Nature Photonics最新文献

{"title":"Electrochemically modulated interferometric scattering microscopy for imaging ion channel activity in live cells","authors":"Qing-Yue Li, Pin-Tian Lyu, Bin Kang, Hong-Yuan Chen, Jing-Juan Xu","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01696-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-025-01696-z","url":null,"abstract":"Studying ion channel activity and signalling interactions within cells are key tasks in neuroscience. Electrophysiological activities are typically measured with patch-clamp or voltage-sensitive imaging. Unfortunately, these techniques suffer from a trade-off between single-channel sensitivity and high-throughput detection. Here we introduce a label-free electrochemically modulated interferometric scattering microscope (EM-iSCAT) to measure ion channel activity on live cells at both the whole-cell and single-channel levels. We visualize the cellular responses dynamics to osmotic stimulation and record open–close trajectories of single receptor channels with a frame rate of 1.5 kHz. We also localize and distinguish different types of ion channels, including Na+, K+ and Ca2+, on the cell membrane and monitor spatio-temporal heterogeneous responses between different cells in a network. The high-throughput and single-channel sensitivity of EM-iSCAT microscopy enables the simultaneous monitoring of the activity of individual channels, their localization and clustering in the cellular community. EM-iSCAT has the potential to enable the study of any type of ion channel and, more broadly, cell communication pathways mediated by ion channels. Electrochemical modulation enables iSCAT microscopy to detect the electrical activity of live cells by localizing and identifying different types of ion channels down to the single-channel level and imaging frame rates up to 1.5 kHz.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"19 8","pages":"871-878"},"PeriodicalIF":32.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144218771","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":"Splitting light pulses","authors":"Riccardo Sapienza","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01691-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-025-01691-4","url":null,"abstract":"Combining spatial and temporal modulation in aluminium zinc oxide metamaterials allows the fission of beams with distinct angles and frequencies, paving the way for advanced optical devices and applications like ultrafast beam steering and integrated neural networks.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"19 6","pages":"551-552"},"PeriodicalIF":32.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144218765","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":"Controlling magnetization dynamics in a single step","authors":"Edoardo Baldini","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01690-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-025-01690-5","url":null,"abstract":"A new method that uses light-induced superconducting quenches to generate abrupt, sub-picosecond, local magnetic field steps has potential applications ranging from spintronics to spectroscopy of quantum materials.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"19 6","pages":"553-554"},"PeriodicalIF":32.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144218766","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":"Ultrafast tunable photonic-integrated extended-DBR Pockels laser","authors":"Anat Siddharth, Simone Bianconi, Rui Ning Wang, Zheru Qiu, Andrey S. Voloshin, Mohammad J. Bereyhi, Johann Riemensberger, Tobias J. Kippenberg","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01687-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-025-01687-0","url":null,"abstract":"Frequency-agile lasers that can simultaneously feature low noise characteristics and fast mode-hop-free frequency tuning are keystone components for applications ranging from LiDAR and distributed sensing to communication and quantum information processing. Hybrid integrated lasers have recently demonstrated faster tuning and lower phase noise than the best legacy systems, including fibre lasers, offering new avenues for compact and scalable frequency-agile lasers. In particular, Pockels-tunable lasers based on self-injection locking to high-Q optical microresonators fabricated from lithium niobate on insulator have achieved ultrafast tuning rates reaching the petahertz per second. However, the impact of these lasers is still hampered by the dynamics of self-injection locking, which limits the maximum tuning range, output power and dictates high operational complexity. Here we overcome these limitations and demonstrate a turn-key-operable hybrid integrated Pockels laser featuring a mode-hop-free tuning range of over 10 GHz, a tuning efficiency of over 550 MHz V–1, tuning rates reaching the exahertz per second and a high output power of 15 mW. We achieve this drastic improvement of hybrid integrated laser performance with an elegant and compact external distributed Bragg reflector architecture that combines an inexpensive reflective semiconductor optical amplifier with an electro-optically-actuated distributed Bragg reflector manufactured at the wafer scale. The excellent linearity and coherence of the external distributed Bragg reflector Pockels laser, together with its unprecedented tuning bandwidth and range—a combination unmet by legacy bulk lasers—make it an ideal candidate for applications in frequency-modulated continuous-wave LiDAR, distributed fibre sensing and atmospheric gas metrology. We demonstrate this performance and flexibility in a proof-of-concept frequency-modulated continuous-wave LiDAR experiment, achieving a 4 cm distance resolution over a 20,000 voxel acquisition in 100 ms, as well as in a hydrogen cyanide spectroscopy experiment. The compact and rugged Pockels laser assembly has been packaged in a commercial butterfly package, improving its resilience to environmental noise and demonstrating long-term stability with a frequency fluctuation of the free-running laser of below 25 MHz over 2.5 h. A turn-key-operable hybrid integrated Pockels laser based on an external distributed Bragg waveguide grating reflector fabricated in a wafer-scale thin-film lithium niobate on insulator platform is demonstrated, with a tuning efficiency of over 550 MHz V–1, tuning rates reaching the exahertz per second, and a high output power of 15 mW.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"19 7","pages":"709-717"},"PeriodicalIF":32.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144219309","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":"Microscale generation and control of nanosecond light by light in a liquid crystal","authors":"Mahendran Vellaichamy, Uroš Jagodič, Jaka Pišljar, Jaka Zaplotnik, Urban Mur, Andreja Jelen, Andriy Nych, Deepshika Malkar, Anna V. Ryzhkova, Miha Škarabot, Miha Ravnik, Igor Muševič","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01693-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-025-01693-2","url":null,"abstract":"The softness of liquid crystals, their anisotropic material properties, their strong response to external fields and their ability to align on patterned surfaces makes them unsurpassable for a number of photonic applications, such as flat-panel displays, light modulators, tunable filters, entangled photon light sources, lasers and many others. However, the microscale integration of liquid crystals into microphotonic devices that not only perform like silicon photonic chips but also use less energy, operate exclusively on light, are biocompatible and can self-assemble has not been explored. Here we demonstrate a soft-matter photonic chip that integrates tunable liquid-crystal microlasers and laser microprinted polymer waveguides. We demonstrate the control of the liquid crystal’s microlaser emission by nanosecond optical pulses and introduce the concept of resonant stimulated-emission depletion to switch the light by light. This opens a way to design an entirely new class of photonic integrated devices that can be made both biodegradable and biocompatible with a rich variety of applications in medicine, wearable photonics and logic circuits. We anticipate that soft-matter photonic circuits will not only outperform solid-state photonics in terms of a huge reduction in the number of production steps, the use of non-toxic chemicals and a better energy efficiency, but also could open an avenue to the paradigm of soft-matter photonics. Combining advanced photonics with reconfigurable liquid crystalline self-assembled structures allows control of a liquid crystal’s microlaser emission by nanosecond optical pulses and the ability to switch off the laser emission from the liquid crystal using the resonant stimulated-emission depletion process, providing a design for a new class of photonic integrated devices.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"19 7","pages":"758-766"},"PeriodicalIF":32.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-025-01693-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144201525","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":"Van der Waals waveguide quantum electrodynamics probed by infrared nano-photoluminescence","authors":"S. L. Moore, H. Y. Lee, N. Rivera, Y. Karube, M. Ziffer, E. S. Yanev, T. P. Darlington, A. J. Sternbach, M. A. Holbrook, J. Pack, X. Xu, C. R. Dean, J. S. Owen, P. J. Schuck, M. Delor, X. Y. Zhu, J. Hone, D. N. Basov","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01694-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-025-01694-1","url":null,"abstract":"Atomically layered van der Waals (vdW) materials exhibit remarkable properties, including highly confined infrared waveguide modes and the capacity for infrared emission in the monolayer limit. Here we engineered structures that leverage both of these nano-optical functionalities. Specifically, we encased a photoluminescing atomic sheet of MoTe2 within two bulk crystals of WSe2, forming a vdW waveguide for the embedded light-emitting monolayer. The modified electromagnetic environment offered by the WSe2 waveguide alters MoTe2 spontaneous emission—a phenomenon we directly image with our interferometric nano-photoluminescence technique. We captured spatially oscillating nanoscale patterns prompted by spontaneous emission from MoTe2 into waveguide modes of WSe2 slabs. We quantify the resulting Purcell-enhanced emission rate within the framework of a waveguide quantum electrodynamics model, relating the MoTe2 spontaneous emission rate to the measured waveguide dispersion. Our work marks a substantial advance in the implementation of all-vdW quantum electrodynamics waveguides. A nano-optical probe of the Purcell effect in a van der Waals waveguide is demonstrated, exploiting its highly confined infrared waveguide modes and the capacity for infrared emission in the monolayer limit of atomically layered van der Waals materials.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"19 8","pages":"833-839"},"PeriodicalIF":32.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144201480","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":"Ultrafast coherent dynamics of microring modulators","authors":"Alireza Geravand, Zibo Zheng, Farshid Shateri, Simon Levasseur, Leslie A. Rusch, Wei Shi","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01686-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-025-01686-1","url":null,"abstract":"Next-generation computing clusters require ultra-high-bandwidth optical interconnects to support large-scale artificial-intelligence applications. These electronic–photonic co-integrated systems necessitate densely integrated high-speed electro-optical converters. In this context, microring modulators (MRMs) emerge as a promising solution, prized for their exceptional compactness and energy efficiency. Nevertheless, their potential is curtailed by inherent challenges, such as pronounced frequency chirp and dynamic nonlinearity. Moreover, a comprehensive understanding of their coherent dynamics is still lacking, which further constrains their applicability and efficiency. Consequently, these constraints have confined their use to spectrally inefficient intensity-modulation direct-detection links. Here we present a thorough study of MRM coherent dynamics, unlocking phase as a new dimension for MRM-based high-speed data transmission in advanced modulation formats. We demonstrate that the phase and intensity modulations of MRMs exhibit distinct yet coupled dynamics, limiting their direct application in higher-order modulation formats. This challenge can be addressed by embedding a pair of MRMs within a Mach–Zehnder interferometer in a push–pull configuration, enabling a bistable phase response and unchirped amplitude modulation. Furthermore, we show that its amplitude frequency response exhibits a distinct dependency on frequency detuning compared with phase and intensity modulations of MRMs, without strong peaking near resonance. Harnessing the ultrafast coherent dynamics, we designed and experimentally demonstrated an ultra-compact, ultra-wide-bandwidth in-phase/quadrature modulator on a silicon chip fabricated using a complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor-compatible photonic process. Achieving a record on-chip shoreline bandwidth density exceeding 5 Tb s−1 mm−1, our device enabled coherent transmission for symbol rates up to 180 Gbaud and a net bit rate surpassing 1 Tb s−1 over an 80 km span, with modulation energy consumption as low as 10.4 fJ bit−1. An ultra-compact, ultra-wide-bandwidth in-phase/quadrature modulator on a silicon chip is demonstrated, enabling coherent transmission for symbol rates up to 180 Gbaud and a net bit rate surpassing 1 Tb s−1 over an 80 km span, with modulation energy consumption as low as 10.4 fJ bit−1, and promising enhanced performance and scalability for future networking infrastructures.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"19 7","pages":"740-750"},"PeriodicalIF":32.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144201481","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":"Experimental quantum-enhanced kernel-based machine learning on a photonic processor","authors":"Zhenghao Yin, Iris Agresti, Giovanni de Felice, Douglas Brown, Alexis Toumi, Ciro Pentangelo, Simone Piacentini, Andrea Crespi, Francesco Ceccarelli, Roberto Osellame, Bob Coecke, Philip Walther","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01682-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-025-01682-5","url":null,"abstract":"Recently, machine learning has had remarkable impact in scientific to everyday-life applications. However, complex tasks often require the consumption of unfeasible amounts of energy and computational power. Quantum computation may lower such requirements, although it is unclear whether enhancements are reachable with current technologies. Here we demonstrate a kernel method on a photonic integrated processor to perform a binary classification task. We show that our protocol outperforms state-of-the-art kernel methods such as gaussian and neural tangent kernels by exploiting quantum interference, and provides further improvements in accuracy by offering single-photon coherence. Our scheme does not require entangling gates and can modify the system dimension through additional modes and injected photons. This result gives access to more efficient algorithms and to formulating tasks where quantum effects improve standard methods. A quantum kernel estimation by which feature data points are evaluated through the unitary evolution of two-boson Fock states is experimentally demonstrated on a photonic integrated processor. This model provides enhanced accuracy with respect to commonly used classical methods for several classification tasks.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"19 9","pages":"1020-1027"},"PeriodicalIF":32.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-025-01682-5.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144192965","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":"Model-free estimation of the Cramér–Rao bound for deep learning microscopy in complex media","authors":"Ilya Starshynov, Maximilian Weimar, Lukas M. Rachbauer, Günther Hackl, Daniele Faccio, Stefan Rotter, Dorian Bouchet","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01657-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-025-01657-6","url":null,"abstract":"Artificial neural networks have become important tools to harness the complexity of disordered or random photonic systems. Recent applications include the recovery of information from light that has been scrambled during propagation through a complex scattering medium, especially in the challenging case in which the deterministic input–output transmission matrix cannot be measured. This naturally raises the question of what the limit is that information theory imposes on this recovery process, and whether neural networks can actually reach this limit. To answer these questions, we introduce a model-free approach to calculate the Cramér–Rao bound, which sets the ultimate precision limit at which artificial neural networks can operate. As an example, we apply this approach in a proof-of-principle experiment using laser light propagating through a disordered medium, evidencing that a convolutional network approaches the ultimate precision limit in the challenging task of localizing a reflective target hidden behind a dynamically fluctuating scattering medium. The model-free method introduced here is generally applicable to benchmark the performance of any deep learning microscope, to drive algorithmic developments and to push the precision of metrology and imaging techniques to their ultimate limit. A convolutional network that approaches the fundamental Cramér–Rao bound is demonstrated to localize a reflective target hidden behind a dynamically fluctuating scattering medium, advancing algorithmic developments in the field of computational imaging.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"19 6","pages":"593-600"},"PeriodicalIF":32.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144153417","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":"Continuous-wave nonlinear polarization control and signatures of criticality in a perovskite cavity","authors":"G. Keijsers, R. M. de Boer, B. Verdonschot, K. J. H. Peters, Z. Geng, S. R. K. Rodriguez","doi":"10.1038/s41566-025-01692-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41566-025-01692-3","url":null,"abstract":"Halide perovskites have emerged as promising photonic materials for fundamental physics studies and technological applications. Their potential for nonlinear optics has also drawn great interest. Yet, so far, continuous-wave (CW) nonlinearities have remained elusive. Here we demonstrate CW nonlinear phenomena in a CsPbBr3 perovskite cavity. We first demonstrate optical bistability, the hallmark of single-mode coherent nonlinear optics. Next, we exploit the interplay of nonlinearity and birefringence to demonstrate nonlinear control over the polarization of light. Finally, by measuring the optical hysteresis of our cavity as a function of temperature, we find a dramatic enhancement of the nonlinearity around 65 K, which may indicate a phase transition in CsPbBr3. Our results position CsPbBr3 cavities as a suitable platform for nonlinear optics, offering strong and tuneable CW nonlinearity and birefringence. Moreover, our approach to uncover signatures of a phase transition of matter via optical hysteresis measurements is promising for exploring strongly correlated states of light–matter systems. Crystalline perovskites in an optical cavity exhibit nonlinear optical effects under continuous-wave excitation, including optical bistability and polarization rotation.","PeriodicalId":18926,"journal":{"name":"Nature Photonics","volume":"19 7","pages":"733-739"},"PeriodicalIF":32.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144145871","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}