Alex Hayat

Nonlocal ponderomotive nonlinearity in plasmonics

We analyze an inherent nonlinearity of surface plasmon polaritons at the interface of Fermi-Dirac metal plasma, stemming from the depletion of electron density in high-intensity regions. The derived optical nonlinear coefficients are comparable with the experimental values for metals. We calculate the dispersion relations for the nonlinear propagation of high-intensity surface plasmon polaritons, predicting a nonlinearity-induced cutoff and vanishing group velocity.

Proximity-induced high-temperature superconductivity in the topological insulators Bi 2 Se 3 and Bi 2 Te 3

Interest in the superconducting proximity effect has been reinvigorated recently by novel optoelectronic applications as well as by the possible emergence of the elusive Majorana fermion at the interface between topological insulators and superconductors. Here we produce high-temperature superconductivity in Bi(2)Se(3) and Bi(2)Te(3) via proximity to Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8+δ), to access higher temperature and energy scales for this phenomenon. This was achieved by a new mechanical bonding technique that we developed, enabling the fabrication of high-quality junctions between materials, unobtainable by conventional approaches. We observe proximity-induced superconductivity in Bi(2)Se(3) and Bi(2)Te(3) persisting up to at least 80 K-a temperature an order of magnitude higher than any previous observations. Moreover, the induced superconducting gap in our devices reaches values of 10 mV, significantly enhancing the relevant energy scales. Our results open new directions for fundamental studies in condensed matter physics and enable a wide range of applications in spintronics and quantum computing.

Plasmonic Nanoantennas for Broad-Band Enhancement of Two-Photon Emission from Semiconductors

We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically a broad-band enhancement of the spontaneous two-photon emission from AlGaAs at room temperature by plasmonic nanoantenna arrays fabricated on the semiconductor surface. Plasmonic structures with inherently low quality factors but very small effective volumes are shown to be optimal. A 20-fold enhancement was achieved for the entire antenna array, corresponding to an enhancement of nearly 3 orders of magnitude for charge carriers emitting at the near field of a plasmonic antenna.

Applications of two-photon processes in semiconductor photonic devices: invited review

Semiconductor photonics is an advanced field, both from fundamental and applicative points of view, aimed at the integration of the unique features of optical communications and quantum optics with the miniaturization and controllability of semiconductors. Many classical and quantum applications may benefit from interaction between optical signals, usually implemented by nonlinear optical processes of various orders. The efficiency of such processes in semiconductors is being constantly enhanced, assisted by the progress in ultrashort laser pulses and ultra-sensitive detectors, enabling practical devices. In this review, the lowest order of nonlinear interactions-–the two-photon processes in semiconductors—are discussed, and their applications to a variety of novel classical and quantum configurations are reviewed.

Scalable spatial superresolution using entangled photons

We demonstrate spatial super-resolution, performing an optical centroid measurement on 4-photon N00N states with a scalable 11-detector measurement. Our results show spatial super-resolution with exponentially better detection efficiency than any previous N00N-state experiment.

High-rate entanglement source via two-photon emission from semiconductor quantum wells

We propose a compact high-intensity room-temperature source of entangled photons based on the efficient second-order process of two-photon spontaneous emission from electrically pumped semiconductor quantum wells in a photonic microcavity. Two-photon emission rate in room-temperature semiconductor devices is determined solely by the carrier density, regardless of the residual one-photon emission. The microcavity selects two-photon emission for a specific signal and idler wavelengths and at a preferred direction without modifying the overall rate. Pair-generation rate in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well structure is estimated using a 14-band model to be 3 orders of magnitude higher than for traditional broadband parametric down-conversion sources.

Dynamic Stark effect in strongly coupled microcavity exciton polaritons.

We present experimental observations of a nonresonant dynamic Stark shift in strongly coupled microcavity quantum well exciton polaritons--a system which provides a rich variety of solid-state collective phenomena. The Stark effect is demonstrated in a GaAs/AlGaAs system at 10 K by femtosecond pump-probe measurements, with the blueshift approaching the meV scale for a pump fluence of 2  mJ cm(-2) and 50 meV red detuning, in good agreement with theory. The energy level structure of the strongly coupled polariton Rabi doublet remains unaffected by the blueshift. The demonstrated effect should allow generation of ultrafast density-independent potentials and imprinting well-defined phase profiles on polariton condensates, providing a powerful tool for manipulation of these condensates, similar to dipole potentials in cold-atom systems.

Characterizing an entangled-photon source with classical detectors and measurements

Entangled-photon pairs are essential for many applications in quantum computation and communication, and quantum state tomography (QST) is the universal tool to characterize such entangled-photon sources. In QST, very low-power signals must be measured with single-photon detectors and coincidence logic. Here, we experimentally implement a new protocol, “stimulated-emission tomography” (SET), allowing us to obtain the information provided by QST when the photon pairs are generated by parametric fluorescence. This approach exploits a stimulated process that results in a signal several orders of magnitude larger than in QST. In particular, we characterize the polarization state of photons that would be generated in spontaneous parametric downconversion using SET. We find that SET accurately predicts the purity and concurrence of the spontaneously generated photons in agreement with the results of QST. We expect that SET will be extremely useful to characterize entanglement sources based on parametric fluorescence, providing a fast and efficient technique to potentially replace or supplement QST.

Phasematching in semiconductor nonlinear optics by linear long-period gratings

We experimentally demonstrate a phasematching technique for frequency conversion in nonlinear semiconductor structures by employing linear long-period gratings. We designed a specific semiconductor photonic device for second harmonic generation using coupled-mode equations with parameters extracted from beam propagation method simulations. Optical frequency converters were fabricated according to the design with the main feature; linear long-period weak gratings imprinted on semiconductor waveguides, providing the required photon momentum difference for matching the phases of the different-wavelength photons. The measured nonlinear conversion efficiency and its spectrum comply with our theoretical predictions.

Cooper-pair-based photon entanglement without isolated emitters

We show that the recombination of Cooper pairs in semiconductors can be used as a natural source of polarization-entangled photons, making use of the inherent angular momentum entanglement in the superconducting state. Our proposal is not based on opposite spin population of discrete energy levels and thus does not require isolated emitters such as single atoms or quantum dots. We observe that in bulk materials, the photon entanglement would be degraded due to the variety of decay channels available in the presence of light-hole (LH)\char21{}heavy-hole (HH) degeneracy. However, we show that the lifting of this degeneracy by use of a semiconductor quantum well should lead to faithful conversion of the Cooper-pair entanglement into photon entanglement. The second-order decay of two-electron states in Cooper-pair luminescence leaves no which-path information, resulting in perfect coherence between two pathways and hence, in principle, perfect entanglement. We calculate the purity of the entangled-photon state and find that it increases for larger LH\char21{}HH energy splitting and for lower temperatures. Moreover, the superconducting macroscopic coherence offers an enhancement to the emission rate, making this a promising scheme for efficient generation of entangled photons in simple electrically driven structures.