Jens Förstner

Coherent nonlinear pulse propagation on a free-exciton resonance in a semiconductor

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the coherent nonlinear pulse propagation. It identifies coherent exciton light coupling over a broad intensity range and permits comparison with numerical calculations based on the semiconductor Maxwell–Bloch equations. At low light intensities, polariton propagation beats owing to the interference between excited states on both polariton branches. In an intermediate intensity regime, the temporal polariton beating is suppressed in consequence of exciton–exciton interaction. At the highest light intensities, self-induced transmission and multiple pulse breakup are identified as a signature for carrier density Rabi flopping. Exciton–phonon scattering is shown to gradually eliminate coherent nonlinear propagation effects due to enhanced dephasing of the excitonic polarization. The experiments can be described theoretically using the semiconductor Maxwell–Bloch equations, which accomplish the transition from linear to nonlinear optics by taking into account many-body interactions consisting of mean-field and correlation effects. The chapter, in addition, discusses the intensity to pulse area relation, pulse delays, and effective propagation velocities in dependence on the pulse intensity yield quantitative agreement between the experiment and the semiconductor Maxwell–Bloch theory.

Unveiling Nanometer Scale Extinction and Scattering Phenomena through Combined Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy and Cathodoluminescence Measurements

Plasmon modes of the exact same individual gold nanoprisms are investigated through combined nanometer-resolved electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) and cathodoluminescence (CL) measurements. We show that CL only probes the radiative modes, in contrast to EELS, which additionally reveals dark modes. The combination of both techniques on the same particles thus provides complementary information and also demonstrates that although the radiative modes give rise to very similar spatial distributions when probed by EELS or CL, their resonant energies appear to be different. We trace this phenomenon back to plasmon dissipation, which affects in different ways the plasmon signatures probed by these techniques. Our experiments are in agreement with electromagnetic numerical simulations and can be further interpreted within the framework of a quasistatic analytical model. We therefore demonstrate that CL and EELS are closely related to optical scattering and extinction, respectively, with the addition of nanometer spatial resolution.

Second harmonic generation spectroscopy on hybrid plasmonic/dielectric nanoantennas

Plasmonic nanoantennas provide unprecedented opportunities to concentrate light fields in subwavelength-sized volumes. By placing a nonlinear dielectric nanoparticle in such a hot spot, one can hope to take advantage of both the field enhancement provided by nanoantennas and the large, nonlinear optical susceptibility of dielectric nanoparticles. To test this concept, we combine gold gap nanoantennas with second-order, nonlinear zinc sulfide nanoparticles, and perform second harmonic generation (SHG) spectroscopy on the combined hybrid dielectric/plasmonic nanoantennas as well as on the individual constituents. We find that SHG from the bare gold nanoantennas, even though it should be forbidden due to symmetry reasons, is several orders of magnitude larger than that of the bare zinc sulfide nanoparticles. Even stronger second harmonic signals are generated by the hybrid dielectric/plasmonic nanoantennas. Control experiments with nanoantennas containing linear lanthanum fluoride nanoparticles reveal; however, that the increased SHG efficiency of the hybrid dielectric/plasmonic nanoantennas does not depend on the nonlinear optical susceptibility of the dielectric nanoparticles but is an effect of the modification of the dielectric environment. The combination of a hybrid dielectric/plasmonic nanoantenna, which is only resonant for the incoming pump light field, with a second nanoantenna, which is resonant for the generated second harmonic light, allows for a further increase in the efficiency of SHG. As the second nanoantenna mediates the coupling of the second harmonic light to the far field, this double-resonant approach also provides us with control over the polarization of the generated light.

Self-induced transparency in InGaAs quantum-dot waveguides

We report the experimental observation and the theoretical modeling of self-induced-transparency signatures such as nonlinear transmission, pulse retardation and reshaping, for subpicosecond pulse propagation in a 2-mm-long InGaAs quantum-dot ridge waveguide in resonance with the excitonic ground-state transition at 10 K. The measurements were obtained by using a cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating technique which allows us to retrieve the field amplitude of the propagating pulses.

Cavity-assisted emission of polarization-entangled photons from biexcitons in quantum dots with fine-structure splitting.

We study the quantum properties and statistics of photons emitted by a quantum-dot biexciton inside a cavity. In the biexciton-exciton cascade, fine-structure splitting between exciton levels degrades polarization-entanglement for the emitted pair of photons. However, here we show that the polarization-entanglement can be preserved in such a system through simultaneous emission of two degenerate photons into cavity modes tuned to half the biexciton energy. Based on detailed theoretical calculations for realistic quantum-dot and cavity parameters, we quantify the degree of achievable entanglement.

Light Propagation- and Many-particle-induced Non-Lorentzian Lineshapes in Semiconductor Nanooptics

The occurrence of non-Lorentzian lineshapes is analyzed for a variety of nanooptical semiconductor systems such as quantum wells and quantum dots. Their origin is traced back to light–matter interaction (light propagation) and many-particle correlations (electron–electron and electron– phonon interaction).

Whispering gallery modes in zinc-blende AlN microdisks containing non-polar GaN quantum dots

Whispering gallery modes (WGMs) were observed in 60 nm thin cubic AlN microdisk resonators containing a single layer of non-polar cubic GaN quantum dots. Freestanding microdisks were patterned by means of electron beam lithography and a two step reactive ion etching process. Micro-photoluminescence spectroscopy investigations were performed for optical characterization. We analyzed the mode spacing for disk diameters ranging from 2-4 μm. Numerical investigations using three dimensional finite difference time domain calculations were in good agreement with the experimental data. Whispering gallery modes of the radial orders 1 and 2 were identified by means of simulated mode field distributions.

Light scattering by randomly irregular dielectric particles larger than the wavelength

We present results of simulation of light scattering by randomly irregular particles that have dimensions larger than the wavelength of incident light. We apply the discontinuous Galerkin time domain method and compare the accurate solution with that obtained using an approximate geometric-optics model. A qualitative agreement is observed for scattering angle curves of intensity at the size parameter of X=60, whereas angular dependence of polarization appears to be more sensitive to the wave effects and requires larger sizes for application of geometrical optics.

Phonon-assisted tunneling between singlet states in two-electron quantum dot molecules

We study phonon-assisted electron tunneling in semiconductor quantum dot molecules. In particular, singletsinglet relaxation in a two-electron-doped structure is considered. The influence of Coulomb interaction is discussed via comparison with a single-electron system. We find that the relaxation rate reaches similar values in the two cases but the Coulomb interaction shifts the maximum rates toward larger separations between the dots. The difference in electron-phonon interaction between deformation potential and piezoelectric coupling is investigated. We show that the phonon-induced tunneling between two-electron singlet states is a fast process, taking place on the time scales of the order of a few tens of picoseconds.

Coupling Mediated Coherent Control of Localized Surface Plasmon Polaritons.

We investigate the phase-dependent excitation of localized surface plasmon polaritons in coupled nanorods by using nonlinear spectroscopy. Our design of a coupled three-nanorod structure allows independent excitation with cross-polarized light. Here, we show that the excitation of a particular plasmon mode can be coherently controlled by changing the relative phase of two orthogonally polarized light fields. Furthermore, we observe a phase relation for the excitation that is dominantly caused by damping effects.