Nature Photonics@NaturePhotonicsOptics industryAI score5151

Nature Photonics has published the open-access paper "Endlessly self-injection-locked photonic integrated lasers" online. The post provides only the paper title and link https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-026-01985-1, with no specific results described.

Infrared Locking Method Tackles Mirror Coating Challenge for Gravitational-Wave Detectors

Researchers have developed and tested a new infrared light locking method that could support mirror coating schemes for gravitational-wave detector upgrades.

European XFEL Sets Intensity Record for Attosecond Hard X-Ray Pulses

Researchers used European XFEL to generate extremely short attosecond hard X-ray pulses with record intensity, enabling studies of electrons in atoms and molecules.

Laser pulses bring order to tiny electric domains in quantum materials

Researchers used laser pulses to align tiny electrical regions, or domains, in a quantum material, demonstrating light's ability to tune a material's electrical order. The work was reported by Phys.org on October 15, 2026.

Chip-Scale Brillouin Laser Gyroscope Achieves Ultra-High Sensitivity

Researchers have developed an integrated Brillouin laser ring gyroscope capable of measuring rotation rates as low as 37 degrees per hour.

Chip-Scale Optical Ring Laser Gyroscope Measures Slow Rotations of 37 Degrees per Hour

A team from UC Santa Barbara and Caltech published in Optics Letters a chip-scale optical ring laser gyroscope capable of measuring rotations as slow as 37 degrees per hour, approaching Earth's rotation rate of 15 degrees per hour. The device is based on a low-noise Brillouin laser in a silicon nitride waveguide photonic integrated circuit, can be fabricated with standard CMOS processes, requires only milliwatt-level optical power, and offers nearly 2,000-fold higher sensitivity than the team's earlier device.

Ultrashort Laser Pulses Offer New Route to Probe Electronic Quantum Geometry

Researchers at the University of Jena and the University of Regensburg have used ultrashort laser pulses and nonlinear optical methods to probe the quantum geometric properties of electrons in solids.

Self-Aligned Dual-Pump Scheme Offers New Route to Optical Frequency Combs

Scientists in the United States and New Zealand have demonstrated a new type of frequency comb based on a dual-pump laser, using a self-alignment mechanism that could move frequency comb technology from niche use toward broader applications. Miro Erkintalo of the University of Auckland participated in the research.

North Carolina State University uses laser-plasma lightsabers as tunable radio antennas

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a laser-generated tunable plasma beam that resembles a lightsaber and can serve as a radio antenna, changing antenna size and direction for flexible radio systems.

Australian Team Achieves All-Optical Control of Metasurface Functionality

Ziwei Yang and colleagues at the ARC Centre for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems at the Australian National University demonstrated a method of controlling nonlinear optical metasurface functionality with light, changing the traditional situation in which nonlinear metasurface functions are fixed after fabrication.

Nature Photonics: Phase Control of Interfering Stimulated Raman Pathways in the Extreme Ultraviolet

Nature Photonics published a paper online on October 9 in which researchers modulated population transfer in helium atoms from the ground state to the metastable state by controlling the phase of interfering stimulated Raman pathways in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) region.

Ultrashort Laser Pulse Microscope Maps Electron Interactions in Thin Materials

A paper in Optica reports a wide-field coherent multidimensional spectroscopy microscope (2DESM) that uses ultrashort laser pulses to map the spatial distribution and temporal dynamics of electron interactions in thin materials.

UC San Diego switches magnetic information in materials with structured light

Engineers at the University of California, San Diego demonstrated a new method for switching magnetic information in a material using specially designed ultrafast laser beams, without an external magnetic field.

X-Ray Technique Reveals Quantum Materials' Response to Ultrafast Laser Pulses in Real Time

A paper in ACS Nano uses X-ray techniques to observe in real time the structural response of a quantum material after ultrafast laser pulses strike a crystal. Fabricating quantum devices often begins with deliberately damaging a crystal using ultrafast lasers, and this method could help clarify that process.

New chip-scale frequency comb demonstrates potential for portable atomic clocks

Researchers have demonstrated a new chip-scale optical frequency comb formation process in which two laser beams interact, enabling a range of precision measurements and showing potential for use in portable atomic clocks.

Lightsaber-Like Laser Plasma Antenna Radiates Radio Waves from Ionized Air

Researchers have demonstrated an antenna that uses a laser-generated plasma filament to emit radio waves; the related paper is titled "Laser-Induced-Plasma-Filament" antenna research.

Long-Pulse Laser-Driven Proton Surfing Acceleration Reaches Higher Energies

Researchers irradiate a large-area suspended thin film with an intense laser to induce a propagating electrostatic wave, letting protons surf it to higher energies under long-pulse laser conditions.

EPFL develops photonic integrated laser that stays locked without active control

Researchers at EPFL have developed a photonic integrated, infinite self-injection-locked laser that remains locked without active control and has been packaged in a fiber-coupled standard butterfly package.

3D light field pushes electrons into quantum states previously out of experimental reach

Researchers used an interferometer to split a laser into two beams of different colors and overlapped them in a vacuum chamber to form a 3D light field, which was used to manipulate electrons and drive them into quantum states that had previously been inaccessible experimentally.

DTU 'Bakes' Fiber to Nearly Double the Range of Ultralow-Noise Supercontinuum Lasers

A team at DTU Electro in Denmark has made progress on ultralow-noise supercontinuum lasers, using heat treatment of the fiber to nearly double the spectral range compared with similar low-noise sources.

Laser-generated muon beam images a dense object for the first time

A research team used a laser to generate an artificial particle beam dominated by muons and captured the first shadow image of a stack of lead bricks, offering muon imaging a more controllable source than cosmic rays.

SIOM Uses Improved YOLOv8-seg for Intelligent Laser Spot Analysis in High-Power Laser Facilities

The Joint Laboratory for High Power Laser and Physics at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) has proposed a laser spot analysis system based on an improved YOLOv8-seg to meet the need for rapid, precise alignment of optics along the full chain of high-power laser facilities, and has completed experimental validation.

SIOM Proposes Programming Coherent and Quantum Light Sources with Free-Electron Wave Packets

Researcher Tian Ye and Academician Li Ruxin at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM), together with Researcher Pan Yiming at ShanghaiTech University and colleagues, have proposed a new mechanism that uses the quadratic phase accumulated during the propagation of free-electron quantum wave packets to simultaneously achieve selectable high-harmonic bunching and synthesis of nonclassical quantum light, linking quantum state control, high-harmonic radiation and quantum light synthesis.

SIOM reveals internal dynamics of spatiotemporal optical vortex strings

Researchers at the Joint Laboratory for High Power Laser Physics at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics studied the internal dynamics of spatiotemporal optical vortex strings, uncovering phenomena such as spatiotemporal attraction and filamentation stretching. The results were published as "Probing Internal Dynamics of Spatiotemporal Optical Vortex Strings".

SIOM Achieves High-Power Few-Cycle Pulse Compression with Dispersion-Engineered Multi-Pass Cell

A team from the State Key Laboratory of Ultra-Intense Laser Science and Technology at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) achieved few-cycle nonlinear pulse compression in a dispersion-engineered folded multi-pass cell, producing high-power few-cycle ultrafast laser pulses. The results were published in Optics Letters.

SIOM Systematically Reviews CO2 Laser Processing of Fused Silica

A team led by researcher Wei Chaoyang at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics has published a review systematically covering the full technology chain of CO2 laser processing of fused silica optical components, from fundamental physical mechanisms to advanced functional applications.

SIOM Proposes Universal Control of Relativistic Particle Spin Using Surface Waves Excited by Intense Lasers

A team led by researcher Tian Ye and academician Li Ruxin at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics has proposed a new mechanism in which intense lasers excite surface waves on microwires that interact with relativistic charged particles to efficiently modulate spin. The approach is universal for leptons and ions and applies to particles at energies of GeV and even TeV.

SIOM Achieves All-Optical Arbitrary Control of Chirality and Ellipticity in Solid-State High Harmonics

A team from the State Key Laboratory of Ultra-Intense Laser Science and Technology at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) achieved, for the first time, all-optical arbitrary control of chirality and ellipticity in solid-state high harmonics through dynamical symmetry engineering and quantum geometric phase manipulation.

Shanghai Institute of Optics and Mechanics Advances High-Repetition-Rate Phosphate Laser Nd:Glass Materials

A team led by researcher Hu Lili at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, studied how compositional substitution in neodymium-doped phosphate laser glass affects structure and performance, providing a basis for Nd:glass materials used in high-repetition-rate lasers.

SIOM Achieves Highly Reliable Laser Joining of Titanium Alloys and Nickel-Based Superalloys

A team led by Yang Shanglu at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics has suppressed brittle intermetallic compounds in laser joining of dissimilar Ti/Ni materials, improving joint reliability.

SIOM Reports Progress in B-Integral Measurement for High-Power Laser Facilities

The Joint Laboratory for High-Power Laser Physics at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics has proposed a measurement method for nonlinear phase shift (B-integral) in high-power laser facilities.

SIOM studies nanosecond UV laser damage in PMMA optical components

The Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics has made progress in research on the mechanism of nanosecond ultraviolet laser damage in PMMA optical components.

SIOM Achieves Petawatt Laser-Driven Multi-Pulse, Multi-Angle Ultrafast X-Ray Imaging

SIOM has made progress in petawatt laser-driven multi-pulse, multi-angle ultrafast X-ray imaging.

SIOM Makes Breakthrough in Accelerating High-Energy Protons with Transition Radiation Fields

SIOM has made a major breakthrough in accelerating high-energy protons using transition radiation fields.

SIOM Reveals Radiation Reaction Effects in Fast Radio Bursts

The Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics has revealed strong-field radiation reaction effects in cosmic fast radio bursts.

SIOM Publishes Review of Machine Learning in Inertial Confinement Fusion

The Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics has published a review summarizing the applications, challenges and outlook of machine learning in inertial confinement fusion.

Changchun Institute of Optics Proposes New Stress-Induced Nano-Shaping Method Using Direct Laser Writing

A team led by Academician Zhang Xuejun at the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics published a paper in Laser & Photonics Reviews, proposing direct writing of amorphous silicon thin films with femtosecond lasers below the ablation threshold, using residual stress from solid-phase transformation to form controllable nanoscale surface topography.

SIOM Makes Progress in High-Repetition-Rate, High-Power Ultrafast Lasers

SIOM has made progress in research on high-repetition-rate, high-power ultrafast lasers.

SIOM Develops Intelligent Distributed Control System for Laser Wakefield Accelerator

The Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) has developed an intelligent distributed control system for a laser wakefield accelerator.

Hefei Institutes Develop Dual-Differential Sphere-Tube Coupled Photoacoustic-Scattering System for Simultaneous Aerosol Optical Measurements

A team led by Researcher Fang Yonghua at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science has developed a dual-differential sphere-tube coupled photoacoustic-scattering system that simultaneously obtains aerosol absorption and scattering coefficients at 450 nm and 532 nm within a single sampling path and shared measurement volume. The results were published in Photoacoustics. Two laser beams are modulated at 2572 Hz and 169 Hz and demodulated by frequency using an FPGA-based digital lock-in amplifier. With a 1 s integration time, detection limits for the 532 nm absorption and scattering channels are 1.2 Mm⁻¹ and 1.32 Mm⁻¹, respectively.