No Arabic abstract
Finite-difference time-domain method is employed to investigate the optical properties of semiconductor thin films patterned with circular holes. The presence of holes enhances the coupling of the incident plane wave with the thin film and greatly enhances the absorption performance. For a typical 100 nm thin film, the optimal hole pattern is achieved when the hole radius is 180 nm and volume fraction is about $30%$. Disorderness can alter the absorption spectra and has an impact on the broadband absorption performance. The non-uniform radius of holes can slightly broaden the absorption peaks and enhance the integrated absorption. Random hole position can completely change the shape of the absorption spectra and the averaged integrated absorption efficiency is slightly smaller than the optimized ordered nanohole pattern. Compared to random positioned nanoholes or ordered nanohole, amorphous arrangement of nanoholes will result in a much better absorption performance. However, it is also found that the absorption enhancement of amorphous pattern over an ordered pattern is weak when the incident angle departures from normal or when the intrinsic material absorption is strong.
We study the interaction of electromagnetic (EM) radiation with single-layer graphene and a stack of parallel graphene sheets at arbitrary angles of incidence. It is found that the behavior is qualitatively different for transverse magnetic (or p-polarized) and transverse electric (or s-polarized) waves. In particular, the absorbance of single-layer graphene attains minimum (maximum) for p (s) polarization, at the angle of total internal reflection when the light comes from a medium with a higher dielectric constant. In the case of equal dielectric constants of the media above and beneath graphene, for grazing incidence graphene is almost 100% transparent to p-polarized waves and acts as a tunable mirror for the s-polarization. These effects are enhanced for the stack of graphene sheets, so the system can work as a broad band polarizer. It is shown further that a periodic stack of graphene layers has the properties of an one-dimensional photonic crystal, with gaps (or stop--bands) at certain frequencies. When an incident EM wave is reflected from this photonic crystal, the tunability of the graphene conductivity renders the possibility of controlling the gaps, and the structure can operate as a tunable spectral--selective mirror.
We discuss how reactive and dissipative non-linearities affect the intrinsic response of superconducting thin-film resonators. We explain how most, if not all, of the complex phenomena commonly seen can be described by a model in which the underlying resonance is a single-pole Lorentzian, but whose centre frequency and quality factor change as external parameters, such as readout power and frequency, are varied. What is seen during a vector-network-analyser measurement is series of samples taken from an ideal Lorentzian that is shifting and spreading as the readout frequency is changed. According to this model, it is perfectly proper to refer to, and measure, the resonant frequency and quality factor of the underlying resonance, even though the swept-frequency curves appear highly distorted and hysteretic. In those cases where the resonance curve is highly distorted, the specific shape of the trajectory in the Argand plane gives valuable insights into the second-order physical processes present. We discuss the formulation and consequences of this approach in the case of non-linear kinetic inductance, two-level-system loss, quasiparticle generation, and a generic model based on a power-law form. The generic model captures the key features of specific dissipative non-linearities, but additionally leads to insights into how general dissipative processes create characteristic forms in the Argand plane. We provide detailed formulations in each case, and indicate how they lead to the wide variety of phenomena commonly seen in experimental data. We also explain how the properties of the underlying resonance can be extracted from this data. Overall, our paper provides a self-contained compendium of behaviour that will help practitioners interpret and determine important parameters from distorted swept-frequency measurements.
Zinc Oxide thin films were grown on c-sapphire substrates using pulsed laser deposition. Pump power dependence of surface emission spectra, acquired using a quadrupled 266 nm laser, revealed room temperature stimulated emission (threshold of 900 kW/cm2). Time dependent spectral analysis plus gain measurements of single-shot, side-emission, spectra pumped with a nitrogen laser revealed random lasing indicative of the presence of self-forming laser cavities. It is suggested that random lasing in an epitaxial system rather than a 3-dimensional configuration of disordered scattering elements, was due to waveguiding in the film. Waveguiding causes light to be amplified within randomly-formed closed-loops acting as lasing cavities.
We examine theoretically the intersubband transitions induced by laser beams of light with orbital angular momentum (twisted light) in semiconductor quantum wells at normal incidence. These transitions become possible in the absence of gratings thanks to the fact that collimated laser beams present a component of the lights electric field in the propagation direction. We derive the matrix elements of the light-matter interaction for a Bessel-type twisted-light beam represented by its vector potential in the paraxial approximation. Then, we consider the dynamics of photo-excited electrons making intersubband transitions between the first and second subbands of a standard semiconductor quantum well. Finally, we analyze the light-matter matrix elements in order to evaluate which transitions are more favorable for given orbital angular momentum of the light beam in the case of small semiconductor structures.
We study theoretically light propagations at the zigzag edge of a honeycomb photonic crystal consisting of dielectric rods in air, analogous to graphene. Within the photonic band gap of the honeycomb photonic crystal, a unimodal edge state may exist with a sharp confinement of optical fields. Its dispersion can be tuned simply by adjusting the radius of the edge rods. For the edge rods with a graded variation in radius along the edge direction, we show numerically that light beams of different frequencies can be trapped sharply in different spatial locations, rendering wideband trapping of light.