Alexander Yu. Petrov

Electro-optic modulation in slotted resonant photonic crystal heterostructures

Two dimensional photonic crystal waveguides in high index materials enable integrated optical devices with an extremely small geometrical footprint on the scale of micrometers. Slotted waveguides are based on the guiding of light in low refractive index materials and a field enhancement in this particular region of the device. In this letter we experimentally demonstrate electro-optic modulation in slotted photonic crystal waveguides based on silicon-on-insulator substrates covered and infiltrated with nonlinear optical polymers. A photonic crystal heterostructure is used to create a cavity, while simultaneously serving as an electrical connection from the slot to the metal electrodes that carry the modulation signal.

Comment on "Nonreciprocal light propagation in a silicon photonic circuit".

We show that the structure demonstrated by Feng et al. (Reports, 5 August 2011, p. 729) cannot enable optical isolation because it possesses a symmetric scattering matrix. Moreover, one cannot construct an optical isolator by incorporating this structure into any system as long as the system is linear and time-independent and is described by materials with a scalar dielectric function.

Quantum chaos in ultracold collisions of gas-phase erbium atoms

Atomic and molecular samples reduced to temperatures below one microkelvin, yet still in the gas phase, afford unprecedented energy resolution in probing and manipulating the interactions between their constituent particles. As a result of this resolution, atoms can be made to scatter resonantly on demand, through the precise control of a magnetic field. For simple atoms, such as alkalis, scattering resonances are extremely well characterized. However, ultracold physics is now poised to enter a new regime, where much more complex species can be cooled and studied, including magnetic lanthanide atoms and even molecules. For molecules, it has been speculated that a dense set of resonances in ultracold collision cross-sections will probably exhibit essentially random fluctuations, much as the observed energy spectra of nuclear scattering do. According to the Bohigas–Giannoni–Schmit conjecture, such fluctuations would imply chaotic dynamics of the underlying classical motion driving the collision. This would necessitate new ways of looking at the fundamental interactions in ultracold atomic and molecular systems, as well as perhaps new chaos-driven states of ultracold matter. Here we describe the experimental demonstration that random spectra are indeed found at ultralow temperatures. In the experiment, an ultracold gas of erbium atoms is shown to exhibit many Fano–Feshbach resonances, of the order of three per gauss for bosons. Analysis of their statistics verifies that their distribution of nearest-neighbour spacings is what one would expect from random matrix theory. The density and statistics of these resonances are explained by fully quantum mechanical scattering calculations that locate their origin in the anisotropy of the atoms’ potential energy surface. Our results therefore reveal chaotic behaviour in the native interaction between ultracold atoms.

Optical spectroscopy of single Si nanocylinders with magnetic and electric resonances

Resonant electromagnetic properties of nanoparticles fabricated from high-index semiconductor or dielectric materials are very promising for the realization of novel nanoantennas and metamaterials. In this paper we study optical resonances of Si nanocylinders located on a silica substrate. Multipole analysis of the experimental scattering spectra, based on the decomposed discrete dipole approximation, confirms resonant excitation of electric and magnetic dipole modes in the Si nanocylinders. Influences of light polarization and incident angle on the scattering properties of the nanocylinders are studied. It is shown that the dependence of resonant excitation of the electric and magnetic modes in the nanocylinders on incident angle and polarization of light allows controlling and manipulating the scattered light in this system. The demonstrated properties of Si nanocylinders can be used for the realization of dielectric metasurfaces with different functional optical properties.

Ultracold Dipolar Molecules Composed of Strongly Magnetic Atoms.

In a combined experimental and theoretical effort, we demonstrate a novel type of dipolar system made of ultracold bosonic dipolar molecules with large magnetic dipole moments. Our dipolar molecules are formed in weakly bound Feshbach molecular states from a sample of strongly magnetic bosonic erbium atoms. We show that the ultracold magnetic molecules can carry very large dipole moments and we demonstrate how to create and characterize them, and how to change their orientation. Finally, we confirm that the relaxation rates of molecules in a quasi-two-dimensional geometry can be reduced by using the anisotropy of the dipole-dipole interaction and that this reduction follows a universal dipolar behavior.

Trimming of high-Q-factor silicon ring resonators by electron beam bleaching

We demonstrate a novel position-resolved resonance trimming strategy for silicon ring resonators. Ring resonators are covered with a chromophore-doped guest host polymer cladding. Illumination of the polymer cladding with high-energy electrons causes a bleaching of the chromophore molecules. Bleaching of the chromophores induces a reduction of the polymer refractive index, which can be used to trim the resonance frequency of the ring resonators. A maximum refractive index change of 0.06 and a TM polarization resonance shift of 16.4 nm have been measured. A Q factor of 20,000 before bleaching remains unaltered after the electron beam exposure process.

Resonance splitting in gyrotropic ring resonators

We present the theoretical concept of an optical isolator based on resonance splitting in a silicon ring resonator covered with a magneto-optical polymer cladding. For this task, a perturbation method is derived for the modes in the cylindrical coordinate system. A polymer magneto-optical cladding causing a 0.01 amplitude of the off-diagonal element of the dielectric tensor is assumed. It is shown that the derived resonance splitting of the clockwise and counterclockwise modes increases for smaller ring radii. For the ring with a radius of approximately 1.5μm, a 29GHz splitting is demonstrated. An integrated optical isolator with a 10μm geometrical footprint is proposed based on a critically coupled ring resonator.

Thermal radiation transmission and reflection properties of ceramic 3D photonic crystals

The infrared (IR) transmission and reflection properties of the ceramic thermal barrier coatings have great implications on the overall performance of a component operated at high temperatures, where a significant amount of heat from external IR radiation will propagate through the coating toward the underlying substrate. A high-temperature photonic structure can be used to limit this radiation transport while operating at temperatures above 1000 °C. Herein, we present the concept of a broadband and angle-insensitive IR reflector, based on 3D photonic crystals (PhCs) that consists of a ceramic material with high thermal stability and low thermal conductivity. We numerically demonstrate that the multistack ceramic 3D PhCs can provide >80% of bi-hemispherical reflectance in the wavelength region of 1–5 μm.

Anisotropy-induced Feshbach resonances in a quantum dipolar gas of highly magnetic atoms.

We explore the anisotropic nature of Feshbach resonances in the collision between ultracold highly magnetic submerged-shell dysprosium atoms in their energetically lowest magnetic sublevel, which can only occur due to couplings to rotating bound states. This is in contrast to well-studied alkali-metal atom collisions, where broadest (strongest) Feshbach resonances are hyperfine induced and due to rotationless bound states. Our first-principle coupled-channel calculation of the collisions between these spin-polarized bosonic dysprosium atoms reveals a strong interplay between the anisotropies in the dispersion and magnetic dipole-dipole interaction. The former anisotropy is absent in alkali-metal and chromium collisions. We show that both types of anisotropy significantly affect the Feshbach spectrum as a function of an external magnetic field. Effects of the electrostatic quadrupole-quadrupole interaction are small. Over a 20 mT magnetic field range, we predict about 10 Feshbach resonances and show that the resonance locations depend on the dysprosium isotope.

Vertical convective coassembly of refractory YSZ inverse opals from crystalline nanoparticles.

A facile deposition method of 3D photonic crystals made of yttrium-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) was developed. YSZ nanoparticles with primary particle size below 10 nm and cubic crystalline phase were synthesized by hydrothermal treatment of solutions of zirconyl nitrate, yttrium nitrate and acetylacetone. Before coassembly with polystyrene (PS) microspheres, a dispersant Dolapix CE64 was added to the dialyzed sol of YSZ nanoparticles to render their surface negatively charged. Vertical convective coassembly resulted in 3D ordered YSZ/PS hybrid films, which were inverted at 500 °C in air to produce inverse opals. The linear shrinkage of the coatings was in the range 15-20%, below previously reported values for YSZ. The obtained coatings demonstrated pronounced photonic properties and retained their ordered structure after annealing at 1000 °C for 2 h. Increasing the filling fraction of crystalline nanoparticles in the templates should enable production of fully functional 3D photonic crystals for applications in high-temperature photonics.