Hybrid silicon-organic Huygens' metasurface for phase modulation.

Spatial light modulators have desirable applications in sensing and free space communication because they create an interface between the optical and electronic realms. Electro-optic modulators allow for high-speed intensity manipulation of an electromagnetic wavefront. However, most surfaces of this sort pose limitations due to their ability to modulate intensity rather than phase. Here we investigate an electro-optic modulator formed from a silicon-organic Huygens' metasurface. In a simulation-based study, we discover a metasurface design immersed in high-performance electro-optic molecules that can achieve near-full resonant transmission with phase coverage over the full 2π range. Through the electro-optic effect, we show 140 ∘ (0.79π) modulation over a range of -100 to 100 V at 1330 nm while maintaining near-constant transmitted field intensity (between 0.66 and 0.8). These results potentiate the fabrication of a high-speed spatial light modulator with the resolved parameters.

Metasurface-stabilized optical microcavities.

Cavities concentrate light and enhance its interaction with matter. Confining to microscopic volumes is necessary for many applications but space constraints in such cavities limit the design freedom. Here we demonstrate stable optical microcavities by counteracting the phase evolution of the cavity modes using an amorphous Silicon metasurface as cavity end mirror. Careful design allows us to limit the metasurface scattering losses at telecom wavelengths to less than 2% and using a distributed Bragg reflector as metasurface substrate ensures high reflectivity. Our demonstration experimentally achieves telecom-wavelength microcavities with quality factors of up to 4600, spectral resonance linewidths below 0.4 nm, and mode volumes below [Formula: see text]. The method introduces freedom to stabilize modes with arbitrary transverse intensity profiles and to design cavity-enhanced hologram modes. Our approach introduces the nanoscopic light control capabilities of dielectric metasurfaces to cavity electrodynamics and is industrially scalable using semiconductor manufacturing processes.

Terahertz waveform synthesis in integrated thin-film lithium niobate platform.

Bridging the "terahertz gap" relies upon synthesizing arbitrary waveforms in the terahertz domain enabling applications that require both narrow band sources for sensing and few-cycle drives for classical and quantum objects. However, realization of custom-tailored waveforms needed for these applications is currently hindered due to limited flexibility for optical rectification of femtosecond pulses in bulk crystals. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that thin-film lithium niobate circuits provide a versatile solution for such waveform synthesis by combining the merits of complex integrated architectures, low-loss distribution of pump pulses on-chip, and an efficient optical rectification. Our distributed pulse phase-matching scheme grants shaping the temporal, spectral, phase, amplitude, and farfield characteristics of the emitted terahertz field through designer on-chip components. This strictly circumvents prior limitations caused by the phase-delay mismatch in conventional systems and relaxes the requirement for cumbersome spectral pre-engineering of the pumping light. We propose a toolbox of basic blocks that produce broadband emission up to 680 GHz and far-field amplitudes of a few V m-1 with adaptable phase and coherence properties by using near-infrared pump pulse energies below 100 pJ.

Resonators with tailored optical path by cascaded-mode conversions.

Optical resonators enable the generation, manipulation, and storage of electromagnetic waves. The physics underlying their operation is determined by the interference of electromagnetic waves, giving rise to the resonance spectrum. This mechanism causes the limitations and trade-offs of resonator design, such as the fixed relationship between free spectral range, modal linewidth, and the resonator's refractive index and size. Here, we introduce a new class of optical resonators, generating resonances by designing the optical path through transverse mode coupling in a cascaded process created by mode-converting mirrors. The generalized round-trip phase condition leads to resonator characteristics that are markedly different from Fabry-Perot resonators and can be tailored over a wide range. We confirm the existence of these modes experimentally in an integrated waveguide cavity with mode converters coupling transverse modes into one supermode. We also demonstrate a transverse mode-independent transmission and show that its engineered spectral properties agree with theoretical predictions.

Gigahertz free-space electro-optic modulators based on Mie resonances.

Electro-optic modulators are essential for sensing, metrology and telecommunications. Most target fiber applications. Instead, metasurface-based architectures that modulate free-space light at gigahertz (GHz) speeds can boost flat optics technology by microwave electronics for active optics, diffractive computing or optoelectronic control. Current realizations are bulky or have low modulation efficiencies. Here, we demonstrate a hybrid silicon-organic metasurface platform that leverages Mie resonances for efficient electro-optic modulation at GHz speeds. We exploit quasi bound states in the continuum (BIC) that provide narrow linewidth (Q = 550 at [Formula: see text] nm), light confinement to the non-linear material, tunability by design and voltage and GHz-speed electrodes. Key to the achieved modulation of [Formula: see text] are molecules with r33 = 100 pm/V and optical field optimization for low-loss. We demonstrate DC tuning of the resonant frequency of quasi-BIC by [Formula: see text] 11 nm, surpassing its linewidth, and modulation up to 5 GHz (fEO,-3dB = 3 GHz). Guided mode resonances tune by [Formula: see text] 20 nm. Our hybrid platform may incorporate free-space nanostructures of any geometry or material, by application of the active layer post-fabrication.

Electro-optic spatial light modulator from an engineered organic layer.

Tailored nanostructures provide at-will control over the properties of light, with applications in imaging and spectroscopy. Active photonics can further open new avenues in remote monitoring, virtual or augmented reality and time-resolved sensing. Nanomaterials with χ(2) nonlinearities achieve highest switching speeds. Current demonstrations typically require a trade-off: they either rely on traditional χ(2) materials, which have low non-linearities, or on application-specific quantum well heterostructures that exhibit a high χ(2) in a narrow band. Here, we show that a thin film of organic electro-optic molecules JRD1 in polymethylmethacrylate combines desired merits for active free-space optics: broadband record-high nonlinearity (10-100 times higher than traditional materials at wavelengths 1100-1600 nm), a custom-tailored nonlinear tensor at the nanoscale, and engineered optical and electronic responses. We demonstrate a tuning of optical resonances by Δλ = 11 nm at DC voltages and a modulation of the transmitted intensity up to 40%, at speeds up to 50 MHz. We realize 2 × 2 single- and 1 × 5 multi-color spatial light modulators. We demonstrate their potential for imaging and remote sensing. The compatibility with compact laser diodes, the achieved millimeter size and the low power consumption are further key features for laser ranging or reconfigurable optics.

Compact and ultra-efficient broadband plasmonic terahertz field detector.

Terahertz sources and detectors have enabled numerous new applications from medical to communications. Yet, most efficient terahertz detection schemes rely on complex free-space optics and typically require high-power lasers as local oscillators. Here, we demonstrate a fiber-coupled, monolithic plasmonic terahertz field detector on a silicon-photonics platform featuring a detection bandwidth of 2.5 THz with a 65 dB dynamical range. The terahertz wave is measured through its nonlinear mixing with an optical probe pulse with an average power of only 63 nW. The high efficiency of the scheme relies on the extreme confinement of the terahertz field to a small volume of 10-8(λTHz/2)3. Additionally, on-chip guided plasmonic probe beams sample the terahertz signal efficiently in this volume. The approach results in an extremely short interaction length of only 5 µm, which eliminates the need for phase matching and shows the highest conversion efficiency per unit length up to date.

Electric field correlation measurements on the electromagnetic vacuum state.

Quantum mechanics ascribes to the ground state of the electromagnetic radiation1 zero-point electric field fluctuations that permeate empty space at all frequencies. No energy can be extracted from the ground state of a system, and therefore these fluctuations cannot be measured directly with an intensity detector. The experimental proof of their existence therefore came from more indirect evidence, such as the Lamb shift2,3,4, the Casimir force between close conductors5,6,7 or spontaneous emission1,8. A direct method of determining the spectral characteristics of vacuum field fluctuations has so far been missing. Here we perform a direct measurement of the field correlation on these fluctuations in the terahertz frequency range by using electro-optic detection9 in a nonlinear crystal placed in a cryogenic environment. We investigate their temporal and spatial coherence, which, at zero time delay and spatial distance, has a peak value of 6.2 × 10-2 volts squared per square metre, corresponding to a fluctuating vacuum field10,11 of 0.25 volts per metre. With this measurement, we determine the spectral components of the ground state of electromagnetic radiation within the bandwidth of our electro-optic detection.