Optical Studies of Dynamics in Noble Metal Nanostructures

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00120432/document

Raman Spectroscopy of Nanomaterials: How Spectra Relate to Disorder, Particle Size and Mechanical Properties

Towards quantum superpositions of a mirror

Photonic crystals have proven their potential and are nowadays a familiar concept. They have been approached from many scientific and technological flanks. Among the many techniques devised to implement this technology self-assembly has always been one of great popularity surely due to its ease of access and the richness of results offered. Self-assembly is also probably the approach entailing more materials aspects owing to the fact that they lend themselves to be fabricated by a great many, very different methods on a vast variety of materials and to multiple purposes. To these well-known material systems a new sibling has been born (photonic glass) expanding the paradigm of optical materials inspired by solid state physics crystal concept. It is expected that they may become an important player in the near future not only because they complement the properties of photonic crystals but because they entice the researchers' curiosity. In this review a panorama is presented of the state of the art in this field with the view to serve a broad community concerned with materials aspects of photonic structures and more so those interested in self-assembly.

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Self-assembled photonic structures.

Recently, strongly modulated photonic crystals, fabricated by the state-of-the-art semiconductor nanofabrication process, have realized various novel optical properties. This paper describes the way in which they differ from other optical media, and clarifies what they can do. In particular, three important issues are considered: light confinement, frequency dispersion and spatial dispersion. First, I describe the latest status and impact of ultra-strong light confinement in a wavelength-cubic volume achieved in photonic crystals. Second, the extreme reduction in the speed of light is reported, which was achieved as a result of frequency dispersion management. Third, strange negative refraction in photonic crystals is introduced, which results from their unique spatial dispersion, and it is clarified how this leads to perfect imaging. The last two sections are devoted to applications of these novel properties. First, I report the fact that strong light confinement and huge light–matter interaction enhancement make strongly modulated photonic crystals promising for on-chip all-optical processing, and present several examples including all-optical switches/memories and optical logics. As a second application, it is shown that the strong light confinement and slow light in strongly modulated photonic crystals enable the adiabatic tuning of light, which leads to various novel ways of controlling light, such as adiabatic frequency conversion, efficient optomechanics systems, photon memories and photons pinning.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0034-4885/73/9/096501/pdf

Manipulating light with strongly modulated photonic crystals

We present the first experimental investigation of ultrafast optical switching in a three-dimensional photonic crystal made of a Si-opal composite. Ultrafast (30 fs) changes in reflectivity around the photonic stop band up to 1% were measured for moderate pump power $(70\text{ }\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{J}/{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}}^{2})$. Short-lived photoexcited carriers in silicon induce changes in the dielectric constant of Si and diminish the constructive interference inside the photonic crystal. The results are analyzed within a model based on a two-band mixing formalism.

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Ultrafast optical switching in three-dimensional photonic crystals.

We demonstrate spectral shifting of the photonic band gap in a three-dimensional photonic crystal within a time of less than 350fs. Single 120fs high-power optical pulses are capable to induce the transition from the semiconductor to the metallic phase of VO2 in the pores of our artificial silica opal. The phase transition produces a substantial decrease of the real part of the effective refractive index of the photonic crystal and shifts the spectral position of the photonic band gap.

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Subpicosecond shifting of the photonic band gap in a three-dimensional photonic crystal

Coherent acoustic radial oscillations of thin spherical gold shells of submicron diameter excited by an ultrashort optical pulse are observed in the form of pronounced modulations of the transient reflectivity on a subnanosecond time scale. Strong acousto-optical coupling in a photonic crystal enhances the modulation of the transient reflectivity by up to 4%. The frequency of these oscillations is demonstrated to be in good agreement with the Lamb theory of free gold shells.

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Coherent vibrations of submicron spherical gold shells in a photonic crystal

We present the first femtosecond pump–probe study of the transient reflectivity of an opal filled by silicon around the stop-band. We observe an ultrafast ( fs ) photoinduced response of the reflectivity of the opal that is synchronous with the pump pulse. In addition, an ultrafast step followed by a multi-exponential picosecond decay is measured that is related to the creation and relaxation of free carriers.

Dmitry A. Mazurenko

Papers

Ultrafast optical switching in three-dimensional photonic crystals.

Subpicosecond shifting of the photonic band gap in a three-dimensional photonic crystal

Coherent vibrations of submicron spherical gold shells in a photonic crystal

Ultrafast switching in Si-embedded opals

Ultrafast all-optical switching in a three-dimensional photonic crystal