| Designer photonic materials – from flexible photonics to resonant photonic crystals |
| In this talk we will discuss our work on light emitters and photonic circuits realized using colloidal quantum dot composites. Specifically we will report our recent work on flexible microcavity laser [1], active Fibonacci photonic quasicrystals [2], microdisk emitters and integrated active – passive waveguides. The effect of host matrix on the optical properties of the quantum dots will also be discussed using results of steady-state and time-resolved luminescence measurements. In addition to their specific functionalities, these novel device demonstrations and their development present a low cost alternative to the traditional photonic device fabrication techniques.
Following this we will discuss our recent work on resonant photonic crystals where the excitonic absorption/emission is in resonance with the photonic crystal Bloch modes [3]. The formation of coherently coupled photonic-crystal-excitonic-lattice polaritons manifests in our experiments through enhanced reflectivity and reconstruction of the photonic bandgap. Tuning of these polariton states using electric field and its application for switching and slow light enhanced nonlinear optics will also be discussed. The collective nature of the hybrid excitations demonstrated here opens up the possibility of observing macroscopic coherence phenomena in solid-state systems. References: 1. “Lasing from quantum dots in a spin-coated flexible microcavity,” V. M. Menon, M. Luberto, N. Valappil, S. Chatterjee, Optics Express 16, 19535 (2008). 2. “Luminescence from a Fibonacci photonic crystal,” V. Passias, Z Shi, N. Valappil, L. Deych, A. Lisyansky, and V. M. Menon, Optics Express 17, 6636 (2009). 3. “Exciton Lattice polaritons in multiple quantum well based photonic crystals,” D. Goldberg, L. Deych, A. Lisyansky, Z. Shi, V. Tokranov, M. Yakimov, S. Oktyabrsky, and V. M. Menon, Nature Photonics 3, 662 (2009). |