Next Talk
Friday, December 17th, 2010
- Speaker
- Konstantinos G. Makris
- Affiliation
- Institute for Theoretical Physics, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
- Title
- Nonlinear Optics in Lattices
- Location
- Department of Physics Bldg., Voutes, 3rd floor Seminar Room
- Time
- 16:00
- Language
- English
- Abstract
A theoretical investigation of surface lattice solitons in semi-infinite waveguide arrays will be presented. In particular, these nonlinear Tamm states exist at the interface between a periodic and a bulk medium above a specific power threshold, and are the direct outcome of the nonlinearity. Surface solitons were theoretically predicted in various periodic structures of different nonlinear materials, such as AlGaAs (cubic), LiNbO3 (quadratic) materials. The subsequent experimental observations will also be discussed.
In the second part, the concept of parity-time (PT) symmetry will be introduced in the framework of Optics. This type of symmetry can be realized through a judicious design that involves a combination of optical gain or loss regions. Even though gain and loss are present in this class of non-hermitian potentials, the propagation eigenvalue spectrum is entirely real (bound and radiation modes). The recent experimental realizations of such PT-synthetic materials will also be presented.