnitude. Displacement sensing experiments further validate the robustness of CMT-NN. It is anticipated that the CMT-NN can provide a paradigm shift in using the CMT for studying resonant systems and shed new light on the understanding, design and optimization of various coupled resonant systems.","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148304888","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}