Light: Science & Applications

Light: Science & Applications (LSA) is a peer-reviewed open access journal publishing highest-quality articles across the full spectrum of optics research. LSA promotes frontier research in all areas of optics and photonics, including basic, applied, scientific and engineering results. The LSA Editorial Office commits to providing the best service for authors, readers, and reviewers. Our fair publication decisions and top journal reputation make LSA the first choice for reporting the top research results over all comparable journals. Major topics within the journal's scope include the following: Biophotonics and Medical Optics Fiber Optics and Optical Communications Green Photonics Integrated and Optoelectronic Devices

List of Papers (Total 2,533)

Dynamically tunable membrane metasurfaces for infrared spectroscopy and strong light-matter interactions

Mid-infrared spectroscopy enables biochemical sensing by identifying vibrational molecular fingerprints, but it faces limitations in instrumentation portability and analytical sensitivity. Optical metasurfaces with strong mid-infrared photonic resonances provide an attractive solution towards on-chip spectrometry and sensitive molecular detection, yet their static nature hinders...

Observation of synthetic moving effect in metamaterials

When light propagates through a flowing transparent fluid, the refractive index it experiences depends on its propagation direction relative to the flow direction. This leads to different phase delays for light traveling along or against the flow. The moving effect, which results from the cross-coupling between electric and magnetic responses in a specific way, is only detectable...

Angular spectrum-encoded single-shot ultrafast photography

Capturing transient events on ultrafast time scales demands imaging at up to trillions of frames per second (Tfps). Yet leading methods, including compressed sensing-based photography, time-resolved shadowgraphy, and other active approaches, are limited by bulky optics, high cost, and repeated measurements. Here, we propose angular spectrum-encoded single-shot ultrafast...

Multi-parameter enhanced optical encryption with biphasic chiral photonic crystals

Encoding information across multiple degrees of light, including spin, wavelength, amplitude, and phase into the multi-level structures of a stimuli-responsive material, presents a highly promising strategy for optical encryption. Here, we present a biphasic chiral photonic crystal platform that addresses the intrinsic coupling among photonic spin, wavelength, and functions, thus...

Scalable quantum photonic platform based on site-controlled quantum dots coupled to circular Bragg grating resonators

The scalable integration of solid-state quantum emitters into photonic nanostructures remains a central challenge for quantum photonic technologies. Here, we demonstrate a robust and streamlined integration strategy that tackles the long-standing issue of deterministic fabrication on randomly positioned self-assembled quantum dots (QDs), leveraging a buried-stressor-based site...

Thermal Utilization on Chip

The integration and miniaturization of chips lead to significant power consumption and heat accumulation. Typically, the energy consumption of cooling systems accounts for morn than 50% of the input energy. Current thermal management technologies do not offer solutions for on-chip thermal energy loss. Herein, we propose an on-chip integrated thermal recovery system, which can...

High-efficiency and stable deep-blue iridium phosphorescent OLEDs with enhanced charge transfer dynamics

Deep-blue phosphorescent OLEDs (Ph-OLEDs) with high efficiency and stability are essential for advanced display technologies, ensuring sharp image quality and enhanced visibility. In this work, we report a novel class of asymmetric [3 + 2 + 1] coordinated iridium(III) complexes incorporate strongly electron-withdrawing trifluoromethyl (–CF3) and fluorine (–F) modified N...

Meta-operators: all optical and wireless image processing via metasurfaces

Arrays of resonant nanoparticles, so-called metasurfaces, have been developed and demonstrated as the first generation of meta-operators. Unlike today’s electronic systems, the demonstrated compact, scalable platform enables ultrafast, energy-efficient all-optical image processing, extending to holographic wavefront shaping with a single-layer metasurface. These results open new...

Wafer-level meta-aspheric lenses for compact wide-FOV NIR imaging

A meta-aspheric lens fabricated at the wafer-level achieves a 101.5° field of view, a 3.39 mm total track length, and an F/1.64 aperture within a volume of 0.02 cm3, enabling compact and scalable near-infrared imaging.

Optical in-memory computing using laser array

A new optical in-memory computing system based on an array of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) has the potential to circumvent the Von Neumann bottleneck. The high modulation speed of the lasers in the array allows for fast computing and their high efficiency can enable edge computing in autonomous vehicles and drones. This efficient, highly scalable system was...

Dual-frequency fiber-array photoacoustic computed tomography for high-resolution deep brain imaging

Photoacoustic tomography as an optical-ultrasound hybrid imaging modality provides rich optical contrast over the extended penetration depth of biological tissues, enabling multiscale multicontrast structural and functional imaging. However, inherent limitations in the state-of-the-art piezoelectric transducer arrays of the photoacoustic tomography, including size-dependent...

Universal and transferable attacks on pathology foundation models using microscopic perturbations

The advent of foundation models initiated a paradigm shift in pathology and optical microscopy. However, these powerful systems also introduce vulnerabilities, making them susceptible to adversarial attacks. To shed light on these potential threats, here we introduce Universal and Transferable Adversarial Perturbations (UTAP) for pathology foundation models that reveal critical...

Generating vectorial optical fields via surface-wave-excited complex-amplitude metasurfaces

On-chip photonic systems capable of efficiently generating pre-designed vectorial optical fields (VOFs) are highly desired in integrated photonics, but traditional devices are bulky and lack flexible control capabilities. Although ultra-compact metasurfaces (MSs) have exhibited powerful light-manipulation capabilities, they typically work under propagating-wave excitations and/or...

Additive-free and brine-discharge-free solar-thermal desalination with simultaneous complete mineral mining from ocean water

Solar-thermal interfacial desalination is a sustainable solution to meet the ever-increasing global freshwater demand. However, when treating actual ocean water, salt accumulation on the evaporator surfaces and brine discharge are major issues limiting the performance and posing environmental concerns. By utilizing a femtosecond laser surface processing technique, we create a...

Robust single-mode laser via merging bound state in the continuum

Bound states in the continuum (BICs) are optical states that remain perfectly confined despite existing within the radiation spectrum, enabling strong light confinement and light-matter interactions. These unique properties make BICs a promising platform for high-performance photonic crystal lasers. However, achieving robust, single-mode BIC lasers with compact footprints remains...

Skyrmions based on optical anisotropy for topological encoding

The observation of skyrmions across diverse physical domains suggests that they are universal features of \({S}^{2}\)-valued fields, reflecting the ubiquity of topology in the study of the natural world. In this paper, we develop an abstract technique of parameter space dimensionality reduction that extends the skyrmion framework to fields taking values in manifolds of dimension...

Ultraviolet-C to mid-infrared supercontinuum generation in periodically poled lithium tantalate waveguides

Supercontinuum generation makes use of the nonlinear optical effects arising from the interaction of light with the bound electronic states in crystal lattices and has many applications, especially in the ultraviolet for the direct probing of large-energy electronic transitions. However, supercontinuum from integrated waveguides has been limited to >330 nm in the ultraviolet-A...

Nanosecond-latency all-optical fiber sensing with in-sensor computing

Optical fiber sensing plays a crucial role in modern measurement systems and holds significant promise for a wide range of applications. This potential, though, has been fundamentally constrained by the intrinsic latency and power limitations associated with electronic signal processing. Here, we propose an all-optical fiber sensing architecture with in-sensor computing (AOFS-IC...

Two-photon states meet polarization-gradient metasurfaces for nanometric, low-dose lateral-displacement metrology

Accurate displacement sensing is indispensable in advanced semiconductor lithography. Conventional coherent-light-based approaches are hindered by photon budget limitations, slowing down in-situ measurements. In a recent study, Chen et al. introduced a polarization-gradient metasurface integrated with two-photon quantum interference to achieve equivalent precision with only ~3...

Theoretical framework for engineering Boltzmann luminescent nanothermometry

Luminescent nanothermometry based on thermally coupled levels (TCLs) has emerged as a powerful tool for non-invasive temperature sensing, but it still lacks sufficient theoretical guidelines. To address this issue, a theoretical framework for Boltzmann luminescent nanothermometry has been established, which quantitatively defines the temperature window for establishing thermal...

Interferometric image scanning microscopy enables label-free super-resolution imaging of live cells

By implementing the super-resolution principles of image scanning microscopy in coherent imaging, Küppers et al. introduced interferometric image scanning microscopy, achieving 120 nm label-free lateral resolution with minimal phototoxicity and offering a robust tool for long-term observation of intracellular dynamics.

Thouless quantum walks in topological flat bands

Non-Abelian gauge symmetries are cornerstones of modern theoretical physics, underlying fundamental interactions and the geometric structure of quantum mechanics. However, their potential to control quantum coherence, entanglement, and transport in engineered quantum systems remains to a large extent unexplored. In this work, we propose utilizing non-Abelian Thouless pumping to...

Spectral level repulsion and Lifshitz-like states in hyperuniform disordered photonic networks

Disorder is emerging as a design principle in nanophotonics, offering new ways to control light beyond the limits of periodic architectures. Hyperuniform disordered networks, positioned between order and randomness, offer a unique platform for this exploration. Using large-scale numerical simulations and hyperspectral near-field imaging, we uncover spectral level repulsion among...