Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Harvard College

Princeton University

Alejandro W Rodriguez

Marin Soljacic

John Dimitris Joannopoulos

Steven G Johnson

Marko Loncar

Peter Bermel

Yinan Zhang

Xiangdong Liang

Zin Lin

Jorge Bravo-Abad

Ian B Burgess

Murray W McCutcheon

Hila Hashemi

A fully confined dual frequency optical resonator configured for optical coupling to light having a first frequency &#x3c9;. The dual frequency optical resonator includes a plurality of alternating layer pairs configured in a grating configuration, each layer pair having a first layer formed of a first material and a second layer formed of a second material, the first material and second material being different materials. Each layer having a thickness different than a thickness of an adjacent layer to provide thereby aperiodic layer pairs, the thicknesses of adjacent layers being selected to create, via wave interference with each layer, optical resonances at the first frequency &#x3c9;and a second frequency &#x3c9;which is a harmonic of &#x3c9;, and to ensure a maximum spatial overlap between confined modes over the materials such that an overall quality factor Q of at least 1000 is achieved.

Multi-mode cavities for high-efficiency nonlinear wavelength conversion formed with overlap optimization

An optical device is provided having a solid state nonlinear material with a nanostructured extent, in at least one dimension, that is less than about 10 nm or that is at a temperature of less than about 77 K. An electronic band gap, E, of the material is at least about twice as large as an energy of a photon with a wavelength, &#x3bb;, equal to an operational wavelength of the device. The material is characterized by a switching figure of merit, &#x3be;, having a value that is at least about 2&#x3c0;. A dielectric structure is around at least one dimension of the nonlinear material in a geometric arrangement having a characteristic photonic band gap that at least partially overlaps the electronic band gap of the material. At least one waveguide is disposed at the dielectric structure in sufficient proximity with the material for coupling light to the material.

Optical devices having controlled nonlinearity

A system for efficient generation of THz radiation is provided that includes a triply-resonant nonlinear photonic resonator coupled to at least one near-infrared (NIR) or optical waveguide and to at least one THz waveguide. The energy traveling through the at least one near-infrared (NIR) or optical waveguide is converted to THz radiation inside the triply-resonant photonic resonator via a nonlinear difference frequency generation (DFG) process.

Efficient terahertz sources based on difference-frequency generation in triply-resonant photonic resonators

A nonlinear harmonic generation system is provided. The nonlinear harmonic generation system includes a waveguide channel receives and propagates electromagnetic signals. A resonant cavity is coupled to the waveguide channel. The resonant cavity structure includes a plurality of resonant modes into which electromagnetic energy is coupled during the operation of the system. One of the resonant modes includes a resonant frequency that changes during operation of the system to reach either an input-signal frequency or a harmonic frequency for a majority of the time in which harmonic generation is occurring. Both reflected and harmonic fields are emitted back into the waveguide channel so as to allow efficient harmonic generation at a specified critical input power.

Nonlinear harmonic generation and devices in doubly-resonant Kerr cavities

A doubly-resonant cavity structure includes at least one cavity structures so as to allow total frequency conversion for second or third-harmonic generation using &#x3c7;and &#x3c7;nonlinearities between the at least one cavity structures. The total frequency conversion is efficiently optimized by determining a critical power allowing for such total frequency conversion to occur depending on the cavity parameters of the at least one cavity structures.

Efficient harmonic generation and frequency conversion in multi-mode cavities

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Miami, FL, United States of America

Alejandro W Rodriguez