Nanophotonics

News and Updates

cryogenically cooled laser microresonator frequency comb

Comb on a Chip: New Design for ‘Optical Ruler’ Could Revolutionize Clocks, Telescopes, Telecommunications

June 22, 2020

Just as a meter stick with hundreds of tick marks can be used to measure distances with great precision, a device known as a laser frequency comb, with its

What a Switch! NIST-Led Team Develops Tiny Low-Energy Device to Rapidly Reroute Light in Computer Chips

November 14, 2019

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues have developed an optical switch that routes light from one

Sculpting Super-Fast Light Pulses: NIST Nanopillars Shape Light Precisely for Practical Applications

May 2, 2019

Imagine being able to shape a pulse of light in any conceivable manner—compressing it, stretching it, splitting it in two, changing its intensity or altering

New Device Widens Light Beams by 400 Times, Broadening Possibilities in Science and Technology

November 27, 2018

By using light waves instead of electric current to transmit data, photonic chips—circuits for light—have advanced fundamental research in many areas from

Projects and Programs

PTIR combines the spatial resolution of AFM with the specificity of absorption spectroscopy

Nano-Chemical Imaging and -Spectroscopy (IR, nIR, VIS)

Conventional techniques for analyzing chemical composition, such as infrared (IR) microscopy often miss critically important nanoscale details. To overcome this

Micro- and nano-optomechanical systems

Light can interact with mechanical systems in interesting and useful ways, not only probing the mechanical motion with spectacular sensitivity, but also driving

Measuring Light-Matter Interactions in Chip-Based Optical Cavities

Measuring interactions between light and matter has both fundamental and practical importance. For example, lasers have had a profound influence on science and

Frequency Conversion Interfaces for Photonic Quantum Systems

Optical frequency conversion, in which the color of light is changed, is a process that has numerous applications in physics and technology. For example, green

Publications

Infrared and Raman chemical imaging and spectroscopy at the nanoscale

May 19, 2020

Author(s)

Dmitry Kurouski, Alexandre Dazzi, Renato Zenobi, Andrea Centrone

The advent of nanotechnology, and the need to understand the chemical composition at the nanoscale, has stimulated the convergence of IR and Raman spectroscopy

Chiroptical response of aluminum nano-crescents at ultraviolet wavelengths

April 21, 2020

Author(s)

Matthew S. Davis, Wenqi Zhu, Jared H. Strait, Jay K. Lee, Henri J. Lezec, Steve Blair, Amit K. Agrawal

Manipulation of plasmon modes at ultraviolet wavelengths using engineered nanophotonic devices allows for the development of high-sensitivity chiroptical

Frequency stabilization of nanomechanical resonators using thermally invariant strain engineering

April 6, 2020

Author(s)

Mingkang Wang, Rui Zhang, Bojan R. Ilic, Vladimir A. Aksyuk, Yuxiang Liu

Microfabricated mechanical resonators enable precision measurement and transduction techniques from atomic force microscopy and inertial sensing to magnetometry

Photonic spin-multiplexing metasurface for switchable spiral phase contrast imaging

March 10, 2020

Author(s)

Pengcheng Huo, Cheng Zhang, Wenqi Zhu, Mingze Liu, Song Zhang, Si Zhang, Lu Chen, Henri J. Lezec, Amit K. Agrawal, Yanqing Lu, Ting Xu

As the two most representative operation modes in an optical imaging system, bright-field imaging and phase contrast imaging can address different

Tools and Instruments

Sample Preparation and Metrology Tools

Read about our sample preparation and metrology tools.

Awards

NIST Physicist Honored by the Optical Society - Kartik Srinivasan

The Optical Society (OSA) is the leading professional association in optics and photonics. Fellowship in OSA is limited to no more than ten...