arXiv subjects

Subhajit Bej

Publications and source records attributed to Subhajit Bej.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Nonlinear Optical Microscopy of Semiconductor Metal-Nanocavities

We use second and third harmonic generation microscopy to investigate the nonlinear optical response of GaAs nanocavities embedded in a gold film and compare them to bare GaAs nanocavities. Our results reveal that the surrounding metallic environment significantly modifies both the intensity and spatial distribution of the nonlinear signals. When the harmonic wavelength is spectrally detuned from the nanocavity resonance, the effects due to the metallic environment start suppressing the SHG contrast. Numerical simulations confirm that at a 1060 nm pump wavelength, the SHG produced at 530 nm is suppressed due to the dominant plasmonic response of gold. Meanwhile, the THG produced at 353 nm, which coincides with the nanocavity resonance, enables high contrast imaging. Furthermore, by shifting the pump to 710 nm, aligning SHG at 356 nm with the nanocavity resonance, we recover strong SHG contrast, demonstrating a pathway to enhanced imaging of metal-semiconductor heterostructures.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Ultrafast modulation of guided-mode resonance in a nonlinear silicon nitride grating

Nonlinear optical interactions in nanostructures are subjects of both fundamental research and practical applications. The optical Kerr effect, a third-order nonlinear optical phenomenon, induces anisotropic changes in the refractive index of a material under intense laser illumination. This effect is inherently weak, limiting its practical use in free-space nanophotonics. In this work, we demonstrate an enhancement of the optical Kerr effect by more than three orders of magnitude using guided-mode resonance in a dielectric diffraction grating with an overall thickness of less than 300 nm. Our study involves the design, fabrication, and measurement of the transmittance of a resonant silicon nitride crossed grating illuminated with short light pulses. We observe spectral resonance shifts with varying pulse power, leading to more than fifty percent modulation of the resonance magnitude and enabling transitions between `Off' and `On' states of transmission. We also demonstrate the capability of the grating for dynamic pulse shaping. The results presented here reveal promising directions for developing advanced all-optical devices based on free-space nanophotonics.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Purcell-enhanced single-photon emission from InAs/GaAs quantum dots coupled to broadband cylindrical nanocavities

On-chip emitters that can generate single and entangled photons are essential building blocks for developing photonic quantum information processing technologies in a scalable fashion. Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) are attractive candidates that emit high-quality quantum states of light on demand, however at a rate limited by their spontaneous radiative lifetime. In this study, we utilize the Purcell effect to demonstrate up to a 38-fold enhancement in the emission rate of InAs QDs by coupling them to metal-clad GaAs nanopillars. These cavities, featuring a sub-wavelength mode volume of 4.5x10-4 ({\lambda}/n)3 and low quality factor of 62, enable Purcell-enhanced single-photon emission across a large bandwidth of 15 nm. The broadband nature of the cavity eliminates the need for implementing tuning mechanisms typically required to achieve QD-cavity resonance, thus relaxing fabrication constraints. Ultimately, this QD-cavity architecture represents a significant stride towards developing solid-state quantum emitters generating near-ideal single-photon states at GHz-level repetition rates.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

High-order aberrations of vortex constellations

When reflected from an interface, a laser beam generally drifts and tilts away from the path predicted by ray optics, an intriguing consequence of its finite transverse extent. Such beam shifts manifest more dramatically for structured light fields, and in particular for optical vortices. Upon reflection, a field containing a high-order optical vortex is expected to experience not only geometrical shifts, but an additional splitting of its high-order vortex into a constellation of unit-charge vortices, a phenomenon known as topological aberration. In this article, we report on the first direct observation of the topological aberration effect, measured through the transformation of a vortex constellation upon reflection. We develop a general theoretical framework to study topological aberrations in terms of the elementary symmetric polynomials of the coordinates of a vortex constellation, a mathematical abstraction which we prove to be the physical quantity of interest. Using this approach, we are able to verify experimentally the aberration of constellations of up to three vortices reflected from a thin metallic film. Our work not only deepens the understanding of the reflection of naturally occurring structured light fields such as vortex constellations but also sets forth a potential method for studying the interaction of twisted light fields with matter.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

High-Q guided-mode resonance of a crossed grating with near-flat dispersion

Guided-mode resonances in diffraction gratings are manifested as peaks (dips) in reflection (transmission) spectra. Smaller resonance line widths (higher Q-factors) ensure stronger light-matter interactions and are beneficial for field-dependent physical processes. However, strong angular and spectral dispersion are inherent to such high-Q resonances. We demonstrate that a class of high-Q resonant modes (Q-factor >1000) exhibiting extraordinarily weak dispersion can be excited in crossed gratings simultaneously with the modes with well-known nearly linear dispersion. Furthermore, we show that the polarization of the incoming light can be adjusted to engineer the dispersion of these modes, and strong to near-flat dispersion or vice-versa can be achieved by switching between two mutually orthogonal linear polarization states. We introduce a semi-analytical model to explain the underlying physics behind these observations and perform full-wave numerical simulations and experiments to support our theoretical conjecture. The results presented here will benefit all applications that rely on resonances in free-space-coupled geometries.

physics.optics↗