Microwave seminar. Mikhail Belkin

Dr. Mikhail Belkin (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Technical University of Munich)

"Photonic devices based on quantum-engineered nonlinear metamaterials"

Abstract

Intersubband transitions semiconductor heterostructures provide the possibility to quantum engineer the largest known nonlinear optical responses in condensed matter systems. I will discuss how we use these structures to make practical photonic devices with functionalities not available with any other technology. The first example is terahertz semiconductor laser sources based on efficient intra-cavity nonlinear frequency mixing in quantum cascade lasers. These devices provide broadly-tunable emission in the 1-6 THz range and achieve mW-level THz power output at room temperature. They represent the first room-temperature semiconductor-laser-like source technology in terahertz. The second example is ultrathin highly-nonlinear metasurfaces that can provide broadband focal-plane frequency up- and down-conversion in the near-/mid-/far-infrared with only mW-level of optical pumping. The exotic nonlinear optical properties in these metasurfaces are produced by coupling electromagnetically-engineered resonances in plasmonic nanostructures with quantum-engineered electronic states in semiconductor nanostructures.