Author(s): Robin Ogier, Yurui Fang, Mikael Käll, and Mikael Svedendahl
Many of tomorrow’s photonic devices, including optical biosensors, may rely on light signals with highly particular polarization properties. A new experiment shows that an ultrathin layer of gold particles can selectively absorb or reflect a light beam depending on its polarization handedness.
[Phys. Rev. X 5, 041019] Published Wed Nov 04, 2015
Nature Photonics 9, 751 (2015). doi:10.1038/nphoton.2015.188
Authors: Joel Carpenter, Benjamin J. Eggleton & Jochen Schröder
Author(s): Robin Ogier, Yurui Fang, Mikael Käll, and Mikael Svedendahl
Many of tomorrow’s photonic devices, including optical biosensors, may rely on light signals with highly particular polarization properties. A new experiment shows that an ultrathin layer of gold particles can selectively absorb or reflect a light beam depending on its polarization handedness.
[Phys. Rev. X 5, 041019] Published Wed Nov 04, 2015
Author(s): Robin Ogier, Yurui Fang, Mikael Käll, and Mikael Svedendahl
Many of tomorrow’s photonic devices, including optical biosensors, may rely on light signals with highly particular polarization properties. A new experiment shows that an ultrathin layer of gold particles can selectively absorb or reflect a light beam depending on its polarization handedness.
[Phys. Rev. X 5, 041019] Published Wed Nov 04, 2015
Nature Physics 11, 930 (2015). doi:10.1038/nphys3482
Authors: H. Esat Kondakci, Ayman F. Abouraddy & Bahaa E. A. Saleh
The formation of gaps—forbidden ranges in the values of a physical parameter—is common to a variety of physical systems: from energy bandgaps of electrons in periodic lattices and their analogues in photonic, phononic and plasmonic systems to pseudo-energy gaps in aperiodic quasicrystals. Here, we predict a thermalization gap for light propagating in finite disordered structures characterized by disorder-immune chiral symmetry—the appearance of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors in skew-symmetric pairs. In these systems, the span of sub-thermal photon statistics is inaccessible to input coherent light, which—once the steady state is reached—always emerges with super-thermal statistics no matter how small the disorder level. We formulate an independent constraint of the input field for the chiral symmetry to be activated and the gap to be observed. This unique feature enables a new form of photon-statistics interferometry: the deterministic tuning of photon statistics via controlled excitation symmetry breaking realized by sculpting the amplitude or phase of the input coherent field.
Nature Physics 11, 895 (2015). doi:10.1038/nphys3498
Author: Alexander Szameit
Disorder in arrays of evanescently coupled waveguides turns out to have unexpected consequences on the photon number statistics of coherent light.
Author(s): J. C. López Carreño, C. Sánchez Muñoz, D. Sanvitto, E. del Valle, and F. P. Laussy
Pure quantum states could be generated in polaritonic systems by exciting them with a quantum light source rather than a laser.
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 196402] Published Wed Nov 04, 2015
Nature Nanotechnology 10, 937 (2015). doi:10.1038/nnano.2015.186
Authors: Amir Arbabi, Yu Horie, Mahmood Bagheri & Andrei Faraon
Metasurfaces are planar structures that locally modify the polarization, phase and amplitude of light in reflection or transmission, thus enabling lithographically patterned flat optical components with functionalities controlled by design. Transmissive metasurfaces are especially important, as most optical systems used in practice operate in transmission. Several types of transmissive metasurface have been realized, but with either low transmission efficiencies or limited control over polarization and phase. Here, we show a metasurface platform based on high-contrast dielectric elliptical nanoposts that provides complete control of polarization and phase with subwavelength spatial resolution and an experimentally measured efficiency ranging from 72% to 97%, depending on the exact design. Such complete control enables the realization of most free-space transmissive optical elements such as lenses, phase plates, wave plates, polarizers, beamsplitters, as well as polarization-switchable phase holograms and arbitrary vector beam generators using the same metamaterial platform.
The expanding application spectrum of plasmonic nanoantennas demand versatile design approaches to tailor the antenna properties for specific requirements. The design efforts primarily concentrate on shifting the operation wavelength or enhancing the local fields by manipulating the size and shape of the nanoantenna. Here, we propose a design path to control the absorption and scattering characteristics of a dipole nanoantenna by introducing a hollow region inside the nanostructure. The resulting contour geometry can significantly suppress the scattering of the dipole nanoantenna and enhance its absorption simultaneously. Both the dipole and the contour dipole nanoantenna couple to equivalent amount of the incident radiation. The dipole nanoantenna scatters 84% of the coupled power (absorbs the remaining 16%) whereas the contour dipole structure scatters only 28% of the coupled power (absorbs the remaining 72%). This constitutes the transformation from scatter to absorber nanoantenna. The scattering of a contour nanoantenna can be further suppressed by incorporating a lossless dielectric in the hollow region without altering its absorption. We also demonstrate the applicability of scattering suppression and absorption enhancement features of the contour design in other nanoantenna geometries such as the self-assembly compatible nanoantenna structures of nanodisk and nanoring chains. The benefits of the contour design can be readily utilized in diverse applications; including bioplasmonics, medical diagnosis/therapy, cloaked sensing, photovoltaics and thermoplasmonics.
Author(s): Sébastien Moulinet and Mokhtar Adda-Bedia
A balloon with low internal pressure bursts through the growth of a single crack, but above a critical pressure, it breaks apart from multiple cracks.
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 184301] Published Fri Oct 30, 2015
Author(s): A. Berger, R. Alcaraz de la Osa, A. K. Suszka, M. Pancaldi, J. M. Saiz, F. Moreno, H. P. Oepen, and P. Vavassori
Ferromagnetic nanodiscs can exhibit an enhancement, of more than 100%, in their magneto-optical activity. This effect could be used in nano-optical devices for communications, energy harvesting, and biosensors.
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 187403] Published Fri Oct 30, 2015
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Hovertext: A can also pass the Turing test by making people less human.
Today's comic reveals David Shiffman's SECRET PLOT.
Author(s): KyeoReh Lee, Junsung Lee, Jung-Hoon Park, Ji-Ho Park, and YongKeun Park
Rewinding the arrow of time via phase conjugation is an intriguing phenomenon made possible by the wave property of light. Here, we demonstrate the realization of a one-wave optical phase conjugation mirror using a spatial light modulator. An adaptable single-mode filter is created, and a phase-conj…
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 153902] Published Tue Oct 06, 2015
Author(s): A. B. Young, A. C. T. Thijssen, D. M. Beggs, P. Androvitsaneas, L. Kuipers, J. G. Rarity, S. Hughes, and R. Oulton
Entangled states of spin orientation and directional photons could be created by carefully placing of a quantum dot in a photonic crystal waveguide.
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 153901] Published Tue Oct 06, 2015
Photonic trumpets are broadband dielectric antennas that efficiently funnel the emission of a point-like quantum emitter—such as a semiconductor quantum dot—into a Gaussian free-space beam. After describing guidelines for the taper design, we present a “giant” photonic trumpet. The device features a bottom diameter of 210 nm and a wide top facet. Using Fourier microscopy, we show that 95% of the emitted beam is intercepted by a modest numerical aperture of 0.35. Furthermore, far-field measurements reveal a highly Gaussian angular profile, in agreement with the predicted overlap to a Gaussian beam . Future application prospects include the direct coupling of these devices to a cleaved single-mode optical fiber. The calculated transmission from the taper base to the fiber already reaches 0.59, and we discuss strategies to further improve this figure of merit.