Nature PhotonicsPub Date : 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01707-z
Wei Min, Ji-Xin Cheng, Yasuyuki Ozeki
{"title":"Theory, innovations and applications of stimulated Raman scattering microscopy","authors":"Wei Min, Ji-Xin Cheng, Yasuyuki Ozeki","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01707-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01707-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Since its advent around 17 years ago, stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy has emerged as a transformative imaging modality. By visualizing chemical bonds with high sensitivity, speed, specificity and resolution, it has revolutionized our ability to probe chemical structures and dynamics in diverse biological and material systems. In this Review we first provide a comprehensive overview of the theoretical foundations of SRS spectroscopy and microscopy. We then scrutinize recent technical advancements, including various innovations in photonics technology, data science implementation and the development of imaging probes. We also highlight diverse applications of SRS microscopy including single-cell metabolism, pharmaceutical research, super-multiplex imaging and profiling, stimulated Raman histology and materials imaging in energy and environmental science. Finally, we present a perspective and future directions. This Review underscores the profound impact of SRS microscopy on interdisciplinary research and its potential for continued innovation in the imaging sciences.</p>","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"723 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144763487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature PhotonicsPub Date : 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01727-9
Vahid Sandoghdar
{"title":"Imaging single ion channels via their Rayleigh scattering","authors":"Vahid Sandoghdar","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01727-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01727-9","url":null,"abstract":"The fast and convenient study of ion channels in cells continues to pose challenges. Interferometric scattering microscopy delivers robust signals from single channels, paving the way for label-free investigation of their function in live cells.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144763401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature PhotonicsPub Date : 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01721-1
Hyeonseung Yu, Minwook Kim, YongKeun Park
{"title":"Synthetic aperture enhances virtual reality displays","authors":"Hyeonseung Yu, Minwook Kim, YongKeun Park","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01721-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01721-1","url":null,"abstract":"The clever combination of waveguide optics and AI-driven algorithms delivers a much greater eyebox volume and vivid holographic 3D scenes.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144763486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature PhotonicsPub Date : 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01728-8
Cord L. Arnold, Chen Guo, Miguel Miranda
{"title":"Single-shot spatio-temporal characterization of petawatt laser pulses","authors":"Cord L. Arnold, Chen Guo, Miguel Miranda","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01728-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01728-8","url":null,"abstract":"A spectrally and polarization-resolved wavefront detector can measure the spatio-temporal vector electric field of ultrashort laser pulses in a single shot.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144763485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature PhotonicsPub Date : 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01726-w
Alexander Poddubny
{"title":"van der Waals materials for waveguide QED","authors":"Alexander Poddubny","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01726-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01726-w","url":null,"abstract":"Guiding light is an essential task in optics, from optical fibres to compact nanoscale systems. Here, a few-atoms-thin MoTe2 layer embedded into a planar waveguide emits photons into waveguide modes that propagate coherently, paving the way for waveguide quantum electrodynamics with van der Waals materials.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144763488","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature PhotonicsPub Date : 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01742-w
David Pile
{"title":"Mapping earthquakes with light","authors":"David Pile","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01742-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01742-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Gene Ichinose and a team from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have used an optic fibre interrogator, together with an 80-km optic fibre cable that runs from the Moscone Center in San Francisco all the way to Sunnyvale in the heart of Silicon Valley, to map earthquakes with the equivalent of 8,000 virtual sensors (S. Wampler, <i>Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory</i>; 21 May 2025).</p><p>More detection and mapping of earthquakes in the area is of obvious importance, yet efforts are limited in part due to costs of detectors. Speaking to <i>Nature Photonics</i>, Ichinose explained that a high-quality seismometer of the type used by universities and the US Geological Survey typically costs around US$100,000 for one station. In their work, the LLNL team used a US$160,000 optic fibre interrogator, which effectively turned 80 km of fibre optic cable into 8,000 virtual sensors.</p>","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144763484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature PhotonicsPub Date : 2025-07-28DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01722-0
Rebecca Büchner, Jose García-Guirado, Jaime Ortega Arroyo, Romain Quidant
{"title":"Wide-field spectroscopic imaging of optical activity","authors":"Rebecca Büchner, Jose García-Guirado, Jaime Ortega Arroyo, Romain Quidant","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01722-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01722-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Optical activity spectroscopy techniques, such as circular dichroism and optical rotatory dispersion, are essential for investigating the chiral properties of molecules and materials. However, current methods often struggle to analyse heterogeneous and spatially varying chiral samples. On one hand, spectroscopic approaches, although sensitive, often require large sample volumes and produce ensemble-averaged data. On the other hand, chiral imaging delivers spatial resolution at the expense of time-consuming confocal scanning and complex instrumentation. Addressing this gap, we introduce a platform for wide-field, spectrally resolved optical activity imaging. Using polarization-sensitive off-axis holography to simultaneously capture left- and right-circularly polarized components, our system allows the single-shot retrieval of circular dichroism and optical rotatory dispersion images, as well as eliminating artefacts caused by linear anisotropies. Our results are not only consistent with traditional circular dichroism spectroscopy but also demonstrate the ability to spatially resolve local chirality variations lost by ensemble averaging, including enantiomeric excess. This platform holds great promise for analysing complex biological and material samples, expanding the scope of chiral characterization.</p>","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144715275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature PhotonicsPub Date : 2025-07-28DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01718-w
Suyeon Choi, Changwon Jang, Douglas Lanman, Gordon Wetzstein
{"title":"Synthetic aperture waveguide holography for compact mixed-reality displays with large étendue","authors":"Suyeon Choi, Changwon Jang, Douglas Lanman, Gordon Wetzstein","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01718-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01718-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Mixed-reality (MR) display systems enable transformative user experiences across various domains, including communication, education, training and entertainment. To create an immersive and accessible experience, the display engine of the MR display must project perceptually realistic 3D images over a wide field of view observable from a large range of possible pupil positions, that is, it must support a large étendue. Current MR displays, however, fall short in delivering these capabilities in a compact device form factor. Here we present an ultra-thin MR display design that overcomes these challenges using a unique combination of waveguide holography and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven holography algorithms. One of the key innovations of our display system is a compact, custom-designed waveguide for holographic near-eye displays that supports a large effective étendue. This is co-designed with an AI-based algorithmic framework combining an implicit large-étendue waveguide model, an efficient wave propagation model for partially coherent mutual intensity and a computer-generated holography framework. Together, our unique co-design of a waveguide holography system and AI-driven holographic algorithms represents an important advancement in creating visually comfortable and perceptually realistic 3D MR experiences in a compact wearable device.</p>","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"63 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144715276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature PhotonicsPub Date : 2025-07-21DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01725-x
Danpeng Gao, Bo Li, Xianglang Sun, Qi Liu, Chunlei Zhang, Liangchen Qian, Zexin Yu, Xintong Li, Xin Wu, Baoze Liu, Ning Wang, Francesco Vanin, Xinxin Xia, Jie Gong, Nan Li, Xiao Cheng Zeng, Zhong’an Li, Zonglong Zhu
{"title":"High-efficiency perovskite solar cells enabled by suppressing intermolecular aggregation in hole-selective contacts","authors":"Danpeng Gao, Bo Li, Xianglang Sun, Qi Liu, Chunlei Zhang, Liangchen Qian, Zexin Yu, Xintong Li, Xin Wu, Baoze Liu, Ning Wang, Francesco Vanin, Xinxin Xia, Jie Gong, Nan Li, Xiao Cheng Zeng, Zhong’an Li, Zonglong Zhu","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01725-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01725-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Hole-selective contacts are crucial for improving the performance of perovskite solar cells, but their optimization still faces obstacles. For example, it is challenging to achieve uniform deposition and prevent aggregation of small-molecule materials during solution processing, negatively impacting cell efficiency, reproducibility and stability. Here we co-deposit a new p-type small molecule (D4PA) with the perovskite film. The intramolecular C–C coupling in D4PA enables strong multi-anchoring interactions with both the perovskite and substrate, enhancing interfacial charge transport and inhibiting defect formation within the perovskite layer. The C–C coupling also introduces steric hindrance, creating twisted molecular conformations that effectively prevent molecular aggregation, extend the solution processability and increase device reproducibility. Our devices exhibit a certified power conversion efficiency of 26.72% and a certified maximum power point tracking efficiency of 26.14% in small-area devices. A power conversion efficiency of 23.37% and a certified maximum power point tracking efficiency of 22.66% are achieved in a mini-module with an effective area of 10.86 cm<sup>2</sup>. The devices maintain over 97.2% of their initial efficiency after 2,500 h of continuous operation at their maximum power point.</p>","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144669620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature PhotonicsPub Date : 2025-07-21DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01738-6
Yinhui Kan, Paul C. V. Thrane, Xujing Liu, Shailesh Kumar, Chao Meng, Radu Malureanu, Sergey I. Bozhevolnyi
{"title":"Author Correction: Ångström-tunable polarization-resolved solid-state photon sources","authors":"Yinhui Kan, Paul C. V. Thrane, Xujing Liu, Shailesh Kumar, Chao Meng, Radu Malureanu, Sergey I. Bozhevolnyi","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01738-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01738-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Correction to: <i>Nature Photonics</i> https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01709-x, published online 20 June 2025.</p>","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"142 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144677860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}