arXiv subjects

Carsten Rockstuhl

Publications and source records attributed to Carsten Rockstuhl.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Maximizing the electromagnetic chirality of thin metallic nanowires at optical frequencies

Electromagnetic waves impinging on three-dimensional helical metallic metamaterials have been shown to exhibit chiral effects of large magnitude both theoretically and in experimental realizations. Chirality here describes different responses of scatterers, materials, or metamaterials to left and right circularly polarized electromagnetic waves. These differences can be quantified in terms of electromagnetic chirality measures. In this work we consider the optimal design of thin metallic free-form nanowires that possess measures of electromagnetic chirality as large as fundamentally possible. We focus on optical frequencies and use a gradient based optimization scheme to determine the optimal shape of highly chiral thin silver and gold nanowires. The electromagnetic chirality measures of our optimized nanowires exceed that of traditional metallic helices. Therefore, these should be well suited as building blocks of novel metamaterials with an increased chiral response. We discuss a series of numerical examples, and we evaluate the performance of different optimized designs.

math.OC↗

arXiv2022

A T-matrix Based Approach to Homogenize Artificial Materials

The accurate and efficient computation of the electromagnetic response of objects made from artificial materials is crucial for designing photonic functionalities and interpreting experiments. Advanced fabrication techniques can nowadays produce new materials as three-dimensional lattices of scattering unit cells. Computing the response of objects of arbitrary shape made from such materials is typically computationally prohibitive unless an effective homogeneous medium approximates the discrete material. In here, we introduce a homogenization method based on the effective T-matrix. Such a matrix captures the exact response of the discrete material, is determined by the T-matrix of the isolated unit cell and the material lattice vectors, and is free of spatial dispersion. The truncation of the effective T-matrix to dipolar order determines the common bi-anisotropic constitutive relations. When combined with quantum-chemical and Maxwell solvers, the method allows one to compute the response of arbitrarily-shaped volumetric patchworks of structured molecular materials and metamaterials.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Lattice Sums Accommodating Multiple Sublattices for Solutions of the Helmholtz Equation in Two and Three Dimensions

The evaluation of the interaction between objects arranged on a lattice requires the computation of lattice sums. A scenario frequently encountered are systems governed by the Helmholtz equation in the context of electromagnetic scattering in an array of particles forming a metamaterial, a metasurface, or a photonic crystal. While the convergence of direct lattice sums for such translation coefficients is notoriously slow, the application of Ewald's method converts the direct sums into exponentially convergent series. We present a derivation of such series for the 2D and 3D solutions of the Helmholtz equation, namely spherical and cylindrical solutions. When compared to prior research, our novel expressions are especially aimed at computing the lattice sums for several interacting sublattices in 1D lattices (chains), 2D lattices (gratings), and 3D lattices. We verify our results by comparison with the direct computation of the lattice sums.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Transformation-optics modeling of 3D-printed freeform waveguides

Multi-photon lithography allows to complement planar photonic integrated circuits (PIC) by in-situ 3D-printed freeform waveguide structures. However, design and optimization of such freeform waveguides using time-domain Maxwell's equations solvers often requires comparatively large computational volumes, within which the structure of interest only occupies a small fraction, thus leading to poor computational efficiency. In this paper, we present a solver-independent transformation-optics-(TO-) based technique that allows to greatly reduce the computational effort related to modeling of 3D freeform waveguides. The concept relies on transforming freeform waveguides with curved trajectories into equivalent waveguide structures with modified material properties but geometrically straight trajectories, that can be efficiently fit into rather small cuboid-shaped computational volumes. We demonstrate the viability of the technique and benchmark its performance using a series of different freeform waveguides, achieving a reduction of the simulation time by a factor of 3-6 with a significant potential for further improvement. We also fabricate and experimentally test the simulated waveguides by 3D-printing on a silicon photonic chip, and we find good agreement between the simulated and the measured transmission at $λ= 1550 \textrm{ nm}$.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Modification of the Optical Properties of Molecular Chains upon Coupling to Adatoms

Adsorbed atoms (adatoms) coupled to the matrix of solid state host materials as impurities can significantly modify their properties. Especially in low-dimensional materials, such as one-dimensional organic polymer chains or quasi-one-dimensional graphene nanoribbons, intriguing manipulation of the optical properties, such as the absorption cross section, is possible. The most widely used approach to couple quantum emitters to optical antennas is based on the Purcell effect. This formalism, however, does not comprise charge transfer from the emitter to the antenna, but only spontaneous emission of the quantum emitter into the tailored photonic environment, that is evoked by the antenna. To capture such effects, we present a tight-binding formalism to couple an adatom to a finite Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chain, where the former is treated as a two-level system and the latter acts as an optical antenna. We systematically analyze how the coupling strength and the position of the adatom influence the optical properties of the molecular chains in the model. We take into account charge transfer from the adatom to the antenna and vice versa via an inter-system hopping parameter, and also include Coulomb interaction within the antenna as well as between the adatom and the antenna. We show that coupling the adatom to one of the bulk atoms of the linear chain results in a substantial change in optical properties already for comparatively small coupling strengths. We also find that the position of the adatom crucially determines if and how the optical properties of the chains are altered. Therefore, we identify this adatom-chain hybrid system as a tunable platform for light-matter interaction at the nanoscale.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

A Comprehensive Multipolar Theory for Periodic Metasurfaces

Optical metasurfaces consist of a 2D arrangement of scatterers, and they control the amplitude, phase, and polarization of an incidence field on demand. Optical metasurfaces are the cornerstone for a future generation of flat optical devices in a wide range of applications. The rapidly growing advances in nanofabrication have made the versatile design and analysis of these ultra-thin surfaces an ever-growing necessity. However, despite their importance, a comprehensive theory to describe the optical response of periodic metasurfaces in closed-form and analytical expressions has not been formulated, and prior attempts were frequently approximate. Here, we develop a theory that analytically links the properties of the scatterer, from which a periodic metasurface is made, to its optical response via the lattice coupling matrix. The scatterers are represented by their polarizability or T matrix, and our theory works for normal and oblique incidence. We provide explicit expressions for the optical response up to octupolar order in both spherical and Cartesian coordinates. Several examples demonstrate that our analytical tool constitutes a paradigm shift in designing and understanding optical metasurfaces. Novel fully-diffracting metagratings and particle-independent polarization filters are proposed, and novel insights into the response of Huygens' metasurfaces under oblique incidence are provided. Our analytical expressions are a powerful tool for exploring the physics of metasurfaces and designing novel flat optics devices.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

The annual energy yield of mono- and bifacial silicon heterojunction solar modules with high-index dielectric nanodisk arrays as anti-reflective and light trapping structures

While various nanophotonic structures applicable to relatively thin crystalline silicon-based solar cells were proposed to ensure effective light in-coupling and light trapping in the absorber, it is of great importance to evaluate their performance on the solar module level under realistic irradiation conditions. Here, we analyze the annual energy yield of relatively thin heterojunction (HJT) solar module architectures when optimized anti-reflective and light trapping titanium dioxide (TiO$_2$) nanodisk square arrays are applied on the front and rear cell interfaces. Our numerical study shows that upon reducing crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafer thickness, the relative increase of the annual energy yield can go up to 11.0 %$_\text{rel}$ and 43.0 %$_\text{rel}$ for mono- and bifacial solar modules, respectively, when compared to the reference modules with flat optimized anti-reflective coatings of HJT solar cells.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Efficient simulation of bi-periodic, layered structures based on the T-matrix method

Predicting the optical response of macroscopic arrangements of individual scatterers is a computational challenge, as the problem involves length scales across multiple orders of magnitude. We present a full-wave optical method to highly efficiently compute the scattering of light at objects that are arranged in bi-periodic arrays. Multiple arrays or homogeneous thin-films can be stacked to build up an entire multicomposite material in the third dimension. The scattering properties of the individual objects in each array are described by the T-matrix formalism. Therefore, arbitrarily shaped objects and even molecules can be the basic constituent of the arrays. Taking the T-matrix of the individual scatterer as the point of departure allows to explain the optical properties of the bulk material from the scattering properties of its constituents. We use solutions of Maxwell's equations with well defined helicity. Therefore, chiral media are particularly easy to consider as materials for both scatterers or embedding media. We exemplify the efficiency of the algorithm with an exhaustive parametric study of anti-reflective coatings for solar cells made from cylinders with a high degree of helicity preservation. The example shows a speed-up of about 500 with respect to finite-element computations. A second example specifically exploits the use helicity modes to investigate the enhancement of the circular dichroism signal in a chiral material.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Quantum Plasmonic Sensors

The extraordinary sensitivity of plasmonic sensors is well known in the optics and photonics community. These sensors exploit simultaneously the enhancement and the localization of electromagnetic fields close to the interface between a metal and a dielectric. This enables, for example, the design of integrated biochemical sensors at scales far below the diffraction limit. Despite their practical realization and successful commercialization, the sensitivity and associated precision of plasmonic sensors are starting to reach their fundamental classical limit given by quantum fluctuations of light -- known as the shot-noise limit. To improve the sensing performance of these sensors beyond the classical limit, quantum resources are increasingly being employed. This area of research has become known as `quantum plasmonic sensing' and it has experienced substantial activity in recent years for applications in chemical and biological sensing. This review aims to cover both plasmonic and quantum techniques for sensing, and shows how they have been merged to enhance the performance of plasmonic sensors beyond traditional methods. We discuss the general framework developed for quantum plasmonic sensing in recent years, covering the basic theory behind the advancements made, and describe the important works that made these advancements. We also describe several key works in detail, highlighting their motivation, the working principles behind them, and their future impact. The intention of the review is to set a foundation for a burgeoning field of research that is currently being explored out of intellectual curiosity and for a wide range of practical applications in biochemistry, medicine, and pharmaceutical research.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Tailored Light Scattering through Hyperuniform Disorder in self-organized arrays of high-index Nanodisks

Arrays of nanoparticles exploited in light scattering applications commonly only feature either a periodic or a rather random arrangement of its constituents. For the periodic case, light scattering is mostly governed by the strong spatial correlations of the arrangement, expressed by the structure factor. For the random case, structural correlations cancel each other out and light scattering is mostly governed by the scattering properties of the individual scatterer, expressed by the form factor. In contrast to these extreme cases, we show here, for the first time, that hyperuniform disorder in self-organized large-area arrays of high refractive index nanodisks enables both structure and form factor to impact the resulting scattering pattern, offering novel means to tailor light scattering. The scattering response from our nearly hyperuniform interfaces can be exploited in a large variety of applications and constitutes a novel class of advanced optical materials.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

On enhanced sensing of chiral molecules in optical cavities

The differential response of chiral molecules to incident left- and right- handed circularly polarized light is used for sensing the handedness of molecules. Currently, significant effort is directed towards enhancing weak differential signals from the molecules, with the goal of extending the capabilities of chiral spectrometers to lower molecular concentrations or small analyte volumes. Previously, optical cavities for enhancing vibrational circular dichroism have been introduced. Their enhancements are mediated by helicity-preserving cavity modes which maintain the handedness of light due to their degenerate TE and TM components. In this article, we simplify the design of the cavity, and numerically compare it with the previous one using an improved model for the response of chiral molecules. We use parameters of molecular resonances to show that the cavities are capable of bringing the vibrational circular dichroism signal over the detection threshold of typical spectrometers for concentrations that are one to three orders of magnitude smaller than those needed without the cavities, for a fixed analyte volume. Frequency resolutions of current spectrometers result in enhancements of more than one order (two orders) of magnitude for the new (previous) design. With improved frequency resolution, the new design achieves enhancements of three orders of magnitude. We show that the TE/TM degeneracy in perfectly helicity preserving modes is lifted by factors that are inherent to the cavities. More surprisingly, this degeneracy is also lifted by the molecules themselves due to their lack of electromagnetic duality symmetry, that is, due to the partial change of helicity during the light-molecule interactions.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Bayesian optimization with improved scalability and derivative information for efficient design of nanophotonic structures

We propose the combination of forward shape derivatives and the use of an iterative inversion scheme for Bayesian optimization to find optimal designs of nanophotonic devices. This approach widens the range of applicability of Bayesian optmization to situations where a larger number of iterations is required and where derivative information is available. This was previously impractical because the computational efforts required to identify the next evaluation point in the parameter space became much larger than the actual evaluation of the objective function. We demonstrate an implementation of the method by optimizing a waveguide edge coupler.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2020

From single-particle-like to interaction-mediated plasmonic resonances in graphene nanoantennas

Plasmonic nanostructures attract tremendous attention as they confine electromagnetic fields well below the diffraction limit while simultaneously sustaining extreme local field enhancements. To fully exploit these properties, the identification and classification of resonances in such nanostructures is crucial. Recently, a novel figure of merit for resonance classification has been proposed 1 and its applicability was demonstrated mostly to toy model systems. This novel measure, the energy-based plasmonicity index (EPI), characterizes the nature of resonances in molecular nanostructures. The EPI distinguishes between either a single-particle-like or a plasmonic nature of resonances based on the energy space coherence dynamics of the excitation. To advance the further development of this newly established measure, we present here its exemplary application to characterize the resonances of graphene nanoantennas. In particular, we focus on resonances in a doped nanoantenna. The structure is of interest, as a consideration of the electron dynamics in real space might suggest a plasmonic nature of selected resonances in the low doping limit but our analysis reveals the opposite. We find that in the undoped and moderately doped nanoantenna, the EPI classifies all emerging resonances as predominantly single-particle-like and only after doping the structure heavily, the EPI observes plasmonic response.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2020

Extreme renormalisations of dimer eigenmodes by strong light-matter coupling

We explore by theoretical means an extreme renormalisation of the eigenmodes of a dimer of dipolar meta-atoms due to strong light-matter interactions. Firstly, by tuning the height of an enclosing photonic cavity, we can lower the energy level of the symmetric `bright' mode underneath that of the anti-symmetric `dark' mode. This is possible due to the polaritonic nature of the symmetric mode, that shares simultaneously its excitation with the cavity and the dimer. For a heterogeneous dimer, we show that the polariton modes can be smoothly tuned from symmetric to anti-symmetric, resulting in a variable mode localisation from extended throughout the cavity to concentrated around the vicinity of the dimer. In addition, we reveal a critical point where one of the meta-atoms becomes `shrouded', with no response to a driving electric field, and thus the field re-radiated by the dimer is only that of the other meta-atom. We provide an exact analytical description of the system from first principles, as well as full-wave electromagnetic simulations that show a strong quantitative agreement with the analytical model. Our description is relevant for any physical dimer where dipolar interactions are the dominant mechanism.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Directional coupling of emitters into waveguides: A symmetry perspective

Recent experiments demonstrated strongly directional coupling of light into waveguide modes. We identify here the mechanisms behind this effect. We consider emitters near a waveguide, either centered on the median plane of the waveguide, or displaced from such plane. We show that, independently of the displacement, the directionality is mostly due to a mirror symmetry breaking caused by the axial character of the angular momentum of the emitted light. The sign of the angular momentum along an axis transverse to the waveguide determines the preferential coupling direction. The degree of directionality grows exponentially as the magnitude of such transverse angular momentum increases linearly. We trace this exponential dependence back to a property of the evanescent angular spectrum of the emissions. A binary and less pronounced directional coupling effect due to the chiral character of the handedness of the emission is possible when the displacement of the emitter breaks another of the mirror symmetries of the waveguide. We find a selection rule that allows or prevents the coupling of centered electric(magnetic) multipolar emissions onto the waveguide modes. We also show that the selection of a different angular momentum axis made in some experiments causes significant differences in the way in which directionality depends on angular momentum. We then use these differences to propose an experiment featuring a transverse magnetic bias that allows to aggregate the directional emissions from quantum dots on top of waveguides. Our symmetry-based results apply to any emitted multipolar order, clarify the spin-momentum locking concept, and generalize it to an exponentially-strong locking between the transverse angular momentumand the preferential coupling direction.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2020

Optimal circular dichroism sensing with quantum light: Multi-parameter estimation approach

The measurement of circular dichroism (CD) has widely been exploited to distinguish the different enantiomers of chiral structures. It has been applied to natural materials (e.g. molecules) as well as to artificial materials (e.g. nanophotonic structures). However, especially for chiral molecules the signal level is very low and increasing the signal-to-noise ratio is of paramount importance to either shorten the necessary measurement time or to lower the minimum detectable molecule concentration. As one solution to this problem, we propose here to use quantum states of light in CD sensing to reduce the noise below the shot noise limit that is encountered when using coherent states of light. Through a multi-parameter estimation approach, we identify the ultimate quantum limit to precision of CD sensing, allowing for general schemes including additional ancillary modes. We show that the ultimate quantum limit can be achieved by various optimal schemes. It includes not only Fock state input in direct sensing configuration but also twin-beam input in ancilla-assisted sensing configuration, for both of which photon number resolving detection needs to be performed as the optimal measurement setting. These optimal schemes offer a significant quantum enhancement even in the presence of additional system loss. The optimality of a practical scheme using a twin-beam state in direct sensing configuration is also investigated in details as a nearly optimal scheme for CD sensing when the actual CD signal is very small. Alternative schemes involving single-photon sources and detectors are also proposed. This work paves the way for further investigations of quantum metrological techniques in chirality sensing.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Experimental quantum polarimetry using heralded single photons

We perform experimental quantum polarimetry using a heralded single photon to analyze the optical activity of linearly polarized light traversing a chiral medium. Three kinds of estimators are considered to estimate the concentrations of sucrose solutions from measuring the rotation angle of the linear polarization of the output photons. Through repetition of independent and identical measurements performed for each individual scheme and different concentration sucrose solutions, we compare the estimation uncertainty among the three schemes. The results are also compared to classical benchmarks for which a coherent state of light is taken into account. The quantum enhancement in the estimation uncertainty is evaluated and the impact of experimental and technical imperfections is discussed. In this work, we lay out a route for future applications relying on quantum polarimetry.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Achiral, Helicity Preserving, and Resonant Structures for Enhanced Sensing of Chiral Molecules

We derive a set of design requirements that lead to structures suitable for molecular circular dichroism (CD) enhancement. Achirality of the structure and two suitably selected sequentially incident beams of opposite helicity ensures that the CD signal only depends on the chiral absorption properties of the molecules, and not on the achiral ones. Under this condition, a helicity preserving structure, which prevents the coupling of the two polarization handednesses, maximizes the enhancement of the CD signal for a given ability of the structure to enhance the field. When the achirality and helicity preservation requirements are met, the enhancement of the CD signal is directly related to the enhancement of the field. Next, we design an exemplary structure following the requirements. The considered system is a planar array of silicon cylinders under normally incident plane-wave illumination. Full-wave numerical calculations show that the enhancement of the transmission CD signal is between 6.5 and 3.75 for interaction lengths between 1.25 and 3 times the height of the cylinders.

physics.optics↗