178 research outputs found
Temporal summation in a neuromimetic micropillar laser
Neuromimetic systems are systems mimicking the functionalities orarchitecture
of biological neurons and may present an alternativepath for efficient
computing and information processing. We demonstratehere experimentally
temporal summation in a neuromimetic micropillarlaser with integrated saturable
absorber. Temporal summation is theproperty of neurons to integrate delayed
input stimuli and to respondby an all-or-none kind of response if the inputs
arrive in a sufficientlysmall time window. Our system alone may act as a fast
optical coincidence detector and paves the way to fast photonic spike
processing networks
Nonlinear mechanics with photonic crystal nanomembranes
Optomechanical systems close to their quantum ground state and nonlinear
nanoelectromechanical systems are two hot topics of current physics research.
As high-reflectivity and low mass are crucial features to improve
optomechanical coupling towards the ground state, we have designed, fabricated
and characterized photonic crystal nanomembranes, at the crossroad of both
topics. Here we demonstrate a number of nonlinear effects with these membranes.
We first characterize the nonlinear behavior of a single mechanical mode and we
demonstrate its nonlocal character by monitoring the subsequent
actuation-related frequency shift of a different mode. We then proceed to study
the underlying nonlinear dynamics, both by monitoring the phase-space
trajectory of the free resonator and by characterizing the mechanical response
in presence of a strong pump excitation. We observe in particular the frequency
evolution during a ring-down oscillation decay, and the emergence of a phase
conjugate mechanical response to a weaker probe actuation. Our results are
crucial to understand the full nonlinear features of the PhC membranes, and
possibly to look for nonlinear signatures of the quantum dynamics
Field Localization and Enhancement of Phase Locked Second and Third Harmonic Generation in Absorbing Semiconductor Cavities
We predict and experimentally observe the enhancement by three orders of
magnitude of phase mismatched second and third harmonic generation in a GaAs
cavity at 650nm and 433nm, respectively, well above the absorption edge. Phase
locking between the pump and the harmonics changes the effective dispersion of
the medium and inhibits absorption. Despite hostile conditions the harmonics
become localized inside the cavity leading to relatively large conversion
efficiencies. Field localization plays a pivotal role and ushers in a new class
of semiconductor-based devices in the visible and UV ranges
Definition of the stimulated emission threshold in high- nanoscale lasers through phase-space reconstruction
Nanoscale lasers sustain few optical modes so that the fraction of
spontaneous emission funnelled into the useful (lasing) mode is high
(of the order of few 10) and the threshold, which traditionally
corresponds to an abrupt kink in the light in- light out curve, becomes
ill-defined. We propose an alternative definition of the threshold, based on
the dynamical response of the laser, which is valid even for lasers.
The laser dynamics is analyzed through a reconstruction of its phase-space
trajectory for pulsed excitation. Crossing the threshold brings about a change
in the shape of the trajectory and in the area contained in it. An unambiguous
definition of the threshold in terms of this change is shown theoretically and
illustrated experimentally in a photonic crystal laser
Extremely uniform lasing wavelengths of InP microdisk lasers heterogeneously integrated on SOI
A standard deviation in lasing wavelength lower than 500pm is characterized on nominally identical and optically-pumped microdisk lasers, heterogeneously integrated on the same SOI circuit. This lasing wavelength uniformity is obtained using electron-beam lithography
Transient chirp in high speed photonic crystal quantum dots lasers with controlled spontaneous emission
We report on a series of experiments on the dynamics of spontaneous emission
controlled nanolasers. The laser cavity is a photonic crystal slab cavity,
embedding self-assembled quantum dots as gain material. The implementation of
cavity electrodynamics effects increases significantly the large signal
modulation bandwidth, with measured modulation speeds of the order of 10 GHz
while keeping an extinction ratio of 19 dB. A linear transient wavelength shift
is reported, corresponding to a chirp of less than 100 pm for a 35-ps laser
pulse. We observe that the chirp characteristics are independent of the
repetition rate of the laser up to 10 GHz
Exciton polaritons in two-dimensional photonic crystals
Experimental evidence of strong coupling between excitons confined in a
quantum well and the photonic modes of a two-dimensional dielectric lattice is
reported. Both resonant scattering and photoluminescence spectra at low
temperature show the anticrossing of the polariton branches, fingerprint of
strong coupling regime. The experiments are successfully interpreted in terms
of a quantum theory of exciton-photon coupling in the investigated structure.
These results show that the polariton dispersion can be tailored by properly
varying the photonic crystal lattice parameter, which opens the possibility to
obtain the generation of entangled photon pairs through polariton stimulated
scattering.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
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