Focus and Coverage

APL Photonics promotes fundamental, applied, and multidisciplinary research anchored in photonics. Through our robust editorial process, we aim to publish high quality research findings that represent significant breakthroughs, novel understandings, or perspectives with long lasting impact. Our mission is to provide openly accessible resources for the international photonics and broader communities.

In response to the diverse community and its communication needs, the Journal features Articles, Letters, and Special content – specifically Invited Articles, Perspectives, Tutorials, and Special Topic sections – see the Editorial Policies guide for details on the different article types.

Covered topics include:

    Light sources
    Nonlinear optics
    Optoelectronics
    Nanophotonics
    Plasmonics
    Biophotonics and Biomedical optics
    Ultrafast photonics
    Optical communications
    Quantum photonics
    Optical imaging
    Photovoltaics
    Guided wave optics
    Sensors
    Terahertz

Manuscripts that focus on mathematical and computational problems only marginally related to photonics are not suitable for publication in APL Photonics. Similarly, papers focused on incremental advances in engineering applications or materials science are outside the journal’s scope.

Special Issue on Advances enabled by Ytterbium: from advanced laser technology to breakthrough applications
Submission Date: 2024-12-31

Diode-pumped ytterbium-based lasers have dramatically expanded the application space of lasers. From extremely high average power disk and fiber lasers to the production of ultrashort pulses, these light sources have enabled a myriad of new applications, from fast laser material processing to improved time-resolved spectroscopy techniques among many others. This Special Topic aims to offer an overview of the progress in source development based on Yb-doped materials and many of the exciting applications they have enabled.

Topics covered include, but are not limited to:

    Novel Yb laser architectures and technologies
    High power parametric nonlinear conversion
    Nonlinear compression of Yb lasers
    Novel secondary sources based on Yb lasers
    Time-resolved spectroscopic techniques enabled by Yb lasers
    Material processing and industrial application enabled by Yb lasers
    Laser diode development for Yb laser
    Other novel applications enabled by Yb technologies

Guest Editors

Brendan A. Reagan, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Federico J. Furch, Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy)

Special Issue on Angular Momentum of Light
Submission Date: 2024-12-31

Over the last few decades, angular momentum of light has attracted increasing interest from many research groups. This comes without surprise, considering the widespread range of applications related to the classical and quantum implications of this property of light in fields like optical forces and torque, quantum optics, microscopy, etc. Also, a large variety of devices and techniques continue to be developed to progress in the manipulation and structuring of angular momentum as versatile degree of freedom of light. This Special Topic aims at showcasing the latest progresses in theory and experiments related to the angular momentum of light.

Topics covered include, but are not limited to:

    Structured light & Complex fields
    Light-matter interaction
    Spin-orbit coupling, Chirality
    Topological fields
    Applications: Sensing, Communications, Spectroscopy, materials processing, Microscopy, Quantum optics, quantum sensing and processing
    Classical and quantum communications
    Spatiotemporal light beams
    Optical forces & trapping
    Non-hermiticity
    2D materials
    Epsilon-Near-Zero materials and metamaterials
    XUV
    high-harmonics
    THz beams
    Integrated photonics
    Self-torque
    time-varying optical angular momentum

Guest Editors

Antonio Ambrosio, Center for Nano Science and Technology, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
Francois Courvoisier, FEMTO-ST institute, Université de Franche-Comté, CNRS
Marco Ornigotti, Tampere University