Magnetic resonance imaging and optical microscopy are key technologies in the life sciences. For microbiological studies, especially of the inner workings of single cells, optical microscopy is normally used because it easily achieves resolution close to the optical wavelength. But in conventional microscopy, diffraction limits the resolution to about half the wavelength. Recently, it was shown that this limit can be partly overcome by nonlinear imaging techniques 1,2 , but there is still a barrier to reaching the molecular scale. In contrast, in magnetic resonance imaging the spatial resolution is not determined by diffraction; rather, it is limited by magnetic field sensitivity, and so can in principle go well below the optical wavelength. The sensitivity of magnetic resonance imaging has recently been improved enough to image single cells 3,4 , and magnetic resonance force microscopy 5 has succeeded in detecting single electrons 6 and small nuclear spin ensembles 7 . However, this technique currently requires cryogenic temperatures, which limit most potential biological applications 8 . Alternatively, single-electron spin states can be detected optically 9,10 , even at room temperature in some systems [11][12][13][14] . Here we show how magneto-optical spin detection can be used to determine the location of a spin associated with a single nitrogen-vacancy centre in diamond with nanometre resolution under ambient conditions. By placing these nitrogen-vacancy spins in functionalized diamond nanocrystals, biologically specific magnetofluorescent spin markers can be produced. Significantly, we show that this nanometre-scale resolution can be achieved without any probes located closer than typical cell dimensions. Furthermore, we demonstrate the use of a single diamond spin as a scanning probe magnetometer to map nanoscale magnetic field variations. The potential impact of single-spin imaging at room temperature is far-reaching. It could lead to the capability to probe biologically relevant spins in living cells.The nitrogen-vacancy centre in diamond is a unique solid state system that allows ultrasensitive and rapid detection of single electronic spin states under ambient conditions 12 . The nitrogen-vacancy defect is a naturally occurring impurity that is responsible for the pink colouration of diamond crystals when present in high concentration. It was demonstrated that this colour centre can be produced in diamond nanocrystals by electron irradiation. Fluorescing nitrogen-vacancy diamond nanocrystals can be used as markers for bioimaging applications 15 . Such markers have attracted widespread interest because of their unprecedented photostability and non-toxicity 16,17 . It was recognized recently that the magnetic properties of such fluorescent labels can in principle be used for novel microscopy 18,19 . Here we demonstrate the realization of a magneto-optic microscope using nitrogen-vacancy diamond as the magnetic fluorescent label that moreover does not bleach or blink. Figure 1c and d show the fluorescenc...

We study macroscopically-aligned single-wall carbon nanotube arrays with uniform lengths via polarization-dependent terahertz and infrared transmission spectroscopy. Polarization anisotropy is extreme at frequencies less than ∼3 THz with no sign of attenuation when the polarization is perpendicular to the alignment direction. The attenuation for both parallel and perpendicular polarizations increases with increasing frequency, exhibiting a pronounced and broad peak around 10 THz in the parallel case. We model the electromagnetic response of the sample by taking into account both radiative scattering and absorption losses. We show that our sample acts as an effective antenna due to the high degree of alignment, exhibiting much larger radiative scattering than absorption in the mid/far-infrared range. Our calculated attenuation spectrum clearly shows a non-Drude peak at ∼10 THz in agreement with the experiment.

We propose a robust and reliable method of active mode locking of mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers and develop its theoretical description. Its key element is the use of an external ring cavity, which circumvents fundamental issues undermining the stability of mode locking in quantum cascade lasers. We show that active mode locking can give rise to the generation of picosecond pulses and phase-locked frequency combs containing thousands of the ring cavity modes.

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Nonequilibrium can be a source of order. This rather counterintuitive statement has been proven to be true through a variety of fluctuation-driven, self-organization behaviors exhibited by out-of-equilibrium, many-body systems in nature (physical, chemical, and biological), resulting in the spontaneous appearance of macroscopic coherence. Here, we report on the observation of spontaneous bursts of coherent radiation from a quantum-degenerate gas of nonequilibrium electron-hole pairs in semiconductor quantum wells. Unlike typical spontaneous emission from semiconductors, which occurs at the band edge, the observed emission occurs at the quasi-Fermi edge of the carrier distribution. As the carriers are consumed by recombination, the quasi-Fermi energy goes down toward the band edge, and we observe a continuously red-shifting streak. We interpret this emission as cooperative spontaneous recombination of electron-hole pairs, or superfluorescence (SF), which is enhanced by Coulomb interactions near the Fermi edge. This novel many-body enhancement allows the magnitude of the spontaneously developed macroscopic polarization to exceed the maximum value for ordinary SF, making electron-hole SF even more “super” than atomic SF.