Electrifying photonic metamaterials for tunable nonlinear optics

Tunable Photonic Metamaterials

Liquid crystals, photonic crystals, metamaterials, and transformation optics.

R ecent advances of modern optics have been made possible with the development of unique materials, most notably liquid crystals (LCs), photonic crystals (PCs), and metamaterials (MMs). LCs have already completed a revolution in the way we present information nowadays, enabling an entire industry of flat panel liquid crystal displays (LCDs). PCs (1) and MMs (2) are further behind in terms of br...

Tunable split-ring resonators for nonlinear negative-index metamaterials.

We study experimentally the dynamic tunability and self-induced nonlinearity of split-ring resonators incorporating variable capacitance diodes. We demonstrate that the eigenfrequencies of the resonators can be tuned over a wide frequency range, and significantly, we show that the self-induced nonlinear effects observed in the varactor-loaded split-ring resonator structures can appear at relati...

Enhanced nonlinear optics in photonic-crystal microcavities.

Focus Serial: Frontiers of Nonlinear Optics Nonlinear photonic-crystal microresonators offer unique fundamental ways of enhancing a variety of nonlinear optical processes. This enhancement improves the performance of nonlinear optical devices to such an extent that their corresponding operation powers and switching times are suita...

Single photon nonlinear optics in photonic crystals

We coherently probe a quantum dot that is strongly coupled to a photonic crystal nano-cavity by scattering of a resonant laser beam. The coupled system’s response is highly nonlinear as the quantum dot saturates with nearly one photon per cavity lifetime. This system enables large amplitude and phase shifts of a signal beam via a control beam, both at single photon levels. We demonstrate photon...