arXiv subjects

C. Rockstuhl

Publications and source records attributed to C. Rockstuhl.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Photonic time crystals assisted by quasi-bound states in the continuum

Photonic time crystals are a class of artificial materials that have only recently been explored. They are characterized by the ultrafast modulation of the material properties in time, causing a momentum bandgap for light that propagates through such novel states of matter. However, the observation of these unique properties at optical frequencies remains elusive, as the necessary modulation amplitudes of the permittivity to show notable momentum bandgaps are relatively high, inaccessible with available materials. While it has been known that structuring photonic time crystals at the sub-wavelength scale can enhance the momentum bandgap, we push this concept to the extreme by leveraging the nanophotonic toolbox. Specifically, we demonstrate that nanophotonic structures composed of scatterers supporting quasi-bound states in the continuum can significantly reduce the required amplitude of temporal permittivity modulation by enhancing the interaction time between light and time-varying matter. This allows us to observe extremely wide momentum bandgaps despite the material properties having tiny modulation amplitudes. Our approach bridges the concepts of bound states in the continuum and time-varying metamaterials, paving the way toward realizable photonic time crystals at optical frequencies.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2025

Disordered Optical Metasurfaces: Basics, Properties, and Applications

Optical metasurfaces are conventionally viewed as organized flat arrays of photonic or plasmonic nanoresonators, also called metaatoms. These metasurfaces are typically highly ordered and fabricated with precision using expensive tools. However, the inherent imperfections in large-scale nanophotonic devices, along with recent advances in bottom-up nanofabrication techniques and design strategies, have highlighted the potential benefits of incorporating disorder to achieve specific optical functionalities. This review offers an overview of the key theoretical, numerical, and experimental aspects related to the exploration of disordered optical metasurfaces. It introduces fundamental concepts of light scattering by disordered metasurfaces and outlines theoretical and numerical methodologies for analyzing their optical behavior. Various fabrication techniques are discussed, highlighting the types of disorder they deliver and their achievable precision level. The review also explores critical applications of disordered optical metasurfaces, such as light manipulation in thin film materials and the design of structural colors and visual appearances. Finally, the article offers perspectives on the burgeoning future research in this field. Disordered optical metasurfaces offer a promising alternative to their ordered counterparts, often delivering unique functionalities or enhanced performance. They present a particularly exciting opportunity in applications demanding large-scale implementation, such as sustainable renewable energy systems, as well as aesthetically vibrant coatings for luxury goods and architectural designs.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Photonic time crystals: Theory and applications

This tutorial offers a comprehensive overview of photonic time crystals - artificial materials whose electromagnetic properties are periodically modulated in time at scales comparable to the oscillation period of light while remaining spatially uniform. Being the temporal analogs to traditional photonic crystals, photonic time crystals differ in that they exhibit momentum bandgaps instead of energy bandgaps. The energy is not conserved within momentum bandgaps, and eigenmodes with exponentially growing amplitudes exist in the momentum bandgap. Such properties make photonic time crystals a fascinating novel class of artificial materials from a basic science and applied perspective. This tutorial overviews the fundamental electromagnetic equations governing photonic time crystals and explores the groundbreaking physical phenomena they support. Based on these properties, we also oversee a diverse range of applications they unlock. Different material platforms suitable for creating photonic time crystals are discussed and compared. Furthermore, we elaborate on the connections between wave amplification in photonic time crystals and parametric amplification mechanisms in electrical circuits and nonlinear optics. The tutorial will be helpful for readers with physics or engineering backgrounds. It is designed to serve as an introductory guide for beginners and to establish a reference baseline reflecting the current understanding for researchers in the field.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Expanding momentum bandgaps in photonic time crystals through resonances

The realization of photonic time crystals is a major opportunity but also comes with significant challenges. The most pressing one, potentially, is the requirement for a substantial modulation strength in the material properties to create a noticeable momentum bandgap. Reaching that noticeable bandgap in optics is highly demanding with current, and possibly also future, material platforms since their modulation strength is small by tendency. Here, we demonstrate that by introducing temporal variations in a resonant material, the momentum bandgap can be drastically expanded with modulation strengths in reach with known low-loss materials and realistic laser pump powers. The resonance can emerge from an intrinsic material resonance or a suitably spatially structured material supporting a structural resonance. Our concept is validated for resonant bulk media and optical metasurfaces and paves the way toward the first experimental realizations of photonic time crystals.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Wide angle tolerant solar spectral splitter for lateral tandem solar cells

Maximizing the power conversion efficiency of solar cells plays a crucial role in upscaling solar energy production. Combining two or more solar cells with different bandgaps into a multi-junction tandem solar cells lowers thermalization losses and increases the power conversion efficiency. Whilst the best efficiencies have been achieved by vertically stacking solar cells, the fabrication process is technologically demanding and leads to high production costs. Novel photovoltaic materials such as organic photovoltaics allow solution processing, which enables the cost effective production of lateral multijunctions, where the single subcells are aligned side by side. To fully unlock their optimal performance, lateral tandems require careful light management, redirecting different spectral bands to the corresponding solar cell. So far, solar spectral splitters suffered from a strong angle dependency, which caused a degradation in performance at the slightest deviation from normal incidence. In this contribution, we reduce this limitation and achieve an enhancement in the conversion efficiency across a wide range of incident angles by inverse designing a solar spectral splitter comprised of two free-form microstructured surfaces on the top and bottom of a supporting glass substrate. Moreover, thanks to the versatility of our methodology, we can tailor the angle-dependent functionality of our device. As such, we also design devices that are optimized to provide enhanced performance at certain oblique angles, which correspond to different times of the day, e.g., when the unit price of energy is higher.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Inverse-designed 3D laser nanoprinted phase masks to extend the depth of field of imaging systems

In optical imaging, achieving high resolution often comes at the expense of a shallow depth of field. This means that when using a standard microscope, any minor movement of the object along the optical axis can cause the image to become blurry. To address this issue, we exploit inverse design techniques to optimise a phase mask which, when inserted into a standard microscope, extends the depth of field by a factor of approximately four without compromising the microscope's resolution. Differentiable Fourier optics simulations allow us to rapidly iterate towards an optimised design in a hybrid fashion, starting with gradient-free Bayesian optimisation and proceeding to a local gradient-based optimisation. To fabricate the device, a commercial two-photon 3D laser nanoprinter is used, in combination with a two-step pre-compensation routine, providing high fabrication speed and much better than subwavelength accuracy. We find excellent agreement between our numerical predictions and the measurements upon integrating the phase mask into a microscope and optically characterising selected samples. The phase mask enables us to conduct simultaneous multiplane imaging of objects separated by distances that cannot be achieved with the original microscope.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

Minireview on Disordered Optical Metasurfaces

The use of coherent wave phenomena to enhance device performance is a cornerstone of modern optics. In juxtaposition to (locally) periodic metasurfaces, their disordered counterparts exhibit an interplay of destructive and constructive interferences occurring at the same spatial and spectral frequencies. This attribute provides disordered metasurfaces with a remarkable degree of flexibility, setting them apart from the constraints of periodic arrangements. Hereafter, we provide a concise overview of the cutting-edge developments and offer insights into the forthcoming research in this dynamic field.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Parametric Mie resonances and directional amplification in time-modulated scatterers

We provide a theoretical description of light scattering by a spherical particle whose permittivity is modulated in time at twice the frequency of the incident light. Such a particle acts as a finite-sized photonic time crystal and, despite its sub-wavelength spatial extent, can host optical parametric amplification. Conditions of parametric Mie resonances in the sphere are derived. We show that time-modulated materials provide a route to tailor directional light amplification, qualitatively different from that in scatterers made from a gain media. We design two characteristic time-modulated spheres that simultaneously exhibit light amplification and desired radiation patterns, including those with zero backward and/or vanishing forward scattering. The latter sphere provides an opportunity for creating shadow-free detectors of incident light.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Towards maximally electromagnetically chiral scatterers at optical frequencies

Designing objects with predefined optical properties is a task of fundamental importance for nanophotonics, and chirality is a prototypical example of such a property, with applications ranging from photochemistry to nonlinear photonics. A measure of electromagnetic chirality with a well-defined upper bound has recently been proposed. Here, we optimize the shape of silver helices at discrete frequencies ranging from the far infrared to the optical band. Gaussian process optimization, taking into account also shape derivative information of the helices scattering response, is used to maximize the electromagnetic chirality. We show that the theoretical designs achieve more than 90 percent of the upper bound of em-chirality for wavelenghts \SI{3}{\micro\meter} or larger, while their performance decreases towards the optical band. We fabricate and characterize helices for operation at \SI{800}{\nano\meter}, and identify some of the imperfections that affect the performance. Our work motivates further research both on the theoretical and fabrication sides to unlock potential applications of objects with large electromagnetic chirality at optical frequencies, such as helicity filtering glasses. We show that, at \SI{3}{\micro\meter}, a thin slab of randomly oriented helices can absorb 99 percent of the light of one helicity while absorbing only 9 percent of the opposite helicity.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Scattering from spheres made of time-varying and dispersive materials

Exploring the interaction of light with time-varying media is an intellectual challenge that, in addition to fundamental aspects, provides a pathway to multiple promising applications. Time modulation constitutes here a fundamental handle to control light on entirely different grounds. That holds particularly for complex systems simultaneously structured in space and time. However, a realistic description of time-varying materials requires considering their material dispersion. The combination thereof has barely been considered but is crucial since dispersion accompanies materials suitable for dynamic modulation. As a canonical scattering problem from which many general insights can be obtained, we develop and apply a self-consistent analytical theory of light scattering by a sphere made from a time-varying material exemplarily assumed to have a Lorentzian dispersion. We discuss the eigensolutions of Maxwell's equations in the bulk and present a dedicated Mie theory. The proposed theory is verified with full-wave simulations. We disclose effects such as energy transfer from the time-modulation subsystem to the electromagnetic field, amplifying carefully structured incident fields. Since many phenomena can be studied on analytical grounds with our formalism, it will be indispensable when exploring electromagnetic phenomena in time-varying and spatially structured finite objects of other geometries.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2019

Measuring the electromagnetic chirality of 2D arrays under normal illumination

We present an electromagnetic chirality measure for 2D arrays of subwavelength periodicities under normal illumination. The calculation of the measure uses only the complex reflection and transmission coefficients from the array. The measure allows the ordering of arrays according to their electromagnetic chirality, which further allows a quantitative comparison of different design strategies. The measure is upper bounded, and the extreme properties of objects with high values of electromagnetic chirality make them useful in both near- and far-field applications. We analyze the consequences that different possible symmetries of the array have on its electromagnetic chirality. We use the measure to study four different arrays. The results indicate the suitability of helices for building arrays of high electromagnetic chirality, and the low effectiveness of a substrate for breaking the transverse mirror symmetry.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2018

Perturbing beyond the shallow amplitude regime: Green's function scattering formalism with Bloch modes

We present a Bloch modes' based Green's function scattering formalism for cost efficient forward modelling of disordered binary surface textures. The usage of Bloch modes of an unperturbed reference ordered system as ansatz allows our formalism to address surface scattering beyond the shallow amplitude regime. The main advantage of our formalism is the possibility to utilize a small amount of plane waves to represent the assumed Bloch modes thereby reducing computational costs, while still allowing one to estimate the scattering response to all channels accessible by the disordered system. Benchmarking calculations discussed in the paper demonstrate how the usage of our Bloch modes ansatz provides an excellent estimate of the scattering response over an important regime of disorder. As an example of our method's strength, we examine an electrically decoupled binary light trapping texture and demonstrate how introducing disorder may improve light incoupling into the considered solar cell structure.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2018

An electromagnetic multipole expansion beyond the long-wavelength approximation

The multipole expansion is a key tool in the study of light-matter interactions. All the information about the radiation of and coupling to electromagnetic fields of a given charge-density distribution is condensed into few numbers: The multipole moments of the source. These numbers are frequently computed with expressions obtained after the long-wavelength approximation. Here, we derive exact expressions for the multipole moments of dynamic sources that resemble in their simplicity their approximate counterparts. We validate our new expressions against analytical results for a spherical source, and then use them to calculate the induced moments for some selected sources with a non-trivial shape. The comparison of the results to those obtained with approximate expressions shows a considerable disagreement even for sources of subwavelength size. Our expressions are relevant for any scientific area dealing with the interaction between the electromagnetic field and material systems.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Global optimization of complex optical structures using Baysian optimization based on Gaussian processes

Numerical simulation of complex optical structures enables their optimization with respect to specific objectives. Often, optimization is done by multiple successive parameter scans, which are time consuming and computationally expensive. We employ here Bayesian optimization with Gaussian processes in order to automatize and speed up the optimization process. As a toy example, we demonstrate optimization of the shape of a free-form reflective meta surface such that it diffracts light into a specific diffraction order. For this example, we compare the performance of six different Bayesian optimization approaches with various acquisition functions and various kernels of the Gaussian process.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2017

Broadband suppression of backscattering at optical frequencies using low permittivity dielectric spheres

The exact suppression of backscattering from rotationally symmetric objects requires dual symmetric materials where ${ε_r} = {μ_r}$. This prevents their design at many frequency bands, including the optical one, because magnetic materials are not available. Electromagnetically small non-magnetic spheres of large permittivity offer an alternative. They can be tailored to exhibit balanced electric and magnetic dipole polarizabilities, which result in approximate zero backscattering. In this case, the effect is inherently narrowband. Here, we put forward a different alternative that allows broadband functionality: Electromagnetically large spheres made from low permittivity materials. The effect occurs in a parameter regime that approaches the trivial ${ε_r} \to {μ_r} =1$ case, where approximate duality is met in a weakly wavelength dependence fashion. Despite the low permittivity, the overall scattering response of the spheres is still significant. Radiation patterns from these spheres are shown to be highly directive across an octave spanning band. The effect is analytically and numerically shown using the Mie coefficients.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Subwavelength focusing of all-dielectric surface waves

Micro-sized spheres can focus light into subwavelength spatial domains: a phenomena called photonic nanojet. Even though well studied in three-dimensional (3D) configurations, only a few attempts have been reported to observe similar phenomena in two-dimensional (2D) systems. This, however, is important to take advantage of photonic nanojets in integrated optical systems. Usually, surface plasmon polaritons are suggested for this purpose, but they suffer notoriously from the rather low propagation lengths due to intrinsic absorption. Here, we solve this problem and explore, theoretically, numerically, and experimentally, the use of Bloch surface waves sustained by a suitably structured all-dielectric media to enable subwavelength focusing in an integrated planar optical system. Since only a low index contrast can be achieved while relying on Bloch surface waves, we perceive a new functional element that allows a tight focusing and the observation of a photonic nanojet on top of the surface. We experimentally demonstrate a spot size of 0.66λ in the effective medium. Our approach paves the way to 2D all-dielectric photonic chips for nano-particle manipulation in fluidic devices and sensing applications.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

A normalization approach for scattering modes to be of use in classical and quantum electrodynamics

We propose a novel scheme to normalize scattering modes of the electromagnetic field. By relying on analytical solutions for Maxwell's equations in the homogenous medium outside the scatterer, we derive normalization conditions that only depend on the electromagnetic field on the surface of a sphere containing the scatterer. We pay special attention to the important cases of plane wave illumination and illumination with a multipolar field, for which an explicit and easy to use normalization condition is derived. We demonstrate the versatility of our method by normalizing scattering modes of some selected metallic and dielectric scatterers of different geometries in the context of different application scenarios. Since every quantum mechanical treatment of light-matter interaction requires the proper normalization of electromagnetic fields, we deem our proposed normalization scheme broadly applicable independent of the scatterer involved.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Optical alignment of oval graphene flakes

Patterned graphene, as an atomically thin layer, supports localized surface plasmon-polaritons (LSPPs) at mid-infrared or far-infrared frequencies. This provides a pronounced optical force/torque in addition to large optical cross sections and will make it an ideal candidate for optical manipulation. Here, we study the optical force and torque exerted by a linearly polarized plane wave on circular and oval graphene flakes. Whereas the torque vanishes for circular flakes, the finite torque allows rotating and orienting oval flakes relative to the electric field polarization. Depending on the wavelength, the alignment is either perpendicular or parallel. In our contribution, we rely on full-wave numerical simulation but also on an analytical model that treats the graphene flakes in dipole approximation. The presented results reveal a good level of control on the spatial alignment of graphene flakes subjected to far-infrared illumination.

physics.optics↗