Editors' Picks Collection: Lasers and Quantum Optics

Since 1997, Optics Express has been a respected journal emphasizing scientific and technological innovations in optics and photonics. To honor its 20th anniversary year, the editors of Optics Express selected articles from a variety of topic areas that have been key to the Journal's success.

Note that this selection of articles is not meant to be exhaustive but authoritative, showing that significant contributions were made and continue to be made in these areas.


  1. Focusing of high numerical aperture cylindrical-vector beams
    K. S. Youngworth and T. G. Brown
    Opt. Express 7(2) 77-87 (2000)
  2. Coherent addition of fiber lasers by use of a fiber coupler
    Akira Shirakawa, Tomoharu Saitou, Tomoki Sekiguchi, and Ken-ichi Ueda
    Opt. Express 10(21) 1167-1172 (2002)
  3. High power air-clad photonic crystal fibre laser
    W. J. Wadsworth, R. M. Percival, G. Bouwmans, J. C. Knight, and P. St. J. Russell
    Opt. Express 11(1) 48-53 (2003)
  4. Demonstration of a silicon Raman laser
    Ozdal Boyraz and Bahram Jalali
    Opt. Express 12(21) 5269-5273 (2004)
  5. Ytterbium-doped large-core fiber laser with 1.36 kW continuous-wave output power
    Y. Jeong, J. K. Sahu, D. N. Payne, and J. Nilsson
    Opt. Express 12(25) 6088-6092 (2004)
  6. All-normal-dispersion femtosecond fiber laser
    Andy Chong, Joel Buckley, Will Renninger, and Frank Wise
    Opt. Express 14(21) 10095-10100 (2006)
  7. Ultra-high intensity-300-TW laser at 0.1 Hz repetition rate
    Michael J. Thorpe, David Balslev-Clausen, Matthew S. Kirchner, and Jun Ye
    Opt. Express 16(3) 2109-2114 (2008)
  8. Cavity-enhanced optical frequency comb spectroscopy: application to human breath analysis
    Michael J. Thorpe, David Balslev-Clausen, Matthew S. Kirchner, and Jun Ye
    Opt. Express 16(4) 2387-2397 (2008)
  9. Laser written waveguide photonic quantum circuits
    Graham D. Marshall, Alberto Politi, Jonathan C. F. Matthews, Peter Dekker, Martin Ams, Michael J. Withford, and Jeremy L. O'Brien
    Opt. Express 17(15) 12546-12554 (2009)
  10. Large energy mode locking of an erbium-doped fiber laser with atomic layer graphene
    H. Zhang, D. Y. Tang, L. M. Zhao, Q. L. Bao, and K. P. Loh
    Opt. Express 17(20) 17630-17635 (2009)
  11. Field test of quantum key distribution in the Tokyo QKD Network
    M. Sasaki, M. Fujiwara, H. Ishizuka, W. Klaus, K. Wakui, M. Takeoka, S. Miki, T. Yamashita, Z. Wang, A. Tanaka, K. Yoshino, Y. Nambu, S. Takahashi, A. Tajima, A. Tomita, T. Domeki, T. Hasegawa, Y. Sakai, H. Kobayashi, T. Asai, K. Shimizu, T. Tokura, T. Tsurumaru, M. Matsui, T. Honjo, K. Tamaki, H. Takesue, Y. Tokura, J. F. Dynes, A. R. Dixon, A. W. Sharpe, Z. L. Yuan, A. J. Shields, S. Uchikoga, M. Legré, S. Robyr, P. Trinkler, L. Monat, J.-B. Page, G. Ribordy, A. Poppe, A. Allacher, O. Maurhart, T. Länger, M. Peev, and A. Zeilinger
    Opt. Express 19(11) 10387-10409 (2011)