Shaping light like never before with photonic time crystals This discovery paves the way for ultrafast optical computing, new telecommunication systems and eventually new types of terahertz lasers. Creating photonic crystals could lead the way to the closing of this gap.” The breakthrough: from spatial to temporal controlThose photonic crystals are nanostructured materials with a periodic optical pattern (like a lattice) that controls the flow of photons. “By extending photonic crystals from space to time, we open a new dimension for light control – and a novel path toward amplification and lasing. Enrolling the help of Thales’ Laboratoire Albert Fert and Polytechnique’s Physics of Interfaces (PICM) laboratories, they created a special kind of photonic crystal, called “plasmonic metamaterial”.