Caltech Nanofabrication Group

Nanophotonics

Description

By manipulating materials at dimensions smaller than the wavelength of light, we reveal the truly amazing interaction between photons and matter when optical fields are confined to their ultimate limits.  The drive to shrink optical components has led to complete benchtop networks becoming incorporated on a single chip, communication systems with lower power and faster speeds, integrated spectroscopy and sensing platforms and fundamental scientific testbeds.  Having developed the first vertical cavity laser, the first photonic crystal laser, the first demonstration of strong coupling in the solid state as well electro-optic modulators with record low drive voltages and all-optical modulators operating at THz speeds, we continue to pioneer the next generation of nanophotonic devices.  Our current research aims to shrink laser dimensions and lower threshold powers even further, exploit nanoscale dimensions to enable light emission from silicon, produce optical sensors with enhanced sensitivity, and further explore cavity QED in the solid state.

 

Members

• Tales de Barros Caldas
• William Fegadolli
• Andrew Homyk
• William "Max" Jones
• Se-Heon Kim
• Pawel Latawiec
• Tsung-Ju "Jeff" Lu
• Dongyoon Oh
• Akram S. Sadek
• Sameer Walavalkar

Alumni

• Tom Baehr-Jones
• Yan Chen
• Chuan-Cheng Cheng
• Liang Feng
• Cary Gunn
• Michael Hochberg
• Jingqing Huang
• Ali Husain
• Uday Khankhoje
• Thomas Krauss
• Zhenyu Li
• Marko Loncar
• Brett Maune
• Terrell Neal
• Koichi Okamoto
• Oskar Painter
• Joerg Schilling
• Mike Shearn
• Jelena Vuckovic
• Guangxi Wang
• Jeremy Witzens
• Tomoyuki Yoshie
• Zhaoyu Zhang

Publications

• Fegadolli, W., Oliveira, J. E., Almeida, V. R. & Scherer, A. (2013). Compact and Low Power Consumption Tunable Photonic Crystal Nanobeam Cavity. Optics Express, 21(3), 3861-3871. [More] 
• Feng, L., Xu, Y. -., Fegadolli, W., Lu, M. -., Oliveira, J. E., Almeida, V. R. et al. (2013). Experimental Demonstration of a Unidirectional Reflectionless Parity-Time Metamaterial at Optical Frequencies. Nature Materials, 12(2), 108-113. [More] 
• Kim, S.-H., Huang, J. & Scherer, A. (2013). Higher-Order Defect-Mode Laser in an Optically Thick Photonic Crystal Slab. Optics Letters, 38(2), 94-96. [More] 
• Kim, S.-H., Homyk, A., Walavalkar, S. & Scherer, A. (2012). High-Q Impurity Photon States Bounded by a Photonic Band Pseudogap in an Optically Thick Photonic Crystal Slab. Physical Review B, 86(24), 245114. [More] 
• Hendrickson, J., Homyk, A., Scherer, A., Alasaarela, T., Saynatjoki, A., Honkanen, S. et al (2012). Quantum Optics with Semiconductor Nanostructures, chapter 13. Philadelphia : Woodhead Publishing. [More]