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26 November 2025 Shape-shifting electrodes tune optical-frequency converter Devices made from certain materials can double the frequency of light. Programmable electrodes can tune this response to produce various light spectra. By Kartik Srinivasan ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2589-3688 0 Kartik Srinivasan Kartik Srinivasan is in the Microsystems and Nanotechnology Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA, and at the Joint Quantum Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA. View author publications PubMed Google Scholar
Tools that can perform several tasks are crucial for research, particularly in emerging fields, because they provide the flexibility to explore a problem without the need to build many types of prototype device. Writing in Nature, Yanagimoto et al.1 report an optical device that generates a spectrum of light with properties that can be adjusted in situ as needed. Their approach uses an optical process called second-harmonic generation, which doubles the frequency of light. The authors show that this process can be reprogrammed by projecting different patterns of light onto an electrode on the device’s surface.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03452-3
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Competing Interests The author declares no competing interests.
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