Feature open Optics in 2021 This special issue of Optics & Photonics News highlights exciting peer-reviewed optics research that has emerged over the past year. An envisioned optical architecture for an augmentedreality display using a metaform combiner (see Nikolov et al.). [Illustration by Michael Osadciw, University of Rochester] Now in its 39th year, OPN’s annual feature reviews some of the most interesting research in optics and photonics published in recent months. Our panel of editors reviewed 129 summaries of work by researchers from around the world. They selected for publication 30 stories that they felt communicated breakthroughs of particular interest to the broad optics community. OPN thanks all who submitted summaries, as well as our panel of guest editors: John Zavada, the panel chair, and guest editors: Kate Bechtel, Felipe Beltrán-Mejía, Svetlana Boriskina, Rocío Borrego-Varillas, Jennifer Kruschwitz, Anne Matsuura, Giovanni Milione,Arlene Smith and Joel Villatoro. Silica fiber lasers and amplifiers that run cold Low-quantum-defect fiber laser High-resolution, digitally controlled multimode laser Massively parallel random numbers with a laser diode Fiber laser yields six-octave frequency comb Speeding up dual-comb hyperspectral imaging Broadband coded-aperture light-field imaging Chirality mapping in microscopy format Label-free thyroid cancer diagnosis in real time Single-pixel diffractive network for image classification Deep learning probes nonlinear dynamics Quantum advantage with light Fiber quantum communications across 600 km Chaos-based mid-infrared communication Nanofibers for room-temperature quantum tech Nanostructures boost light coupling to optical fibers Nanoscale optical field samplers with attosecond resolution Polaritonics on Viking sunstones Seeing topology using leaky photonic lattices Twisting Weyl nodes with light Skyrmionic hopfions in light Horocycles of light in a ferrocell Tunable pin-like optical vortex beams Resonance enhancement via levitating photonics Metasurfaces embracing a phase change Metaform optics Full-color imaging with learned meta-optics Ultrathin broadband reflective optical limiters High-yield, wafer-scale fabrication of Si3N4 PICs Bendable optoelectronics with additively manufactured 2D perovskites Publish Date: 01 December 2021 Add a Comment Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.