arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Claudio Conti.
Using the history-dependence of a dipolar glass hosted in a compositionally-disordered lithium-enriched potassium-tantalate-niobate (KTN:Li) crystal, we demonstrate scale-free optical propagation at tunable temperatures. The operating equilibration temperature is determined by previous crystal spiralling in the temperature/cooling-rate phase-space.
Granular materials have been studied for decades, also driven by industrial and technological applications. These very simple systems, composed by agglomerations of mesoscopic particles, are characterized, in specific regimes, by a large number of metastable states and an extreme sensitivity (e.g., in sound transmission) on the arrangement of grains; they are not substantially affected by thermal phenomena, but can be controlled by mechanical solicitations. Laser emission from shaken granular matter is so far unexplored; here we provide experimental evidence that it can be affected and controlled by the status of motion of the granular, we also find that competitive random lasers can be observed. We hence demonstrate the potentialities of gravity affected moving disordered materials for optical applications, and open the road to a variety of novel interdisciplinary investigations, involving modern statistical mechanics and disordered photonics.
We theoretically investigate the stability and dynamics of self-channelled beams that form via nonlocal optomechanical interactions in dual-nanoweb microstructured fibers. These "optomechanicons" represent a novel class of spatial soliton.
The instabilities arising in a one-dimensional beam sustained by the diffusive photorefractive nonlinearity in out-of-equilibrium ferroelectrics are theoretically and numerically investigated. In the "scale-free model", in striking contrast with the well-known spatial modulational instability, two different beam instabilities dominate: a defocusing and a fragmenting process. Both are independent of the beam power and are not associated to any specific periodic pattern.
The effect of focusing and defocusing nonlinearities on Anderson localization in highly nonlocal media is theoretically and numerically investigated. A perturbative approach is developed to solve the nonlocal nonlinear Schroedinger equation in the presence of a random potential, showing that nonlocality stabilizes Anderson states.
It is shown that optomechanical forces can cause nonlinear self-channelling of light in a planar dual-slab waveguide. A system of two parallel silica nanowebs, spaced ~100 nm and supported inside a fibre capillary, is studied theoretically and an iterative scheme developed to analyse its nonlinear optomechanical properties. Steady-state field distributions and mechanical deformation profiles are obtained, demonstrating that self-channelling is possible in realistic structures at launched powers as low as a few mW. The differential optical nonlinearity of the self-channelled mode can be as much as ten million times higher than the corresponding electronic Kerr nonlinearity. It is also intrinsically broadband, does not utilize resonant effects, can be viewed as a consequence of the extreme nonlocality of the mechanical response, and in fact is a notable example of a so-called "accessible" soliton.
We propose an electrically tunable graphene-based metamaterial showing a large nonlinear optical response at THz frequencies, which we calculate analytically for the first time to our knowledge and arises from the intraband current. The structure sustains a novel type of stable two-dimensional spatial solitary wave, a relativistic version of the Townes soliton. These results can be also applied to any material exhibiting a conical dispersion with massless Dirac fermions.
Self-induced transparency pulses propagating in a random medium embedded in a two-level system can transfer energy to localized Anderson states. This allows the onset of two-level laser-like action.
We predict the existence of a novel class of multidimensional light localizations in out-of-equilibrium ferroelectric crystals. In two dimensions, the non-diffracting beams form at arbitrary low power level and propagate even when their width is well below the optical wavelength. In three dimensions, a novel form of subwavelength light bullets is found. The effects emerge when compositionally disordered crystals are brought to their metastable glassy state, and can have a profound impact on super-resolved imaging and ultra-dense optical storage, while resembling many features of the so-called metamaterials, as the suppression of evanescent waves.
The nonlinear propagation of light pulses in liquid-filled photonic crystal fibers is considered. Due to the slow reorientational nonlinearity of some molecular liquids, the nonlinear modes propagating inside such structures can be approximated, for pulse durations much shorter than the molecular relaxation time, by temporally highly-nonlocal solitons, analytical solutions of a linear Schroedinger equation. The physical relevance of these novel solitary structures, which may have a broad range of applications, is discussed and supported by detailed numerical simulations.
The statistical properties of the phases of several modes nonlinearly coupled in a random system are investigated by means of a Hamiltonian model with disordered couplings. The regime in which the modes have a stationary distribution of their energies and the phases are coupled is studied for arbitrary degrees of randomness and energy. The complexity versus temperature and strength of nonlinearity is calculated. A phase diagram is derived in terms of the stored energy and amount of disorder. Implications in random lasing, nonlinear wave propagation and finite temperature Bose-Einstein condensation are discussed.
Improving and controlling the efficiency of a gain medium is one of the most challenging problems of laser research. By measuring the gain length in an opal based photonic crystal doped with laser dye, we demonstrate that optical amplification is more than twenty-fold enhanced along the Gamma-K symmetry directions of the face centered cubic photonic crystal. These results are theoretically explained by directional variations of the density of states, providing a quantitative connection between density of the states and light amplification.
We investigate theoretically, numerically and experimentally nonlinear optical waves in an absorbing out-of-equilibrium colloidal material at the gelification transition. At sufficiently high optical intensity, absorption is frustrated and light propagates into the medium. The process is mediated by the formation of a matter-shock wave due to optically induced thermodiffusion, and largely resembles the mechanism of hydrodynamical supercavitation, as it is accompanied by a dynamic phase-transition region between the beam and the absorbing material.
We report on experimental tests of the trend of random laserlinewidth versus pumping power as predicted by an Haus master equation that is formally identical to the one-dimensional Gross- Pitaevskii equation in an harmonic potential. Experiments are done by employing picosecond pumped dispersions of Titaniumdioxide particles in dye-doped methanol. The derivation of the master equations is also detailed and shown to be in agreement with experiments analytically predicting the value of the threshold linewidth.
We investigate the evolution of solitary waves in a nonlocal medium in the presence of disorder. By using a perturbational approach, we show that an increasing degree of nonlocality may largely hamper the Brownian motion of self-trapped wave-packets. The result is valid for any kind of nonlocality and in the presence of non-paraxial effects. Analytical predictions are compared with numerical simulations based on stochastic partial differential equation
We theoretically predict the occurrence of multiple hydrodynamical-like shock phenomena in the propagation of ultrashort intense pulses in a suitably engineered photonic crystal fiber. The shocks are due to the Raman effect, which acts as a nonlocal term favoring their generation in the focusing regime. It is shown that the problem is mapped to shock formation in the presence of a slope and a gravity-like potential. The signature of multiple shocks in XFROG signals is unveiled.
We investigate a special class of cellular automata (CA) evolving in a environment filled by an electromagnetic wave. The rules of the Conway's Game of Life are modified to account for the ability to retrieve life-sustenance from the field energy. Light-induced self-structuring and self-healing abilities and various dynamic phases are displayed by the CA. Photo-driven genetic selection and the nonlinear feedback of the CA on the electromagnetic field are included in the model, and there are evidences of self-organized light-localization processes. The evolution of the electromagnetic field is based on the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) approach. Applications are envisaged in evolutionary biology, artificial life, DNA replication, swarming, optical tweezing and field-driven soft-matter.
We investigate Anderson localization of light as occurring in ultra-short excitations. A theory based on time dependent coupled-mode equations predicts universal features in the spectrum of the transmitted pulse. In particular, the process of strong localization of light is shown to correspond to the formation of peaks in both the amplitude and in the group delay of the transmitted pulse. Parallel ab-initio simulations made with Finite-Difference Time Domain codes and molecular dynamics confirm theoretical predictions, while showing that there exist an optimal degree of disorder for the strong localization.