Nature Photonics最新文献

{"title":"Adaptive laser-tagging optofluidic microcavity for single-molecule hydrogen detection across a nine-decade concentration span","authors":"Yan-Hong Guo, Teng Tan, Shu-Ya Yuan, Ze-Ping Wang, Zi-Han Liu, Ya-Qian Zhao, Zhen-Heng Xu, Bing Chang, Han-Ding Xia, Lei Peng, Guang-Ming Zhao, Heng Zhou, Yu Wu, Bo-Wen Li, Yun-Jiang Rao, Bai-Cheng Yao","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01955-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01955-7","url":null,"abstract":"Optical microcavities are widely used as transducers for gas sensing, yet their performance is constrained by a natural trade-off between sensitivity and dynamic range. Here we introduce a laser-tagging optofluidic microcavity that overcomes this limitation, enabling hydrogen detection across a concentration range spanning from the single-molecule level to 1.53 × 105 ppm. The architecture features a hollow whispering-gallery-mode microcavity, functionally coated on its interior surface with a Pt/WO3 nanofilm. Gas detection is mediated via thermal phonon transfer, which allows efficient gas–material interaction without perturbing the optical field, preserving an ultrahigh intrinsic Q factor of 1.89 × 109 during sensing. Through so-called laser tagging, a probe laser is dynamically locked to the microcavity’s optimal operating point, enabling real-time resonance tracking. This scheme not only suppresses phase noise by more than three orders of magnitude but also facilitates wide-bandwidth optoelectronic heterodyne demodulation. We achieve hertz-level frequency-shift resolution and a measurable resonance shift of up to 1 GHz, allowing the sensor to detect hydrogen concentrations from 3 × 10−5 ppm to 1.53 × 105 ppm. With lock-in amplification, even individual molecular dynamics can be resolved. The device’s integrated, centimetre-scale footprint ensures robust operation outside the laboratory, offering a universal strategy to advance optical microcavities towards ultraprecise metrology applications. Laser tagging in an optofluidic microcavity enables precise hydrogen concentration detection across a broad dynamic range. Using thermal phonon transfer and dynamic resonance tracking, this spectrometry method achieves high sensitivity, low noise and effective selectivity.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 9","pages":"1075-1083"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148522701","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":"Circularly polarized bulk-heterojunction memory-computing organic light-emitting diodes for a neural radiance field-based 3D display","authors":"Lixuan Liu, Zhenjia Chen, Xiao Ma, Xiaolong Li, Yongjie Cai, Shuai Liu, Weilong Huang, Di Liu, Zhenyuan Lin, Jianqi Zhang, Yuanyuan Hu, Zhixiang Wei, Huipeng Chen","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01966-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01966-4","url":null,"abstract":"Intelligent three-dimensional displays require both powerful computing capabilities and high display performance, yet these metrics have long been constrained by the inherent trade-off between efficiency and image quality. Here we introduce circularly polarized bulk-heterojunction memory-computing organic light-emitting diodes featuring an integrated memory-processing-display architecture to break this long-standing limitation. The bulk-heterojunction memory-computing organic light-emitting diode incorporates a chiral bulk-heterojunction active layer formed by an achiral emissive polymer and chiral small molecules. Through precise control of the blend composition, we co-engineer supramolecular ordering and carrier dynamics, enabling the in situ modulation of synaptic weights and multilevel conductance states. This effectively transforms organic light-emitting diodes from passive light emitters into an integrated memory-computing-display system with enhanced computing efficiency and polarized emission. The optimized device achieves a peak luminance of 22,306 cd m−2, a high circularly polarized electroluminescence dissymmetry factor of 0.92, together with ultralow energy consumption of 1.78 pJ per spike. Hardware validation using a 64 × 64 device array demonstrates uniform and distinguishable 5-bit conductance distributions, with an energy consumption of 0.046 nJ per device and 17.472 nJ per pixel per computation. We further integrate our bulk-heterojunction memory-computing organic light-emitting diodes into a neural radiance field framework, enabling stereoscopic greyscale three-dimensional scene reconstruction on 100 × 180 arrays. This memory-computing-display integration strategy provides a promising pathway towards intelligent display technologies. Circularly polarized memory-computing organic light-emitting diodes integrate three-dimensional displays with memory and processing capabilities. Optimized devices achieve luminance of over 22,000 cd m−2, dissymmetry factor of 0.92 and energy consumption down to 1.78 pJ per spike, enabling neural radiance field greyscale three-dimensional scene reconstruction.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 10","pages":"1182-1192"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148522703","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":"Beyond quantum linear optics with adaptive boson sampling","authors":"Giovanni Rodari, Tommaso Francalanci, Eugenio Caruccio, Francesco Hoch, Giorgio Milani, Gonzalo Carvacho, Taira Giordani, Nicolò Spagnolo, Riccardo Albiero, Niki Di Giano, Giacomo Corrielli, Andrea Crespi, Francesco Ceccarelli, Mattia Bossi, Abhiram Rajan, Roberto Osellame, Ulysse Chabaud, Fabio Sciarrino","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01959-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01959-3","url":null,"abstract":"Universal photon-based quantum computing requires optical nonlinearities, which can be induced by intermediate measurements and by adaptivity, to be supplied to linear-optical elements. In a near-term perspective, it is essential to probe whether dynamics going beyond linear optics can be accessed with a limited amount of resources. Although recent results show how linear-optical dynamics implies bounds on the set of photonic states that can be generated, quantitative methods for studying the emergence of nonlinear dynamics are largely missing. Here we analyse a regime in which such bounds can be surpassed. We do this by leveraging an adaptive boson sampling architecture in which the optical evolution implemented in a photonic device is progressively adapted via measurement-based feedback. We introduce practical methods to quantify the emergence of a gap with respect to linear optics and derive nonlinearity witnesses from the properties of linear-optical evolution. Then, we validate the toolbox developed within adaptive boson sampling architectures of increasing complexity implemented on a state-of-the-art photonic platform, both by realizing real-time adaptivity and by emulating adaptive protocols via post-selection for more complex configurations. In particular, we probe experimentally a regime in which nonlinear dynamics, unobtainable within a linear-optical paradigm, can arise, thus showing how optical architectures with limited adaptivity are a powerful testbed for exploring new regimes. An adaptive boson sampling architecture is developed to achieve optical evolutions beyond the usual quantum linear optics set-ups via measurement-based feedback. A set of witnesses to certify the nonlinear-optical evolution is provided.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 8","pages":"941-949"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-026-01959-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148522702","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":"Hybrid nanophotonic trap for cold atoms using surface forces and a blue-detuned evanescent field","authors":"Riccardo Pennetta, Antoine Glicenstein, Lucas Pache, Philipp Schneeweiss, Jürgen Volz, Arno Rauschenbeutel","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01961-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01961-9","url":null,"abstract":"Interfacing trapped neutral atoms with light propagating in nanophotonic waveguides enables efficient and long-range photon-mediated atom–atom interactions. Here we demonstrate a hybrid nanophotonic trap for cold neutral atoms, which leverages surface forces for attraction and blue-detuned evanescent light for repulsion. We attribute the attractive potential to a combination of the Casimir–Polder interaction and electrostatic attraction due to charges on the waveguide surface. Despite the shallow depth of the trap, we load atoms into it via adiabatic transfer from a conventional two-colour dipole trap with an efficiency of 96(5)%. Notably, the hybrid trap supports a long atomic storage time of 140(9) ms. Moreover, it exhibits a Ramsey coherence time $${T}_{2}^{* }$$  = 17.8(7) ms and spin-echo coherence time $${T}_{2}^{{prime} }$$  = 44.7(2.5) ms, which greatly exceed previously reported values. Our results pave the way for further explorations of atom–surface interactions at the nanoscale and illustrate the potential of harnessing surface forces to enhance storage and coherence times for atoms coupled to nanophotonic waveguides. This advance offers new opportunities for neutral-atom quantum technologies. A hybrid nanophotonic trap for cold caesium atoms uses surface forces for attraction and blue-detuned light for repulsion to achieve efficient loading and enhanced storage and coherence times.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 10","pages":"1153-1158"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-026-01961-9.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148432473","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":"Piconewton-sensitive cell stethoscope using an optical microcantilever","authors":"Xitao Tu, Guoliang Hao, Wenjing Tu, Yuqi Zhen, Gang Wang, Pansi Huang, Kaicheng Deng, Tao Feng, Bowen Cui, Jianbin Zhang, Yuanbiao Tong, Pan Wang, Xin Guo, Dawei Di, Yang Zhu, Tiefeng Li, Limin Tong, Lei Zhang","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01964-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01964-6","url":null,"abstract":"Cell mechanics is essential for understanding cellular motion, function and disease, and relies on measuring forces ranging from piconewtons to micronewtons in liquid environments. Yet, despite extensive technological developments, precisely monitoring cellular forces without perturbing their natural motion remains challenging, requiring a highly adaptable force sensor with piconewton-level sensitivity. Microcantilever-based sensors hold great potential but face limitations, including complex feedback systems, electromagnetic interference and limited liquid compatibility. Here we report a cell stethoscope based on an optical microcantilever that demonstrates an ultrasensitive optical phase detection system within a miniaturized microfibre interferometric structure, achieving subpiconewton sensitivity and megahertz-level responses. The microfibre is encapsulated in a biocompatible film, providing excellent liquid compatibility and immunity to electromagnetic interference, as demonstrated by piconewton-resolution dynamic force sensing in liquid-phase physicochemical reactions. We establish the microcantilever as a versatile platform for cell mechanics analysis, achieving real-time quantitative analysis and acoustic monitoring of cardiomyocyte contractions under electrical stimulation, enabling non-invasive mechanical characterization of live cells. Meanwhile, the transparent microcantilever allows simultaneous optical observation and calcium fluorescence imaging of the underlying cell, facilitating multiparametric cellular analysis. These results showcase precise sensing of cellular mechanical dynamics across diverse environments, providing emerging opportunities in cellular mechanics and biomechanics. An optical microcantilever sensor achieves piconewton sensitivity for dynamic force measurements in liquid environments, enabling non-invasive monitoring of cellular mechanics. The stethoscope platform captures real-time dynamics for enhanced understanding of biomechanics.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 10","pages":"1205-1213"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148432510","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":"Electro-optic comb-empowered measurement of the dynamic frequency of a laser","authors":"Weiwei Yang, Xingyu Jia, Jingyi Wang, Xinlun Cai, Yang Li, Guanhao Wu","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01957-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01957-5","url":null,"abstract":"Frequency-modulated lasers are widely used in spectroscopy, biology and LiDAR. The performance of these applications depends strongly on accurate tracking of the frequencies of frequency-modulated lasers. So far, real-time tracking of the frequencies of frequency-modulated lasers remains challenging. Here we propose dual electro-optic comb-based frequency tracking method by achieving integrated lithium niobate electro-optic combs with known carrier-envelope offset frequencies, arbitrarily tunable repetition rates and 29.45-nm bandwidth, enabling tracking of the frequencies of frequency-modulated lasers with a chirp rate up to 2 × 1018 Hz s−1, which is more than three orders of magnitude beyond the state of the art. Our method enabled frequency-modulated continuous wave ranging using a frequency-modulated laser with severe mode hops, nonlinearity and frequency overlapping. Our method lays the foundation for high-precision measurements of frequency, distance, and time using frequency-modulated lasers, enabling metrology with mode-hopping and high-chirp-rate frequency-modulated lasers. Using integrated lithium niobate electro-optic frequency combs with slightly different repetition rates, accurate tracking of the frequency variation in a frequency-modulated laser enables stable and high-precision 3D scene ranging.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 9","pages":"1048-1055"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148409207","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":"Tracking electrons at the space-time limit","authors":"S. Maier, R. Spachtholz, K. Glöckl, C. M. Bustamante, S. Lingl, M. Maczejka, J. Schön, A. Riedel, K. Richter, F. J. Giessibl, F. P. Bonafé, M. A. Huber, A. Rubio, J. Repp, R. Huber","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01932-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01932-0","url":null,"abstract":"The dynamics of an electronic wavefunction often have non-trivial consequences on its spatial distribution, for example, during tunnelling or chemical bond formation. Yet, revealing spatio-temporal coupling requires ultrafast videography at the intrinsic size of electronic wavefunctions, at the so-called space-time limit. Here we experimentally access the intrinsic quantum motion of individual electrons at the space-time limit while they are tunnelling through an energy barrier, using atomic-scale lightwave-driven scanning tunnelling microscopy with attosecond time resolution. While modulating the tunnelling barrier with two time-delayed near-infrared pulses forming phase-controlled single-cycle waveforms, isolated electron tunnelling transients shorter than 1 fs are identified. The measured spatial extension depends on the interplay of multi-photon and field-driven dynamics, as confirmed by full quantum simulations. We experimentally localize the attosecond-confined tunnelling wave packet on the angstrom scale and use it to map a single copper adatom on a silver surface. This fusion of attosecond science with atomic-scale scanning tunnelling microscopy makes it possible to study wavefunction dynamics inside atoms, molecules and solids. Atomic-scale lightwave-driven scanning tunnelling microscopy with attosecond time resolution observes individual electrons while they are tunnelling through an energy barrier.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 8","pages":"961-967"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-026-01932-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148385831","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":"Organic cocrystals offer record photothermal conversion","authors":"Rong-Ran Liang, Xin Zhao","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01952-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01952-w","url":null,"abstract":"Polar cocrystals made from two centrosymmetric components use quantum coherent beating to enhance photothermal conversion, setting a new high temperature for organic solids exposed to laser light.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 7","pages":"737-738"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148366131","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":"Visualizing optical anisotropy","authors":"Han Wang \u0000 (, ), Peng Xi \u0000 (, )","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01950-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01950-y","url":null,"abstract":"A non-interferometric imaging framework enables quantitative 3D reconstruction of full dielectric tensors, opening a practical route to volumetric optical measurement of biaxial anisotropy in complex materials and biological structures.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 7","pages":"741-743"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148366134","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":"Optical shaping of nanoplasma shockwaves","authors":"Jacopo Fregoni","doi":"10.1038/s41566-026-01956-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-026-01956-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"20 7","pages":"746-746"},"PeriodicalIF":38.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148366125","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}