Geometric similarities and topological phases in surface magnon polaritons

Highly spatially-squeezed polaritons, with propagation momentum significantly larger than free-space modes at the same frequency, enable varied and extreme control over light-matter interaction. Compared to other polaritons, surface magnon polaritons, the magnetic counterpart of surface phonon polaritons, have received relatively little attention. Here, we investigate the dispersion and properties of surface-magnon polaritons, highlighting the impact of geometric similarities and applying them to various surface-magnon polariton devices in both conventional and topological settings. Our theory predicts a method for strongly localizing and significantly enhancing magnetic fields in the microwave range and developing compact and lossless connectors capable of interconnecting waveguides with vastly different input and output impedances. Our work opens new avenues for manipulating magnetic fields in the microwave regime and for exploring topological phases in polariton platforms

Gradient metasurfaces: a review of fundamentals and applications

In the wake of intense research on metamaterials the two-dimensional analogue, known as metasurfaces, has attracted progressively increasing attention in recent years due to the ease of fabrication and smaller insertion losses, while enabling an unprecedented control over spatial distributions of transmitted and reflected optical fields. Metasurfaces represent optically thin planar arrays of resonant subwavelength elements that can be arranged in a strictly or quasi periodic fashion, or even in an aperiodic manner, depending on targeted optical wavefronts to be molded with their help. This paper reviews a broad subclass of metasurfaces, viz. gradient metasurfaces, which are devised to exhibit spatially varying optical responses resulting in spatially varying amplitudes, phases and polarizations of scattered fields. Starting with introducing the concept of gradient metasurfaces, we present classification of different metasurfaces from the viewpoint of their responses, differentiating electrical-dipole, geometric, reflective and Huygens' metasurfaces. The fundamental building blocks essential for the realization of metasurfaces are then discussed in order to elucidate the underlying physics of various physical realizations of both plasmonic and purely dielectric metasurfaces. We then overview the main applications of gradient metasurfaces, including waveplates, flat lenses, spiral phase plates, broadband absorbers, color printing, holograms, polarimeters and surface wave couplers. The review is terminated with a short section on recently developed nonlinear metasurfaces, followed by the outlook presenting our view on possible future developments and perspectives for future applications.Comment: Accepted for publication in Reports on Progress in Physic

Topological Photonics

Topological photonics is a rapidly emerging field of research in which geometrical and topological ideas are exploited to design and control the behavior of light. Drawing inspiration from the discovery of the quantum Hall effects and topological insulators in condensed matter, recent advances have shown how to engineer analogous effects also for photons, leading to remarkable phenomena such as the robust unidirectional propagation of light, which hold great promise for applications. Thanks to the flexibility and diversity of photonics systems, this field is also opening up new opportunities to realize exotic topological models and to probe and exploit topological effects in new ways. This article reviews experimental and theoretical developments in topological photonics across a wide range of experimental platforms, including photonic crystals, waveguides, metamaterials, cavities, optomechanics, silicon photonics, and circuit QED. A discussion of how changing the dimensionality and symmetries of photonics systems has allowed for the realization of different topological phases is offered, and progress in understanding the interplay of topology with non-Hermitian effects, such as dissipation, is reviewed. As an exciting perspective, topological photonics can be combined with optical nonlinearities, leading toward new collective phenomena and novel strongly correlated states of light, such as an analog of the fractional quantum Hall effect.Comment: 87 pages, 30 figures, published versio

A brief review of topological photonics in one, two, and three dimensions

Topological photonics has attracted increasing attention in recent years due to the unique opportunities it provides to manipulate light in a robust way immune to disorder and defects. Up to now, diverse photonic platforms, rich physical mechanisms and fruitful device applications have been proposed for topological photonics, including one-way waveguide, topological lasing, topological nanocavity, Dirac and Weyl points, Fermi arcs, nodal lines, etc. In this review, we provide an introduction to the field of topological photonics through the lens of topological invariants and bulk-boundary correspondence in one, two, and three dimensions, which may not only offer a unified understanding about the underlying robustness of diverse and distinct topological phenomena of light, but could also inspire further developments by introducing new topological invariants and unconventional bulk-boundary correspondence to the research of topological photonics.Comment: 29 pages, 12 figures, 341 reference

Quantum and Classical Optics of Plasmonic Systems: 3d/2d Materials and Photonic Topological Insulators

At the interface of two different media such as metal and vacuum, light can couple to the electrons of the metal to form a wave that is bound to the interface. This wave is called a surface plasmon-plariton (SPP), generally characterized by intense fields that decay quickly away from the interface. Due to their unique properties, SPPs have found a broad range of applications in various areas of science, including light harvesting, medical science, energy transfer and imaging. In addition to the widely studied classical plasmonics, quantum plasmonics is also attracting considerable interest in the electromagnetics and quantum optics communities. In this thesis several new areas of investigation into quantum plasmonics is presented, focusing on entanglement mediated by SPPs in several different environments: 3D waveguides, 2D surfaces and on photonic topological insulators. Entanglement is an experimentally verified property of nature where pairs of quantum systems are connected in some manner such that the quantum state of each system cannot be described independently. Generating, preserving, and controlling entanglement is necessary for many quantum computer implementations. It is highly desirable to control entanglement between two multi-level emitters such as quantum dots via a macroscopic, easily-adjusted external parameter. SPPs guided by the medium, as a coupling agent between quantum dots, are highly tunable and offer a promising way to achieve having control over a SPP mediated entanglement. We first consider two quantum dots placed above 3D finite length waveguides. We have restricted our consideration to two waveguides types, i.e. a metal nanowire and a groove waveguide. Our main results in this work are to show that realistic finite-length nanowire and groove waveguides, with their associated discontinuities, play a crucial role in the engineering of highly entangled states. It is demonstrated that proper positioning of the emitters with respect to the waveguide edges can lead to a significant increase in entanglement compared to the case of the emitter coupled to an infinite plasmonic waveguide. Moreover, even for the infinite-length case, discontinuities in the waveguides do not always play a detrimental role, to be more specific, an increase in entanglement compared to the unperturbed waveguides can be achieved by introducing coupling slots (engineered perturbations) into the structure. In addition to 3D environments, two dimensional (2D) materials are of intense interest due to their extraordinary capabilities to manipulate reflection and transmission characteristics, and beam-forming. Some notable examples of 2D layered crystals include graphene, black phosphorus (BP) and boron nitride. Graphene in particular has received considerable attention as a promising 2D surface for many applications relating to its integrability and electronic tune-ability. Black phosphorus is also a layered material that has recently been exfoliated into its multilayers, showing good electrical transport properties and promising optical charactristics. Most of the previous studies of the electromagnetic response of 2D surfaces and metallic surface plasmons have considered isotropic structures with omnidirectional plasmonic surface wave propagation on the plane of these materials. Such an omnidirectional surface wave propagation does not allow for launching energy from electromagnetic source to a specific target on the surface, which is a desirable characteristic. However, an appropriate structured anisotropic surface can provide such a capability, such as an array of graphene strips. In addition, by tuning of the graphene doping it is possible to have a hyperbolic surface response. Working in this regime of surface conductivity, it is possible to launch SPPs along a specific direction, which is tunable via doping of the graphene. In this work, the electromagnetic response of anisotropic 2D surfaces has been investigated based on the analysis of the Green’s function for the surface plasmonic wave contribution of the Sommerfeld integral. The Sommerfeld integral form of the Green’s function can be time-consuming to evaluate, and here, it has been shown that for the surface waves, this integral can be evaluated efficiently as a mixture of continuous and discrete spectrums associated to the radiation of the source into the ambient space and energy coupled to the SPPs. Graphene strip arrays provide directive surface waves in the low THz regime, and unperturbed black phosphorus provides a similar response for higher frequency ranges. All plasmonic devices are impacted by SPP diffraction at surface defects and discontinuities. In particular, for reciprocal materials a surface defect/discontinuity can both scatter a forward mode into a backward mode (and vice versa) and cause significant radiation/diffraction of the SPP. The presence of a backward state comes from time reversal (TR) symmetry; when broken, a backward state may be absent, and reflection at a discontinuity can be suppressed. As a result, surface energy becomes unidirectional and follows the contour of the interface. This type of system can be broadly classified as a photonic topological insulators (PTIs). The properties of PTIs are quantified by the Berry phase, Berry connection, and an invariant known as the Chern number. Also the physical meaning of the Berry phase, connection, and curvature, how these quantities arise in electromagnetic problems, and the significance of Chern numbers for unidirectional, scattering-immune surface wave propagation are discussed. The Chern numbers for the electromagnetic modes supported by a biased plasma have been calculated. It has been demonstrated that the modes supported by biased plasmas indeed possess non-trivial Chern numbers, which leads to the propagation of a topologically protected and unidirectional surface modes (energy) at the interface between the biased plasma and topologically trivial material. The ability to guide the energy from one quantum dot to another one is a great advantage to achieve highly entangled states. Here, in this thesis for the first time, we investigated the unidirectional surface wave assisted entanglement in PTIs. We have investigated spontaneous and pumped entanglement of two level systems (quantum dots) in the vicinity of a photonic topological insulator interface, which supports a unidirectional SPP in the common bandgap of the bulk materials. We also have derived a master equation for quantum dots interactions in a general three-dimensional, nonreciprocal, inhomogeneous and lossy environment. The resulting entanglement is shown to be extremely robust to defects occurring in the material system

Theory of optical rectification in a travelling wave structure

This thesis is concerned with the interaction of an optical wave with a microwave in a waveguiding structure coupled by a second order nonlinearity. Emphasis is laid upon the generation of ultrashort electrical transients via optical rectification (OR) as well as cascading effects due to the interplay of OR and the linear electro-optic effect. A simple transmission line model is introduced to explain qualitatively the basic physical mechanisms of an externally induced polarisation in a travelling wave structure. For a quantitative description, evolution equations for the overall interaction between the microwave and the optical wave based on a coupled mode formalism are developed. The basic properties of the structure under consideration are discussion and techniques for their evaluation are introduced. A set of corresponding parameters for typical structures is estimated and used for calculations throughout the thesis. The generation of electrical signals from optical waves via OR is discussed in detail for the cases of single and mixed polarization optical modes in the structure. The self phase modulation due to cascading of OR and the electro-optic effect is elucidated. It is shown that continuous wave solutions of the conservative system are modulationally unstable in a large range of relevant system parameters. The possibility of formation of solitary waves due to the mutual interaction of optical wave and microwave is considered in the context of long wave short wave interaction. Basic properties of bright stationary solutions and their excitation are discussed. The possibility of formation of solitons due to microwave self-interaction is illuminated. The linear stability of bright solitary waves is investigated. The observed oscillations and radiation of perturbed propagated bound states are explained by the existence of discrete, quasi-bond internal modes of the stationary solutions. Collision scenarios are addressed