Distributed Kerr Lens Mode-Locked Yb:YAG Thin-Disk Oscillator

Ultrafast laser oscillators are indispensable tools for diverse applications in scientific research and industry. When the phases of the longitudinal laser cavity modes are locked, pulses as short as a few femtoseconds can be generated. As most high-power oscillators are based on narrow-bandwidth materials, the achievable duration for high-power output is usually limited. Here, we present a distributed Kerr lens mode-locked Yb:YAG thin-disk oscillator which generates sub-50 fs pulses with spectral widths far broader than the emission bandwidth of the gain medium at full width at half maximum. Simulations were also carried out, indicating good qualitative agreement with the experimental results. Our proof-of-concept study shows that this new mode-locking technique is pulse energy and average power scalable and applicable to other types of gain media, which may lead to new records in the generation of ultrashort pulses.

Probing higher order optical modes in all-dielectric nanodisk, -square, and -triangle by aperture type scanning near-field optical microscopy

All-dielectric nanoantennas, consisting of high refractive index semiconductor material, are drawing a great deal of attention in nanophotonics. Owing to their ability to manipulate efficiently the flow of light within sub-wavelength volumes, they have become the building blocks of a wide range of new photonic metamaterials and devices. The interaction of the antenna with light is largely governed by its size, geometry, and the symmetry of the multitude of optical cavity modes it supports. Already for simple antenna shapes, unraveling the full modal spectrum using conventional far-field techniques is nearly impossible due to the spatial and spectral overlap of the modes and their symmetry mismatch with incident radiation fields. This limitation can be circumvented by using localized excitation of the antenna. Here, we report on the experimental near-field probing of optical higher order cavity modes (CMs) and whispering gallery modes (WGMs) in amorphous silicon nanoantennas with simple, but fundamental, geometrical shapes of decreasing rotational symmetry: a disk, square, and triangle. Tapping into the near-field using an aperture type scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) opens a window on a rich variety of optical patterns resulting from the local excitation of antenna modes of different order with even and odd parity. Numerical analysis of the antenna and SNOM probe interaction shows how the near-field patterns reveal the node positions of – and allows us to distinguish between – cavity and whispering gallery modes. As such, this study contributes to a richer and deeper characterization of the structure of light in confined nanosystems, and their impact on the structuring of the light fields they generate.

Application of Tamm Plasmon Polaritons and Cavity Modes for Biosensing in the Combined Spectroscopic Ellipsometry and Quartz Crystal Microbalance Method

Low-cost 1D plasmonic photonic structures supporting Tamm plasmon polaritons and cavity modes were employed for optical signal enhancement, modifying the commercially available quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) sensor chip in a combinatorial spectroscopic ellipsometry and quartz microbalance method. The Tamm plasmon optical state and cavity mode (CM) for the modified mQCM-D sample obtained sensitivity of ellipsometric parameters to RIU of ΨTPP = 126.78 RIU−1 and ΔTPP = 325 RIU−1, and ΨCM = 264 RIU−1 and ΔCM = 645 RIU‑1, respectively. This study shows that Tamm plasmon and cavity modes exhibit about 23 and 49 times better performance of ellipsometric parameters, respectively, for refractive index sensing than standard spectroscopic ellipsometry on a QCM-D sensor chip. It should be noted that for the optical biosensing signal readout, the sensitivity of Tamm plasmon polaritons and cavity modes are comparable with and higher than the standard QCM-D sensor chip. The different origin of Tamm plasmon polaritons (TPP) and cavity mode (CM) provides further advances and can determine whether the surface (TPP) or bulk process (CM) is dominating. The dispersion relation feature of TPP, namely the direct excitation without an additional coupler, allows the possibility to enhance the optical signal on the sensing surface. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study and application of the TPP and CM in the combinatorial SE-QCM-D method for the enhanced readout of ellipsometric parameters.

Electron shelving of a superconducting artificial atom

Interfacing long-lived qubits with propagating photons is a fundamental challenge in quantum technology. Cavity and circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) architectures rely on an off-resonant cavity, which blocks the qubit emission and enables a quantum non-demolition (QND) dispersive readout. However, no such buffer mode is necessary for controlling a large class of three-level systems that combine a metastable qubit transition with a bright cycling transition, using the electron shelving effect. Here we demonstrate shelving of a circuit atom, fluxonium, placed inside a microwave waveguide. With no cavity modes in the setup, the qubit coherence time exceeds 50 μs, and the cycling transition’s radiative lifetime is under 100 ns. By detecting a homodyne fluorescence signal from the cycling transition, we implement a QND readout of the qubit and account for readout errors using a minimal optical pumping model. Our result establishes a resource-efficient (cavityless) alternative to cQED for controlling superconducting qubits.

Graphene-based dual-band near-perfect absorption in Rabi splitting between topological edge and Fabry-Perot cavity modes

We propose a graphene embedded one-dimensional (1D) topological photonic crystal heterostructure, where the strong coupling occurs between the topological edge mode (TEM) and the Fabry-Perot cavity mode (CM). It is shown that the strong coupling leads to the hybridization between TEM and CM, with a Rabi splitting. Based on finite element method (FEM), a dual-band near-perfect absorption, which can be actively tuned by the Fermi energy of the graphene and incident angle, is found in the Rabi splitting region. Theoretically, the TEM-CM coupling can be analyzed by the classic oscillator model. In particular, when the Fermi energy of graphene slightly increases around 0.4 eV, the dual-band near-perfect absorption shows a rapid decrease from one to zero, which offers a possible way for absorption optical switches.

Comparison of Model Order Reduction Methods in Thermoacoustic Stability Analysis

Model order reduction can play a pivotal role in reducing the cost of repeated computations of large thermoacoustic models required for comprehensive stability analysis and optimization. In this proof-of-concept study, acoustic wave propagation is modeled with a 1D network approach, while acoustic-flame interactions are modeled by a flame transfer function. Three reduction techniques are applied to the acoustic subsystem: firstly modal truncation based on preserving the acoustic eigenmodes, and then two approaches that strive to preserve the input-output transfer behavior of the acoustic subsystem, i.e., truncated balanced realization and iterative rational Krylov algorithm. After reduction, the reduced-order models (ROMs) are coupled with the flame transfer function. Results show that the coupled reduced system from modal truncation accurately captures thermoacoustic cavity modes with weak influence of the flame, but fails for cavity modes strongly influenced by the flame as well as for intrinsic thermoacoustic modes. On the contrary, the coupled ROMs generated with the other two methods accurately predict all types of modes. It is concluded that reduction techniques based on preserving transfer behavior are more suitable for thermoacoustic stability analysis.