A degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) squeezed light apparatus includes one or more pump beams, a probe beam, a vapor cell, a repump beam, and a detector. The one or more pump beams includes an input power of no greater than about 150 mW. The vapor cell includes an atomic vapor configured to interact with overlapped pump and probe beams to generate an amplified probe beam and a conjugate beam. The repump beam is configured to optically pump the atomic vapor to a ground state and decrease atomic decoherence of the atomic vapor. The detector is configured to measure squeezing due to quantum correlations between the amplified probe beam and the conjugate beam. The one or more pump beams, the probe beam, and the repump beam are configured to generate two-mode squeezed light by DFWM with squeezing of at least 3 dB below shot noise.

A surface plasmon infrared nano-pulse laser having a multi-resonance competition mechanism, consisting of the four parts of a surface plasmon nano-pin resonance chamber (1), a spacer layer (2), a gain medium (3), and a two-dimensional material layer (4). The surface plasmon nano-pin resonance chamber (1) consists of a metal nano rod (11) and one or more nano sheets (12) grown thereon, the surface plasmon nano-pin resonance chamber (1) and the gain medium (3) being isolated by the isolating layer (2), and the two-dimensional material layer (4) covering a surface of the surface plasmon nano-pulse laser; positive and negative electrodes (5) are located at two ends of the surface plasmon nano-pulse laser, and a layer of a two-dimensional material having a feature of saturatable absorption is introduced to a surface of the nano-pin resonance chamber.

An optical element is provided. The optical element may comprise a material, the material being a matrix and a set of particles included in the matrix, the material having a molar fraction of SiO.sub.2 higher than or equal to 65 percent, each particle having a dimension smaller than or equal to 80 nanometers.

An active medium piece (109), which has been taken out using a nanoprobe (108), is processed so as to match the shape of a nanoslot (104), and thus an active medium small piece (111) that is smaller than the active medium piece (109) is formed (a fourth step). For example, irradiation with an ion beam (110) is performed so that the active medium piece (109) is shaped (processed) into an active medium small piece (111) that has a three-dimensional shape suitable for being placed in the nanoslot (104). The active medium piece (109) is processed into the active medium small piece (111) in the state of being held by the nanoprobe (108).

A surface plasmon infrared nano-pulse laser having a multi-resonance competition mechanism, consisting of the four parts of a surface plasmon nano-pin resonance chamber (1), a spacer layer (2), a gain medium (3), and a two-dimensional material layer (4). The surface plasmon nano-pin resonance chamber (1) consists of a metal nano rod (11) and one or more nano sheets (12) grown thereon, the surface plasmon nano-pin resonance chamber (1) and the gain medium (3) being isolated by the isolating layer (2), and the two-dimensional material layer (4) covering a surface of the surface plasmon nano-pulse laser; positive and negative electrodes (5) are located at two ends of the surface plasmon nano-pulse laser, and a layer of a two-dimensional material having a feature of saturatable absorption is introduced to a surface of the nano-pin resonance chamber.

A method of emitting photons at a desired wavelength, including: providing a material having a first region of high absorption of radiation at a first set of wavelength of radiation, contiguous with a second region of low absorption of radiation at a shorter set of wavelengths, and a third region of high emission at a further shorter set of wavelengths; applying energy to the material at the first region, such that most of an effective black body radiation of said material at a temperature of the material would fall within the second region and be configured to transfer energy to said third region and not overlap with the first region; and emitting energy from the material at the third region, powered by said applying energy.

Disclosed are photonic particles and methods of using particles in biological samples. The particles are configured to emit laser light when energetically stimulated by, e.g., a pump source. The particles may include a gain medium with inorganic materials, an optical cavity with high refractive index, and a coating with organic materials. The particles may be smaller than 3 microns along their longest axes. The particles may attach to each other to form, e.g., doublets and triplets. The particles may be injection-locked by coupling an injection beam into a particle while pumping so that an injection seed is amplified to develop into laser oscillation. A microscopy system may include a pump source, beam scanner, spectrometer with resolution of less than 1 nanometer and acquisition rate of more than 1 kilohertz, and spectral analyzer configured to distinguish spectral peaks of laser output from broadband background.

An optical material including: a silica host; and a Praseodymium dopant; wherein the Praseodymium atoms are configured to form nanoclusters in the silica host. In addition, the optical material may include an Ytterbium co-dopant. The nanoclusters include Ge, Te, Ta, Lu and/or F, Cl to minimize multi-phonon quenching. Moreover, the nanoclusters may be encapsulated in a low phonon energy shell to minimize energy transfer to the host matrix.

In an exemplary embodiment, a structure comprises a plurality of deterministically positioned optically active defects, wherein each of the plurality of deterministically positioned optically active defects has a linewidth within a factor of one hundred of a lifetime limited linewidth of optical transitions of the plurality of deterministically positioned optically active defects, and wherein the plurality of deterministically positioned optically active defects has an inhomogeneous distribution of wavelengths, wherein at least half of the plurality of deterministically positioned optically active defects have transition wavelengths within a less than 8 nm range. In a further exemplary embodiment, method of producing at least one optically active defect comprises deterministically implanting at least one ion in a structure using a focused ion beam; heating the structure in a vacuum at a first temperature to create at least one optically active defect; and heating the structure in the vacuum at a second temperature to remove a plurality of other defects in the structure, wherein the second temperature is higher than the first temperature.

A method of emitting photons at a desired wavelength, including: providing a material having a first region of high absorption of radiation at a first set of wavelength of radiation, contiguous with a second region of low absorption of radiation at a shorter set of wavelengths, and a third region of high emission at a further shorter set of wavelengths; applying energy to the material at the first region, such that most of an effective black body radiation of said material at a temperature of the material would fall within the second region and be configured to transfer energy to said third region and not overlap with the first region; and emitting energy from the material at the third region, powered by said applying energy.