Nature Photonics最新文献

{"title":"Ultrafast electron diffraction with MeV electron source from a laser wakefield accelerator","authors":"Yu Fang, Fei Li, Jianfei Hua, Bo Guo, Xiaonan Ning, Zhihao Chen, Jianyi Liu, Bing Zhou, Linyi Zhou, Zheng Zhou, Yipeng Wu, Yingchao Du, Renkai Li, Wei Lu","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01980-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01980-6","url":null,"abstract":"MeV ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) is a widely used technique for ultrafast structural dynamics studies of matter in numerous areas. The development of the laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) shows great potential for an advanced all-optical electron source based on LWFA in UED applications. Here we experimentally demonstrated that an LWFA-based device with a miniaturized permanent magnet beamline can generate and manipulate electron beams suitable for UED. During beam transport, the LWFA electron beams with intrinsically short duration undergo temporal stretching owing to the energy spread and are subsequently compressed by the following double-bend achromat. The optimized double-bend achromat can make the beamline isochronous such that the arrival time jitter induced by the shot-to-shot energy fluctuation can be eliminated, and allow the advantage of the natural laser-beam synchronization for LWFAs to emerge. With the energy filtering, the beam energy spread can be reduced to 3% (full-width at half-maximum), while a sufficient amount of charge (11.9 fC) per bunch for diffraction is retained. Using a laser-driven terahertz deflector, the beam length and arrival time jitter measured at the sample location are approximately 49.6 fs (root mean square (r.m.s.)) and 4.7 fs (r.m.s.), respectively, resulting in a temporal resolution of ~49.8 fs. Comprehensive start-to-end simulations indicate the potential of reducing the bunch length to ~10 fs (r.m.s.) with a lower energy spread of around 1.6%. Clear single-shot and multi-shot diffraction patterns of single-crystalline gold samples are obtained, and the derived lattice constant agrees well with the actual value. Our proof-of-principle experiments open the door to the detection of ultrafast structural dynamics using MeV LWFA beams, and pave the way for UED applications with sub-10 fs temporal resolution. Researchers demonstrate that a laser wakefield accelerator-based device with a miniaturized permanent magnet beamline can generate and manipulate electron beams suitable for ultrafast electron diffraction.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 9","pages":"1056-1061"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148769171","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}

{"title":"Edge-on perovskite detectors with suppressed shallow traps for counting X-ray photons at medical computed tomography fluxes","authors":"Shaojie Wang, Mingze Li, Allen Wood, Jian Wang, Hua Zhou, Zhijun Li, He Liu, Jinsong Huang","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01992-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-026-01992-2","url":null,"abstract":"Metal halide perovskite semiconductors are becoming promising candidates for X-ray photon-counting detectors due to their combination of strong stopping power, excellent electronic properties and low cost. However, a key challenge for semiconductor photon-counting computed tomography detectors is that existing response speeds are insufficient to count high-flux X-ray photons at a rate of 3 × 106–1 × 108 photons per second per square millimetre (s−1 mm−2) in common computed tomography scanning. Here we report a combination of edge-on device configuration and chloride alloying to increase the response speed of perovskite photon-counting detectors. The edge-on configuration shortens the charge collection distance by 15 times while maintaining the X-ray absorption, reducing charge transit time by 225 times. Surprisingly, we find that free charges generated by nearly every incident X-ray photon encounter shallow traps in formamidinium lead bromide (FAPbBr3) crystal devices. Chloride alloying of FAPbBr3 crystals dramatically reduces shallow trap density, increasing detector response speed. The high electric field in the edge-on detectors enables complete extraction of charges even if they are trapped by shallow defects. The resulting perovskite detectors show a response time of 37 ns after deconvolution. The edge-on detectors with a pixel size of 200 × 200 µm2 can count 120-kVp X-ray photons, with a high flux of 2 × 108 photons s−1 mm−2, enabling the application of perovskite photon-counting detectors for photon-counting computed tomography and many other applications.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148769127","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}

{"title":"Cold-atom comagnetometry via optical control of spin states","authors":"J.-L. Zhang \u0000 (张洁琳), W.-T. Luo \u0000 (罗炜涛), Y. A. Yang, Y.-Q. Wang \u0000 (王雨琦), T. Xia, Z.-T. Lu","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01982-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-026-01982-4","url":null,"abstract":"Atomic-spin-based comagnetometers are powerful tools for precision sensing and tests of fundamental physics. Compared with the widely used gas-cell comagnetometer systems, cold-atom systems offer access to much shorter distance scales and allow the implementation of optical quantum control techniques. However, to realize long spin coherence times with cold atoms, it is necessary to use diamagnetic atoms and overcome decoherence induced by light shifts. Here we demonstrate a cold-atom comagnetometer based on the nuclear spins of 171Yb (spin-1/2) and 173Yb (spin-5/2), jointly trapped in an optical lattice. Vector light shifts are suppressed by enforcing linear polarization of the lattice, whereas tensor shifts in 173Yb are suppressed via the use of a Schrödinger cat state. This enables simultaneous Ramsey interferometry on both isotopes with a spin coherence time of 60 s. We achieve a magnetic noise suppression factor exceeding 3 × 104, and determine the 171Yb–173Yb ratio of nuclear magnetic moments to be –0.726076(3) with a 4-ppm precision. Our results establish a new cold-atom platform for spin-based sensing and open pathways towards quantum-enhanced searches for physics beyond the Standard Model.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"187 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148769132","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}

{"title":"X-ray-driven Hanbury Brown and Twiss spectroscopy","authors":"Shaul Katznelson, Noam Kasten, Offek Tziperman, Avner Shultzman, Tomer Bucher, Tom Lenkiewicz-Abudi, Roman Schuetz, Orr Be’er, Shai Levy, Rotem Strassberg, Georgy Dosovitskiy, Sotatsu Yanagimoto, Francis Loignon-Houle, Yehonadav Bekenstein, Charles Roques-Carmes, Ido Kaminer","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01981-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-026-01981-5","url":null,"abstract":"Hanbury Brown and Twiss interferometry was a milestone experiment that transformed our understanding of the nature of light. Originally demonstrated in 1956 to measure the radii of stars through photon-correlation detection, it later became a cornerstone of modern quantum optics. Here we connect Hanbury Brown and Twiss interferometry to the physics of scintillation, the process of spontaneous light emission upon excitation by high-energy particles, such as X-rays. By revealing the underlying photon bunching in the scintillation process, we use the photon correlations ({g}^{left(2right)}left(tau right)) to quantify the intrinsic light emission properties of the scintillator, specifically the emission time and the number of optical photons emitted per X-ray photon. This approach provides a characterization method that we benchmark on a wide gamut of scintillators, including several rare-earth-doped (and undoped) oxide single-crystal scintillators and perovskite nanocrystals, thereby showing the dependence of their properties on temperature and X-ray flux. Our method is particularly important for nano- and microscale scintillators, whose properties are challenging to quantify by conventional means. We extract the scintillation properties even in quantum-dot superlattices of only a few hundreds of nanometres and observed strong photon bunching (({g}^{left(2right)}left(0right) > 50)). Our research paves the way for the broader use of methods from quantum optics for studying materials with complex optical properties in extreme regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":35.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148728857","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}

{"title":"Integrated optical isolators for broadband multi-laser operation","authors":"Kyunghun Han, Yiliang Bao, Junyeob Song, David A. Long, Sean Bresler, Daron Westly, Jason Gorman, Thomas LeBrun, Kartik Srinivasan, Vladimir Aksyuk","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01978-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01978-0","url":null,"abstract":"Photonic integrated circuits commonly feature visible or near-infrared lasers that are vulnerable to destabilizing back-reflections and must be protected by isolators—non-reciprocal optical components enforcing one-way light propagation. Despite recent progress, high-performance isolators remain bulky off-chip components, while on-chip implementations suffer from challenging fabrication, high optical absorption or narrow optical bandwidth. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a magnet-free, intrinsically broadband travelling-wave isolator built from foundry-compatible components. Using radio-frequency electro-optic modulation to create synthetic motion across four parallel waveguides, we realize dynamic rotating destructive interference that continuously cancels backward-propagating light while leaving forward-propagating light unaffected. We reach ~30 dB peak isolation, maintain >24 dB isolation across a 30-nm-wavelength span with thermo-optic adjustment and show >20 dB isolation for two lasers simultaneously within 10 nm without any adjustment. The demonstration’s 770–800-nm-wavelength span covers key alkali atomic transitions, enabling on-chip laser isolation for atomic spectroscopy, laser cooling and locking applications. Our isolator approach, applicable from the visible to telecom wavelength spectrum, offers a compelling practical solution, opening the way for fully integrated atomic clocks, quantum sensors, advanced telecommunications and tunable laser systems on a single chip. Radio-frequency electro-optic modulation enables a broadband integrated optical isolator that is magnet-free.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 9","pages":"1107-1115"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-026-01978-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148728854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Correlated electrons extend X-ray high-harmonic generation beyond the single-electron limit","authors":"Siyang Wang, Jieyu Yan, Alba de las Heras, Sirius Song, Aleksander Prodanov, Zhihan Wu, Luis Plaja, Dimitar Popmintchev, Tenio Popmintchev","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01976-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01976-2","url":null,"abstract":"High-harmonic generation underpins attosecond science. For over three decades, high-harmonic upconversion has been framed within the confines of a single-active-electron light–matter interaction featuring a well-defined cutoff photon energy. Here we demonstrate experimentally that correlated electrons can propel high-harmonic emission beyond this single-active-electron limit, markedly increasing the generated photon energies. We observe a weak secondary plateau that extends the conventional cutoff beyond 120 eV up to the water window at 280 eV. This phenomenon arises from double-electron recombination of strongly correlated electron pairs, resulting in a new cutoff scaling of up to 5.5 times the ponderomotive energy of the rescattering electrons, which notably deviates from the conventional scaling factor of 3.2. These findings reshape our fundamental understanding of the high-harmonic upconversion process and position high-harmonic generation as a potent photonic probe of attosecond-to-femtosecond electron correlations in quantum systems, opening new pathways for advanced ultrafast spectroscopy, novel attosecond source development and the exploration of strongly correlated quantum materials. The researchers experimentally demonstrate that correlated electrons can propel high-harmonic emission beyond the single-active-electron limit, markedly increasing the generated photon energies. The team observes a weak secondary plateau that extends the conventional cutoff beyond 120 eV up to the water window at 280 eV.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 9","pages":"1092-1098"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-026-01976-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148693594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Methods, trade-offs and opportunities in high-speed optical microscopy for neural voltage imaging","authors":"Zhaoqiang Wang, Ruth R. Sims, Sheng Xiao, Ruixuan Zhao, Ohr Benshlomo, Zihan Zang, Jiamin Wu \u0000 (, ), Valentina Emiliani, Liang Gao \u0000 (, )","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01965-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01965-5","url":null,"abstract":"Electrical signals in neurons underlie perception, movement, memory and behaviour, yet many unfold too rapidly to be captured by conventional optical imaging. Calcium imaging has transformed neuroscience but provides an indirect and relatively slow readout of electrical activity. By directly measuring membrane potential changes, voltage imaging enables millisecond-scale recording of action potentials, subthreshold dynamics and signal propagation across neural circuits. Recent advances in voltage-sensitive dyes and genetically encoded voltage indicators have made voltage imaging increasingly practical, motivating the development of fluorescence microscopy methods optimized for high-speed acquisition. However, voltage imaging remains constrained by trade-offs among imaging speed, spatial resolution, signal-to-noise ratios and photodamage. In this Review we discuss high-speed optical microscopy strategies that address these challenges and highlight the need for co-design among voltage indicators, imaging systems and computational analysis. The Review discusses recent advances in neural voltage imaging, with an emphasis on relevant microscopy techniques and outstanding challenges in the field.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 9","pages":"993-1005"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148872192","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}

{"title":"Laser–plasma amplification of an ultrabroadband laser pulse to 0.3 TW","authors":"J. L. Shaw, M. V. Ambat, K. R. McMillen, J. J. Pigeon, S. Bucht, M. Almanza, S.-W. Bahk, I. A. Begishev, R. Boni, J. Bromage, C. Dorrer, D. Haberberger, J. Katz, I. A. LaBelle, C. Mileham, R. G. Roides, M. A. Romo-Gonzalez, I. A. Settle, M. Spilatro, D. P. Turnbull, J. P. Palastro, E. P. Alves, H. G. Rinderknecht, A. B. Sefkow, D. H. Froula","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01977-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01977-1","url":null,"abstract":"Producing on-target laser intensities much greater than 1023 W cm−2 with current laser technologies is a roadblock to accessing new regimes of physics such as strong-field quantum electrodynamics. Laser–plasma amplifiers show promise to realize these intensities by augmenting the final amplifier and compressor in traditional chirped-pulse-amplification architectures with a plasma-based amplification and compression stage that operates at a much higher damage threshold. Here we demonstrate amplification of an ultrabroadband (>60 nm) pulse in a laser–plasma Raman amplifier. We directly amplified seed intensities up to 3.7 × 1015 W cm−2 and measured efficiencies up to 8.7%. Single-shot SPIDER measurements show a factor-of-2 reduction in the amplified pulse duration with final powers up to 0.3 TW, a 10× improvement over previous results. Final pulse durations of 64 fs are measured. Energy transfers greater than 220 mJ from the picosecond pump into the seed result in a 30× energy amplification of a 7.6 mJ seed. These results set the stage for a compact plasma afterburner based on Raman amplification that could extend the scientific capability of existing petawatt-class laser facilities to enable experiments at the intensity frontier. The researchers demonstrate amplification of an ultrabroadband pulse in a laser–plasma Raman amplifier, achieving efficiencies of up to 8.7%, final powers of up to 0.3 TW, and final pulse durations of 64 fs.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 9","pages":"1070-1074"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-026-01977-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148693590","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Breaking the power wall in programmable photonics","authors":"Hanke Feng, Cheng Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01960-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01960-w","url":null,"abstract":"A non-volatile photonic gate array based on ferroelectric domain switching eliminates static power consumption, pointing towards scalable and energy-efficient photonic integrated circuits.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 8","pages":"861-862"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148628736","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}

{"title":"A hot-electron-based plasmonic artificial leaf","authors":"Luís A. Pérez, Agustín Mihi","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01969-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01969-1","url":null,"abstract":"Non-radiative plasmonic decay generates energetic charge carriers that rapidly thermalize; however, if captured quickly, these hot electrons can be harnessed for a range of applications. Now, a hot-carrier artificial leaf, made by gold-titanium dioxide plasmonic interfaces, demonstrates excellent performance for both in vivo bioelectronics and pixel-free artificial vision systems.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 8","pages":"855-856"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148628732","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}