eLight

Abstract Lensless imaging offers a scalable, hardware-light route to optical microscopy but has largely remained structural. In a recent study, Wang et al . demonstrate that molecular specificity can be intrinsically encoded and computationally recovered within a fully lensless framework. This work reframes lensless imaging from scaling structure to encoding function, highlighting an emerging par…

Abstract The ultimate non-classic light sources for modern photonic quantum technology require on-demand generation of indistinguishable quantum light with high brightness and flexible engineering of quantum emission in multiple degrees of freedom. In this work, we present monolithic microcavity-metalens interfaces consisting of quantum-dot-micropillar single-photon sources and ultra-thin metalen…

Abstract Nonlinear frequency conversion underpins numerous classical and quantum photonics applications but conventionally relies on synchronized femtosecond mode-locked lasers and dispersion-engineered enhancement cavities—an approach that imposes substantial system complexity. To address the challenges, here we report a fundamentally different paradigm: mode-locking of nonlinear frequency conve…

Abstract Quantum nanophotonics offers essential tools and technologies for controlling quantum states, while maintaining a miniature form factor and high scalability. Nanophotonic platforms can transfer information from the traditional degrees of freedom (DoFs) of photons, such as spin angular momentum (SAM) and orbital angular momentum (OAM), to the DoFs of the nanophotonic platform—and back, op…

Abstract Chiral metasurfaces leveraging bound states in the continuum (BICs) offer a powerful route for enhancing light–matter interactions. However, existing quasi-BIC architectures typically face a fundamental trade-off between high quality (Q) factors and wide-angle chiral operation. Most designs confine strong circular dichroism (CD) to isolated points in momentum space (k-space) and often re…

Abstract Mapping light fields and local density of optical states (LDOS) around nanostructured materials is instrumental for advancing both fundamentals and practical applications in nano-optics, nanomaterial science, and quantum technologies. In particular, LDOS governs key processes such as spontaneous emission, light scattering, van der Waals interactions, and nanoscale heat transfer, yet it r…

Abstract Optical neural networks (ONNs) offer a route to low-latency, energy-efficient AI, but scaling them to modern model sizes is constrained by two practical bottlenecks: training large ONNs is computationally prohibitive, and implementing or tuning millions of optical components is highly sensitive to fabrication imperfections and alignment errors. Here we report a metasurface-based optical …

Abstract Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming modern life, yet the growing scale of AI applications places mounting demands on computational resources, raising sustainability concerns. Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) offer a promising alternative, enabling massive parallelism, low latency, and reduced electrical overhead, particularly excelling in high-throughput linear operations. Ho…

Abstract The nonreciprocal magnetoelectric effect in Tellegen materials enables exotic phenomena such as axion-modified electrodynamics and fosters the development of magnet-free nonreciprocal media. As the nonreciprocal counterpart to the well-known chiral electromagnetic response, it offers a parallel framework in which many concepts developed for chiral materials can be translated to Tellegen …

Abstract The resolution of an imaging system has long been constrained by the Abbe-Rayleigh diffraction limit. While significant progress has been made in developing superresolution techniques, many approaches rely on near-field scanning, fluorescence labeling, and are hindered by trade-offs among resolution, field-of-view, and energy efficiency. Here, we introduce a conceptually new approach tha…

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s43593-026-00122-3.

Abstract Nonlinear metasurfaces have been enabling unprecedented control over light generation and wave mixing, demonstrating enhanced wavefront control, beam shaping and steering of nonlinear light waves. However, the design and operation of nonlinear metasurfaces have been for the most part limited to localized modes, fundamentally limiting the overall nonlinearity enhancement of such devices. …

Abstract The transport of quantum states is a crucial aspect of information processing systems, facilitating operations such as quantum key distribution and inter-component communication within quantum computers. Most quantum networks rely on symmetries to achieve an efficient state transfer. A straightforward way to design such networks is to use spatial symmetries, which severely limits the des…

Abstract The discovery of topological phases of matter and topological boundary states had a tremendous impact on condensed matter physics, photonics, and material sciences, where topological phases are defined via energy bands, described by the topological band theory. However, there are topological materials that cannot be described by this theory, which support non-trivial boundary states but …

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s43593-025-00103-y.

Abstract Nonlinear computation is essential for a wide range of information processing tasks, yet implementing nonlinear functions using optical systems remains a challenge due to the weak and power-intensive nature of optical nonlinearities. Overcoming this limitation without relying on nonlinear optical materials could unlock unprecedented opportunities for ultrafast and parallel optical comput…

Abstract Optical diffractive neural networks (DNNs) offer superb parallelism and scalability for the direct analogue processing of planar information. However, their complete reliance on coherent light interference constrains the integration and computational frequency, as well as demonstrating low diffraction efficiency and robustness. Here, we present an optical graphics processing unit (OGPU) …