arXiv subjects

Paulo Dainese

Publications and source records attributed to Paulo Dainese.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Antireflection by design in bilayer metasurfaces

Antireflection coatings are ubiquitous in optical systems, where they maximize transmission and suppress undesirable reflections by impedance-matching uniform interfaces. Extending this principle to metasurfaces, however, is fundamentally more challenging because wavefront control requires a library of geometrically distinct meta-atoms, each locally imposing a prescribed phase that is tethered to its transmittance. Here, we show that vertical integration resolves this constraint by allowing bilayer meta-atoms to operate simultaneously as a phase shifter and an impedance-matching stack. Using an effective thin-film model, we derive a design rule that links the effective indices of two independently patterned layers and identifies antireflective bilayer libraries with full $0$-$2π$ transmission-phase coverage. We realize this concept in a free-standing TiO$_2$/TiO$_2$ metalens operating at 1310 nm, which suppresses reflectance below that of bare glass while preserving diffraction-limited focusing. These results establish bilayer metasurfaces as a framework for co-engineering optical impedance and wavefront response at the meta-atom level.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

Do bilayer metasurfaces behave as a stack of decoupled single-layer metasurfaces?

Flat optics or metasurfaces have opened new frontiers in wavefront shaping and its applications. Polarization optics is one prominent area which has greatly benefited from the shape-birefringence of metasurfaces. However, flat optics comprising a single layer of meta-atoms can only perform a subset of polarization transformations, constrained by a symmetric Jones matrix. This limitation can be tackled using metasurfaces composed of bilayer meta-atoms but exhausting all possible combinations of geometries to build a bilayer metasurface library is a very daunting task. Consequently, bilayer metasurfaces have been widely treated as a cascade (product) of two decoupled single-layer metasurfaces. Here, we test the validity of this assumption by considering a metasurface made of TiO2 on fused silica substrate at a design wavelength of 532 nm. We explore regions in the design space where the coupling between the top and bottom layers can be neglected, i.e., producing a far-field response which approximates that of two decoupled single-layer metasurfaces. We complement this picture with the near-field analysis to explore the underlying physics in regions where both layers are strongly coupled. Our analysis is general and it allows the designer to efficiently build a multi-layer metasurface, either in transmission or reflection, by only running one full-wave simulation for a single-layer metasurface.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

Metasurfaces for free-space coupling to multicore fibers

Space-division multiplexing (SDM) with multicore fibers (MCFs) is envisioned to overcome the capacity crunch in optical fiber communications. Within these systems, the coupling optics that connect single-mode fibers (SMFs) to MCFs are key components in achieving high data transfer rates. Designing a compact and scalable coupler with low loss and crosstalk is a continuing challenge. Here, we introduce a metasurface-based free-space coupler that can be designed for any input array of SMFs to a MCF with arbitrary core layout. An inverse design technique - adjoint method - optimizes the metasurface phase profiles to maximize the overlap of the output fields to the MCF modes at each core position. As proof-of-concepts, we fabricated two types of 4-mode couplers for MCFs with linear and square core arrays. The measured insertion losses were as low as 1.2 dB and the worst-case crosstalk was less than -40.1 dB in the O-band (1260-1360 nm). Owing to its foundry-compatible fabrication, this coupler design could facilitate the widespread deployment of SDM based on MCFs.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Compact Dual-Polarization Silicon Integrated Couplers for Multicore Fibers

Compact fiber-to-chip couplers play an important role in optical interconnections, especially in data centers. However, the development of couplers has been mostly limited to standard single mode fibers, with few devices compatible with multicore and multimode fibers. Through the use of state-of-the-art optimization algorithms, we designed a compact dual-polarization coupler to interface chips and dense multicore fibers, demonstrating, for the first time, coupling to both polarizations of all the cores, with measured coupling efficiency of $-$4.3 dB and with a 3 dB bandwidth of 48 nm. The dual-polarization coupler has footprint of 200 $μm^2$ per core, which makes it the smallest fiber-to-chip coupler experimentally demonstrated on a standard silicon-on-insulator platform.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2020

Intermodal Brillouin scattering in solid-core photonic crystal fibers

We investigate intermodal forward Brillouin scattering in a solid-core PCF, demonstrating efficient power conversion between the HE11 and HE21 modes, with a maximum gain coefficient of 21.4/W/km. By exploring mechanical modes of different symmetries, we observe both polarization-dependent and polarization-independent intermodal Brillouin interaction. Finally, we discuss the role of squeeze film air damping and leakage mechanisms, ultimately critical to the engineering of PCF structures with enhanced interaction between high order optical modes through flexural mechanical modes.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Nonlinear carrier dynamics in silicon nano-waveguides

Carrier recombination dynamics in strip silicon nano-waveguides is analyzed through time-resolved pump-and-probe experiments, revealing a complex recombination dynamics at densities ranging from ${10^{14}}$ to ${10^{17}}\,$cm$^{-3}$. Our results show that the carrier lifetime varies as recombination evolves, with faster decay rates at the initial stages (with lifetime of ${\sim 800}\,$ps), and much slower lifetimes at later stages (up to ${\sim 300}\,$ns). We also observe experimentally the effect of trapping, manifesting as a decay curve highly dependent on the initial carrier density. We further demonstrate that operating at high carrier density can lead to faster recombination rates. Finally, we present a theoretical discussion based on trap-assisted recombination statistics applied to nano-waveguides. Our results can impact the dynamics of several nonlinear nanophotonic devices in which free-carriers play a critical role, and open further opportunities to enhance the performance of all-optical silicon-based devices based on carrier recombination engineering.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Brillouin Scattering Self-Cancellation

The interaction between light and acoustic phonons is strongly modified in sub-wavelength confinement, and has led to the demonstration and control of Brillouin scattering in photonic structures such as nano-scale optical waveguides and cavities. Besides the small optical mode volume, two physical mechanisms come into play simultaneously: a volume effect caused by the strain induced refractive index perturbation (known as photo-elasticity), and a surface effect caused by the shift of the optical boundaries due to mechanical vibrations. As a result proper material and structure engineering allows one to control each contribution individually. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate the perfect cancellation of Brillouin scattering by engineering a silica nanowire with exactly opposing photo-elastic and moving-boundary effects. This demonstration provides clear experimental evidence that the interplay between the two mechanisms is a promising tool to precisely control the photon-phonon interaction, enhancing or suppressing it.

physics.optics↗