Mikko Partanen

Photon mass drag and the momentum of light in a medium

Conventional theories of electromagnetic waves in a medium assume that the energy propagating with the light pulse in the medium is entirely carried by the field. Thus, the possibility that the optical force field of the light pulse would drive forward an atomic mass density wave (MDW) and the related kinetic and elastic energies is neglected. In this work, we present foundations of a covariant theory of light propagation in a medium by considering a light wave simultaneously with the dynamics of the medium atoms driven by optoelastic forces between the induced dipoles and the electromagnetic field. We prove that the transfer of mass as MDW associated with the light pulse, the photon mass drag effect, gives an essential contribution to the total momentum of the light pulse, which becomes equal to the Minkowski momentum. Thus, our theory also resolves the centenary Abraham-Minkowski controversy of the momentum of light in a nondispersive medium. We derive the photon mass drag effect using two independent but complementary covariant models. In the mass-polariton (MP) quasiparticle approach, we consider the light pulse as a coupled state between the photon and matter, isolated from the rest of the medium. The momentum and the transferred mass of MP follow unambiguously from the Lorentz invariance and the fundamental conservation laws of nature. To enable the calculation of the mass and momentum distribution of a light pulse, we have also generalized the electrodynamics of continuous media to account for the optoelastic dynamics of the medium. In this optoelastic continuum dynamics (OCD) approach, we obtain a numerically accurate solution of the Newtonian continuum dynamics of the medium when the light pulse is propagating in it. We finally discuss a possibility of an optical waveguide setup for experimental measurement of the transferred mass of the light pulse.

Optical Energy Transfer and Loss Mechanisms in Coupled Intracavity Light Emitters

Despite the near-unity internal quantum efficiencies (IQEs) demonstrated for GaAs-based light emitters, laser cooling of the ubiquitous III-V semiconductors has not been feasible. The key challenges for III-V optical cooling are the reduced absorption of optical excitation at photon energies well below the bandgap and the strong confinement of light in the high refractive index semiconductors. Here, we investigate the possibility to eliminate the need for light extraction and to eventually relax the requirements of the IQE. This is done using electroluminescence and optical energy transfer within intracavity devices consisting of an AlGaAs/GaAs double heterojunction light emitting diodes and a GaAs p-n-homojunction photodiode enclosed within a single semiconductor cavity. We measure the intracavity energy transfer, i.e., the coupling quantum efficiency (CQE) between the two diodes and estimate loss mechanisms by simultaneously measuring the IV characteristics of the emitter diode and the photocurrent of the absorber diode. The measured CQE of our devices is below 60% due to the mirror, light extraction, nonradiative, and detection losses. While this is far below the state-of-the-art efficiencies, our results suggest that it will be possible to substantially improve the efficiency by adopting the fabrication and design principles used for the best performing photoluminescent emitters.

Mass-polariton theory of light in dispersive media

We have recently shown that the electromagnetic field in a medium is made of mass-polariton (MP) quasiparticles, which are quantized coupled states of the field and an atomic mass density wave (MDW) [Phys. Rev. A 95, 063850 (2017)]. In this work, we generalize the MP theory of light for dispersive media assuming that absorption and scattering losses are very small. Following our previous work, we present two different approaches to the theory of light: (1) the MP quasiparticle theory, which is derived by only using the fundamental conservation laws and the Lorentz transformation; (2) the classical optoelastic continuum dynamics (OCD), which is a generalization of the electrodynamics of continuous media to include the dynamics of the medium under the influence of optical forces. For the coupled MP state of a single photon and the medium, we obtain the total MP momentum of the Minkowski form while the fields share of the momentum is equal to the Abraham momentum. We also show that the correspondence between the MP and OCD models and the conservation of momentum at interfaces gives an unambiguous formula for the optical force. The dynamics of the light pulse and the related MDW lead to nonequilibrium of the medium and to relaxation of the atomic density by sound waves in the same way as for nondispersive media. We also carry out simulations for optimal measurements of atomic displacements related to the MDW in silicon. In the simulations, we consider different waveguide cross-sections and optical pulse widths and account for the breakdown threshold irradiance of materials. We also compare the MP theory to previous theories of the momentum of light in a dispersive medium. We show that our generalized MP theory resolves all the problems related to the Abraham-Minkowski dilemma in a dispersive medium.

Unified position-dependent photon-number quantization in layered structures

We have recently developed a position-dependent quantization scheme for describing the ladder and effective photon-number operators associated with the electric field to analyze quantum optical energy transfer in lossy and dispersive dielectrics [Phys. Rev. A, 89, 033831 (2014)]. While having a simple connection to the thermal balance of the system, these operators only described the electric field and its coupling to lossy dielectric bodies. Here we extend this field quantization scheme to include the magnetic field and thus to enable description of the total electromagnetic field and discuss conceptual measurement schemes to verify the predictions. In addition to conveniently describing the formation of thermal balance, the generalized approach allows modeling of the electromagnetic pressure and Casimir forces. We apply the formalism to study the local steady state field temperature distributions and electromagnetic force density in cavities with cavity walls at different temperatures. The calculated local electric and magnetic field temperatures exhibit oscillations that depend on the position as well as the photon energy. However, the effective photon number and field temperature associated with the total electromagnetic field is always position-independent in lossless media. Furthermore, we show that the direction of the electromagnetic force varies as a function of frequency, position, and material thickness.

Thermal balance and photon-number quantization in layered structures.

The quantization of the electromagnetic field in lossy and dispersive dielectric media has been widely studied during the last few decades. However, several aspects of energy transfer and its relation to consistently defining position-dependent ladder operators for the electromagnetic field in nonequilibrium conditions have partly escaped the attention. In this work we define the position-dependent ladder operators and an effective local photon-number operator that are consistent with the canonical commutation relations and use these concepts to describe the energy transfer and thermal balance in layered geometries. This approach results in a position-dependent photon-number concept that is simple and consistent with classical energy conservation arguments. The operators are formed by first calculating the vector potential operator using Greens function formalism and Langevin noise source operators related to the medium and its temperature, and then defining the corresponding position-dependent annihilation operator that is required to satisfy the canonical commutation relations in arbitrary geometry. Our results suggest that the effective photon number associated with the electric field is generally position dependent and enables a straightforward method to calculate the energy transfer rate between the field and the local medium. In particular, our results predict that the effective photon number in a vacuum cavity formed between two lossy material layers can oscillate as a function of the position suggesting that also the local field temperature oscillates. These oscillations are expected to be directly observable using relatively straightforward experimental setups in which the field-matter interaction is dominated by the coupling to the electric field.

Interference-exact radiative transfer equation

The Purcell effect, i.e., the modification of the spontaneous emission rate by optical interference, profoundly affects the light-matter coupling in optical resonators. Fully describing the optical absorption, emission, and interference of light hence conventionally requires combining the full Maxwell’s equations with stochastic or quantum optical source terms accounting for the quantum nature of light. We show that both the nonlocal wave and local particle features associated with interference and emission of propagating fields in stratified geometries can be fully captured by local damping and scattering coefficients derived from the recently introduced quantized fluctuational electrodynamics (QFED) framework. In addition to describing the nonlocal optical interference processes as local directionally resolved effects, this allows reformulating the well known and widely used radiative transfer equation (RTE) as a physically transparent interference-exact model that extends the useful range of computationally efficient and quantum optically accurate interference-aware optical models from simple structures to full optical devices.

Generalized noise terms for the quantized fluctuational electrodynamics

The quantization of optical fields in vacuum has been known for decades, but extending the field quantization to lossy and dispersive media in nonequilibrium conditions has proven to be complicated due to the position-dependent electric and magnetic responses of the media. In fact, consistent position-dependent quantum models for the photon number in resonant structures have only been formulated very recently and only for dielectric media. Here we present a general position-dependent quantized fluctuational electrodynamics (QFED) formalism that extends the consistent field quantization to describe the photon number also in the presence of magnetic field-matter interactions. It is shown that the magnetic fluctuations provide an additional degree of freedom in media where the magnetic coupling to the field is prominent. Therefore, the field quantization requires an additional independent noise operator that is commuting with the conventional bosonic noise operator describing the polarization current fluctuations in dielectric media. In addition to allowing the detailed description of field fluctuations, our methods provide practical tools for modeling optical energy transfer and the formation of thermal balance in general dielectric and magnetic nanodevices. We use the QFED to investigate the magnetic properties of microcavity systems to demonstrate an example geometry in which it is possible to probe fields arising from the electric and magnetic source terms. We show that, as a consequence of the magnetic Purcell effect, the tuning of the position of an emitter layer placed inside a vacuum cavity can make the emissivity of a magnetic emitter to exceed the emissivity of a corresponding electric emitter.

Commutation-relation-preserving ladder operators for propagating optical fields in nonuniform lossy media

We have recently developed a quantized fluctuational electrodynamics (QFED) formalism to describe the quantum aspects of local thermal balance formation and to formulate the electromagnetic field ladder operators so that they no longer exhibit the anomalies reported for resonant structures. Here we show how the QFED can be used to resolve between the left and right propagating fields to bridge the QFED and the quantum optical input-output relations commonly used to describe selected quantum aspects of resonators. The generalized model introduces a density of states concept describing interference effects, which is instrumental in allowing an unambiguous separation of the fields and related quantum operators into left and right propagating parts. In addition to providing insight on the quantum treatment of interference, our results also provide the conclusive resolution of the long-standing enigma of the anomalous commutation relations of partially confined propagating fields.

Noiseless amplification of weak coherent fields exploiting energy fluctuations of the field

Quantum optics dictates that amplification of a pure state by any linear deterministic amplifier always introduces noise in the signal and results in a mixed output state. However, it has recently been shown that noiseless amplification becomes possible if the requirement of a deterministic operation is relaxed. Here we propose and analyze a noiseless amplification scheme where the energy required to amplify the signal originates from the stochastic fluctuations in the field itself. In contrast to previous amplification setups, our setup shows that a signal can be amplified even if no energy is added to the signal from external sources. We investigate the relation between the amplification and its success rate as well as the statistics of the output states after successful and failed amplification processes. Furthermore, we also optimize the setup to find the maximum success rates in terms of the reflectivities of the beam splitters used in the setup and discuss the relation of our setup with the previous setups.

Light-driven mass density wave dynamics in optical fibers

We have recently developed the mass-polariton (MP) theory of light to describe the light propagation in transparent bulk materials [Phys. Rev. A 95, 063850 (2017)]. The MP theory is general as it is based on the covariance principle and the fundamental conservation laws of nature. Therefore, it can be applied also to nonhomogeneous and dispersive materials. In this work, we apply the MP theory of light to describe propagation of light in step-index circular waveguides. We study the eigenmodes of the electric and magnetic fields in a waveguide and use these modes to calculate the optical force density, which is used in the optoelastic continuum dynamics (OCD) to simulate the dynamics of medium atoms in the waveguide. We show that the total momentum and angular momentum in the waveguide are carried by a coupled state of the field and the medium. In particular, we focus in the dynamics of atoms, which has not been covered in previous theories that consider only field dynamics in waveguides. We also study the elastic waves generated in the waveguide during the relaxation following from atomic displacements in the waveguide.