Polaritonic states in a dielectric nanoguide: localization and strong coupling

Propagation of light through dielectrics lies at the heart of optics. However, this ubiquitous process is commonly described using phenomenological dielectric function $\varepsilon$ and magnetic permeability $\mu$, i.e. without addressing the quantum graininess of the dielectric matter. Here, we present a theoretical study where we consider a one-dimensional ensemble of atoms in a subwavelength waveguide (nanoguide) as fundamental building blocks of a model dielectric. By exploring the roles of the atom-waveguide coupling efficiency, density, disorder, and dephasing, we establish connections among various features of polaritonic light-matter states such as localization, super and subradiance, and strong coupling. In particular, we show that coherent multiple scattering of light among atoms that are coupled via a single propagating mode can gives rise to Rabi splitting. These results provide important insight into the underlying physics of strong coupling reported by recent room-temperature experiments with microcavities and surface plasmons.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Twisting and tweezing the spin wave: on vortices, skyrmions, helical waves, and the magnonic spiral phase plate

Spin waves are the low-energy excitations of magnetically ordered materials. They are key elements in the stability analysis of the ordered phase and have a wealth of technological applications. Recently, we showed that spin waves of a magnetic nanowire may carry a definite amount of orbital angular momentum components along the propagation direction. This helical, in addition to the chiral, character of the spin waves is related to the spatial modulations of the spin wave phase across the wire. It, however, remains a challenge to generate and control such modes with conventional magnetic fields. Here, we make the first proposal for a \textit{magnetic} spiral phase plate by appropriately synthesizing two magnetic materials that have different speeds of spin waves. It is demonstrated with full-numerical micromagnetic simulations that despite the complicated structure of demagnetization fields, a homogeneous spin wave passing through the spiral phase plate attains the required twist and propagates further with the desired orbital angular momentum. While excitations from the ordered phase may have a twist, the magnetization itself can be twisted due to internal fields and forms what is known as a magnetic vortex. We point out the differences between both types of magnetic phenomena and discuss their possible interaction.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

The Buffered Block Forward Backward technique for solving electromagnetic wave scattering problems

This work focuses on efficient numerical techniques for solving electromagnetic wave scattering problems. The research is focused on three main areas: scattering from perfect electric conductors, 2D dielectric scatterers and 3D dielectric scattering objects. The problem of fields scattered from perfect electric conductors is formulated using the Electric Field Integral Equation. The Coupled Field Integral Equation is used when a 2D homogeneous dielectric object is considered. The Combined Field Integral Equation describes the problem of scattering from 3D homogeneous dielectric objects. Discretising the Integral Equation Formulation using the Method of Moments creates the matrix equation that is to be solved. Due to the large number of discretisations necessary the resulting matrices are of significant size and therefore the matrix equations cannot be solved by direct inversion and iterative methods are employed instead. Various iterative techniques for solving the matrix equation are presented including stationary methods such as the ”forwardbackward” technique, as well its matrix-block version. A novel iterative solver referred to as Buffered Block Forward Backward (BBFB) method is then described and investigated. It is shown that the incorporation of buffer regions dampens spurious diffraction effects and increases the computational efficiency of the algorithm. The BBFB is applied to both perfect electric conductors and homogeneous dielectric objects. The convergence of the BBFB method is compared to that of other techniques and it is shown that, depending on the grouping and buffering used, it can be more effective than classical methods based on Krylov subspaces for example. A possible application of the BBFB, namely the design of 2D dielectric photonic band-gap TeraHertz waveguides is investigated. i