Spin and angular momenta of light are important degrees of freedom in nanophotonics which control light propagation, optical forces and information encoding. Typically, optical angular momentum is generated using q-plates or spatial light modulators. Here, we show that graphene-supported plasmonic nanostructures with broken rotational symmetry provide a surprising spin to orbital angular momentum conversion, which can be continuously controlled by changing the electrochemical potential of graphene. Upon resonant illumination by a circularly polarized plane wave, a polygonal array of indium-tin-oxide nanoparticles on a graphene sheet generates scattered field carrying electrically-tunable orbital angular momentum. This unique photonic spin-orbit coupling occurs due to the strong coupling of graphene plasmon polaritons and localised surface plasmons of the nanoparticles and leads to the controlled directional excitation of graphene plasmons. The tuneable spin-orbit conversion pave the way to high-rate information encoding in optical communications, electric steering functionalities in optical tweezers, and nanorouting of higher-dimensional entangled photon states.
Category: Complex Photonics
Theory of neuromorphic computing by waves
Machine-learning by rogue waves, dispersive shocks, and solitons
We study artificial neural networks with nonlinear waves as a computing reservoir. We discuss universality and the conditions to learn a dataset in terms of output channels and nonlinearity. A feed-forward three-layer model, with an encoding input layer, a wave layer, and a decoding readout, behaves as a conventional neural network in approximating mathematical functions, real-world datasets, and universal Boolean gates. The rank of the transmission matrix has a fundamental role in assessing the learning abilities of the wave. For a given set of training points, a threshold nonlinearity for universal interpolation exists. When considering the nonlinear Schroedinger equation, the use of highly nonlinear regimes implies that solitons, rogue, and shock waves do have a leading role in training and computing. Our results may enable the realization of novel machine learning devices by using diverse physical systems, as nonlinear optics, hydrodynamics, polaritonics, and Bose-Einstein condensates. The application of these concepts to photonics opens the way to a large class of accelerators and new computational paradigms. In complex wave systems, as multimodal fibers, integrated optical circuits, random, topological devices, and metasurfaces, nonlinear waves can be employed to perform computation and solve complex combinatorial optimization.
Nonlinear optical memory spotlighted in Optics Letters
And among the most downloaded papers …
Controlling rogue waves and soliton gases
Topological control of extreme waves
From optics to hydrodynamics, shock and rogue waves are widespread. Although they appear as distinct phenomena, transitions between extreme waves are allowed. However, these have never been experimentally observed because control strategies are still missing. We introduce the new concept of topological control based on the one-to-one correspondence between the number of wave packet oscillating phases and the genus of toroidal surfaces associated with the nonlinear Schrödinger equation solutions through Riemann theta functions. We demonstrate the concept experimentally by reporting observations of supervised transitions between waves with different genera. Considering the box problem in a focusing photorefractive medium, we tailor the time-dependent nonlinearity and dispersion to explore each region in the state diagram of the nonlinear wave propagation. Our result is the first realization of topological control of nonlinear waves. This new technique casts light on shock and rogue waves generation and can be extended to other nonlinear phenomena.
Nature Communications volume 10, Article number: 5090 (2019)
Multipolar terahertz spectroscopy by graphene plasmons
Terahertz absorption spectroscopy plays a key role in physical, chemical and biological systems as a powerful tool to identify molecular species through their rotational spectrum fingerprint. Owing to the sub-nanometer scale of molecules, radiation-matter coupling is typically dominated by dipolar interaction. Here we show that multipolar rotational spectroscopy of molecules in proximity of localized graphene structures can be accessed through the extraordinary enhancement of their multipolar transitions provided by terahertz plasmons. In particular, specializing our calculations to homonuclear diatomic molecules, we demonstrate that a micron-sized graphene ring with a nano-hole at the core combines a strong near-field enhancement and an inherently pronounced field localization enabling the enhancement of the dipole-forbidden terahertz absorption cross-section of H+2H2+ by 8 orders of magnitude. Our results shed light on the strong potential offered by nano-structured graphene as a robust and electrically tunable platform for multipolar terahertz absorption spectroscopy at the nanoscale.
A. Ciattoni, C. Conti, and A. Marini in Communication Physics