A team from the University of Oviedo leads a study that defines the rules for controlling nanolight at the atomic scale

Controlling light at dimensions thousands of times smaller than the thickness of a human hair is one of the pillars of modern nanotechnology. An international team, led by the Quantum Nano-Optics Group of the University of Oviedo and the Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Research Center (CINN/Principalty of Asturias-CSIC), has published a review article in the prestigious journal Nature Nanotechnology detailing how to manipulate fundamental optical phenomena when light couples to matter in atomically thin materials.

The study focuses on polaritons, hybrid quasiparticles that emerge when light and matter interact intensely. By using low-symmetry materials, known as van der Waals materials, light ceases to propagate in a conventional way and instead travels along specific directions, a characteristic that gives rise to phenomena that challenge conventional optics.

Among the findings reviewed are behaviors such as negative refraction, where light bends in the opposite direction to the usual one when crossing a boundary between materials, or canalized propagation, which makes it possible to guide energy without it dispersing. “These properties offer unprecedented control over light–matter interaction in regions of the spectrum ranging from the visible to the terahertz,” the team describes in the article.

This research is part of the TWISTOPTICS project, led by University of Oviedo professor Pablo Alonso González and funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council. This funding, one of the most prestigious in the European Union, is dedicated to the study of how twisting or stacking nanometric layers—a technique reminiscent of atomic-scale “Lego” pieces—makes it possible to design physical properties à la carte.

The publication is the result of an international collaboration in which, alongside the University of Oviedo, leading centers such as the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), and the Max Planck Institute have participated.

The theoretical and experimental framework presented in this work, led by the Quantum Nano-Optics Group, lays the foundations for future practical implementations in various technological sectors, including integrated optical circuits, high-sensitivity biosensors, thermal management, and super-resolution imaging.

Reference:

Zhou, Y., Guo, Z., Tarazaga Martín-Luengo, A. et al. Fundamental optical phenomena of strongly anisotropic polaritons at the nanoscale. Nat. Nanotechnol. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-025-02039-3