With free-space optical communications in mind, researchers used a nanostructured birefringent metasurface to achieve a 16-fold increase in the corrected beam signal in mid-to-high-turbulence conditions. Benefits of the noise-tolerant approach to wavefront reconstruction with high resolution are demonstrated.

Researchers realize watt-class frequency modulation using compact coherent optical transmitters based on frequency-modulated photonic-crystal surface-emitting lasers. The system has implications for long-distance free-space optical communications.

The temporal characterization of few-femtosecond vacuum ultraviolet pulses bring new opportunities for investigating ultrafast light-matter interactions.

Combining a low-coherence source with silicon nitride ring resonators featuring normal group velocity dispersion enables electrically pumped, high-power microcombs, providing on-chip power up to 158 mW and high-coherence comb lines with linewidths as narrow as 200 kHz.

Single-chain polymer dots used as ultrasmall fluorescent probes enable nanometre-resolution imaging and are capable of tracking kinesin-1 stepwise motion in living cells using a standard spinning-disk confocal microscope.

The high-contrast dielectric boundary between a gold–air hybrid structure and its sharp spatial features are exploited to provide the momentum required for the excitation of higher-order hyperbolic phonon polaritons.

In this Focus issue we highlight a selection of recent developments in super-resolution microscopy.

Super-resolution microscopy offers valuable tools to tackle biological questions. Nature Photonics spoke with Markus Sauer, from the University of Würzburg, about the advantages and outstanding challenges of super-resolution microscopy for biological applications.

The performance of super-resolution microscopy is continuously improving. Nature Photonics interviewed Stefan Hell, from the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, about key milestones in the field, current capabilities of MINFLUX and what remains to be excited about.

Champion experimentalist of quantum optics and squeezed-light pioneer has sadly passed away.

Sir Peter Knight, described as "one of the UK’s most influential scientists and leaders of scientific policy" by his peers, tells Nature Photonics about the many hats he is wearing now in pushing quantum research and technologies in the UK and beyond.