Universal lineshapes at the crossover between weak and strong critical coupling in Fano-resonant coupled oscillators

In this article we discuss a model describing key features concerning the lineshapes and the coherent absorption conditions in Fano-resonant dissipative coupled oscillators. The model treats on the same footing the weak and strong coupling regimes, and includes the critical coupling concept, which is of great relevance in numerous applications; in addition, the role of asymmetry is thoroughly analyzed. Due to the wide generality of the model, which can be adapted to various frameworks like nanophotonics, plasmonics, and optomechanics, we envisage that the analytical formulas presented here will be crucial to effectively design devices and to interpret experimental results

Coherent perfect absorption in photonic structures

The ability to drive a system with an external input is a fundamental aspect of light-matter interaction. The coherent perfect absorption (CPA) phenomenon extends to the general multibeam interference phenomenology the well known critical coupling concepts. This interferometric control of absorption can be employed to reach full delivery of optical energy to nanoscale systems such as plasmonic nanoparticles, and multi-port interference can be used to enhance the absorption of a nanoscale device when it is embedded in a strongly scattering system, with potential applications to nanoscale sensing. Here we review the two-port CPA in reference to photonic structures which can resonantly couple to the external fields. A revised two-port theory of CPA is illustrated, which relies on the Scattering Matrix formalism and is valid for all linear two-port systems with reciprocity. Through a semiclassical approach, treating two-port critical coupling conditions in a non-perturbative regime, it is demonstrated that the strong coupling regime and the critical coupling condition can indeed coexist; in this situation, termed strong critical coupling, all the incoming energy is converted into polaritons. Experimental results are presented, which clearly display the elliptical trace of absorption as function of input unbalance in a thin metallo-dielectric metamaterial, and verify polaritonic CPA in an intersubband-polariton photonic-crystal membrane resonator. Concluding remarks discuss the future perspectives of CPA with photonic structures.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1605.0890

Design and Simulation of THz Quantum Cascade Lasers

Strategies and concepts for the design of THz emitters based on the quantum cascade scheme are analyzed and modeled in terms of a fully three-dimensional Monte Carlo approach; this allows for a proper inclusion of both carrier-carrier and carrier-phonon scattering mechanisms. Starting from the simulation of previously published far-infrared emitters, where no population inversion is achieved, two innovative designs are proposed. The first one follows the well-established chirped-superlattice scheme whereas the second one employs a double-quantum well superlattice to allow energy relaxation through optical phonon emission. For both cases a significant population inversion is predicted at temperatures up to 80 K.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 2 table

Photocurrent-based detection of Terahertz radiation in graphene

Graphene is a promising candidate for the development of detectors of Terahertz (THz) radiation. A well-known detection scheme due to Dyakonov and Shur exploits the confinement of plasma waves in a field-effect transistor (FET), whereby a dc photovoltage is generated in response to a THz field. This scheme has already been experimentally studied in a graphene FET [L. Vicarelli et al., Nature Mat. 11, 865 (2012)]. In the quest for devices with a better signal-to-noise ratio, we theoretically investigate a plasma-wave photodetector in which a dc photocurrent is generated in a graphene FET. The rectified current features a peculiar change of sign when the frequency of the incoming radiation matches an even multiple of the fundamental frequency of plasma waves in the FET channel. The noise equivalent power per unit bandwidth of our device is shown to be much smaller than that of a Dyakonov-Shur detector in a wide spectral range.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Thermal noise and optomechanical features in the emission of a membrane-coupled compound cavity laser diode

We demonstrate the use of a compound optical cavity as linear displacement detector, by measuring the thermal motion of a silicon nitride suspended membrane acting as the external mirror of a near-infrared Littrow laser diode. Fluctuations in the laser optical power induced by the membrane vibrations are collected by a photodiode integrated within the laser, and then measured with a spectrum analyzer. The dynamics of the membrane driven by a piezoelectric actuator is investigated as a function of air pressure and actuator displacement in a homodyne configuration. The high Q-factor ($\sim 3.4\cdot 10^4$ at $8.3 \cdot 10^{-3}$ mbar) of the fundamental mechanical mode at $\sim 73$ kHz guarantees a detection sensitivity high enough for direct measurement of thermal motion at room temperature ($\sim 87$ pm RMS). The compound cavity system here introduced can be employed as a table-top, cost-effective linear displacement detector for cavity optomechanics. Furthermore, thanks to the strong optical nonlinearities of the laser compound cavity, these systems open new perspectives in the study of non-Markovian quantum properties at the mesoscale

Stretching graphene using polymeric micro-muscles

The control of strain in two-dimensional materials opens exciting perspectives for the engineering of their electronic properties. While this expectation has been validated by artificial-lattice studies, it remains elusive in the case of atomic lattices. Remarkable results were obtained on nanobubbles and nano-wrinkles, or using scanning probes; microscale strain devices were implemented exploiting deformable substrates or external loads. These devices lack, however, the flexibility required to fully control and investigate arbitrary strain profiles. Here, we demonstrate a novel approach making it possible to induce strain in graphene using polymeric micrometric artificial muscles (MAMs) that contract in a controllable and reversible way under an electronic stimulus. Our method exploits the mechanical response of poly-methyl-methacrylate (PMMA) to electron-beam irradiation. Inhomogeneous anisotropic strain and out-of-plane deformation are demonstrated and studied by Raman, scanning-electron and atomic-force microscopy. These can all be easily combined with the present device architecture. The flexibility of the present method opens new opportunities for the investigation of strain and nanomechanics in two-dimensional materials

Linear and nonlinear capacitive coupling of electro-opto-mechanical photonic crystal cavities

We fabricate and characterize a microscale silicon electro-opto-mechanical system whose mechanical motion is coupled capacitively to an electrical circuit and optically via radiation pressure to a photonic crystal cavity. To achieve large electromechanical interaction strength, we implement an inverse shadow mask fabrication scheme which obtains capacitor gaps as small as 30 nm while maintaining a silicon surface quality necessary for minimizing optical loss. Using the sensitive optical read-out of the photonic crystal cavity, we characterize the linear and nonlinear capacitive coupling to the fundamental 63 MHz in-plane flexural motion of the structure, showing that the large electromechanical coupling in such devices may be suitable for realizing efficient microwave-to-optical signal conversion.Comment: 8 papers, 4 figure

Mechanical oscillations in lasing microspheres

We investigate the feasibility of activating coherent mechanical oscillations in lasing microspheres by modulating the laser emission at a mechanical eigenfrequency. To this aim, 1.5% Nd3+:Barium-Titanium-Silicate microspheres with diameters around 50 {\mu}m were used as high quality factor (Q>10^6) whispering gallery mode lasing cavities. We have implemented a pump-and-probe technique in which the pump laser used to excite the Nd3+ ions is focused on a single microsphere with a microscope objective and a probe laser excites a specific optical mode with the evanescent field of a tapered fibre. The studied microspheres show monomode and multi-mode lasing action, which can be modulated in the best case up to 10 MHz. We have optically transduced thermally-activated mechanical eigenmodes appearing in the 50-70 MHz range, the frequency of which decreases with increasing the size of the microspheres. In a pump-and-probe configuration we observed modulation of the probe signal up to the maximum pump modulation frequency of our experimental setup, i.e., 20 MHz. This modulation decreases with frequency and is unrelated to lasing emission, pump scattering or thermal effects. We associate this effect to free-carrier-dispersion induced by multiphoton pump light absorption. On the other hand, we conclude that, in our current experimental conditions, it was not possible to resonantly excite the mechanical modes. Finally, we discuss on how to overcome these limitations by increasing the modulation frequency of the lasing emission and decreasing the frequency of the mechanical eigenmodes displaying a strong degree of optomechanical coupling.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure