The construction of a simple absorption monitor for capillary electrophoresis, based on a bright blue-green light emitting diode as radiation source, is described. Fibre optic coupling between light source, capillary and photodiode detectors was employed. It was found that, owing to the use of a high intensity light emitting diode, no optical focusing elements were required. The performance of the device was found to be comparable to that of a commercial detector, and the versatility is demonstrated with methods for the determination of transition metal ions by complexation with 4-(2-pyridylazo)resorcinol and the indirect detection of other inorganic cations and anions using organic dyes.

Chalcogenide phase change materials (PCMs) are truly remarkable compounds whose unique switchable optical and electronic properties have fueled an explosion of emerging applications in electronics and photonics. Key to any application is the ability of PCMs to reliably switch between crystalline and amorphous states over a large number of cycles. While this issue has been extensively studied in the case of electronic memories, current PCM-based photonic devices show limited endurance. This review discusses the various parameters that impact crystallization and re-amorphization of several PCMs, their failure mechanisms, and formulate design rules for enhancing cycling durability of these compounds.

We investigate Implosion Fabrication, a technique which prints arbitrary 3D nanostructures, as a new platform for nanophotonics. We show that optical properties of printed materials are tunable by characterizing the reflectivity of printed silver.

We present and erratum to our review article [Opt. Mater. Express 12, 2145 (2022)10.1364/OME.456428]. This erratum corrects the references in Table 3, a typo, and a misleading sentence. These corrections do not affect conclusions of the original review article.

We demonstrate how Implosion Fabrication, a new three-dimensional nanofabrication technique, enables the realization of three-dimensional photonic devices at optical wavelengths. We realize two- and three-dimensional optical crystals of hydrogel-embedded silver meta-atoms.