A. James Clark School of Engineering
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1654
The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item INTEGRATION OF CLASSICAL/NONCLASSICAL OPTICAL NONLINEARITIES WITH PHOTONIC CIRCUITS(2023) Buyukkaya, Mustafa A; Waks, Edo; Electrical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Recent developments in nanofabrication have opened opportunities for strong light-matter interactions that can enhance optical nonlinearities, both classical and non-classical, for applications such as optical computing, quantum communication, and quantum computing. However, the challenge lies in integrating these optical nonlinearities efficiently and practically with fiber-based and silicon-based photonic circuits on a large scale and at low power. In this thesis, we aimed to achieve this integration of classical and quantum optical nonlinearities with fiber-based and silicon-based photonic circuits.For classical optical applications, optical bistability is a well-researched nonlinear optical phenomenon that has hysteresis in the output light intensity, resulting from two stable electromagnetic states. This can be utilized in various applications such as optical switches, memories, and differential amplifiers. However, integrating these applications on a large scale requires low-power optical nonlinearity, fast modulation speeds, and photonic designs with small footprints that are compatible with fiber optics or silicon photonic circuits. Thermo-optic devices are an effective means of producing optical bistability through thermally induced refractive index changes caused by optical absorption. The materials used must have high absorption coefficients and strong thermo-optic effects to realize low-power optical bistability. For this purpose, we choose high-density semiconductor quantum dots as the material platform and engineer nanobeam photonic crystal structures that can efficiently be coupled to an optical fiber while achieving low-power thermo-optical bistability. For applications that require non-classical nonlinearities such as quantum communication and quantum computing, single photons are promising carriers of quantum information due to their ability to propagate over long distances in optical fibers with extremely low loss. However, the efficient coupling of single photons to optical fibers is crucial for the successful transmission of quantum information. Semiconductor quantum dots that emit around telecom wavelengths have emerged as a popular choice for single photon sources due to their ability to produce bright and indistinguishable single photons, and travel long distances in fiber optics. Here, we present our advances in integrating telecom wavelength single photons from semiconductor quantum dots to optical fibers to realize efficient fiber-integrated on-demand single photon sources at telecom wavelengths. Finally, using the same methodology, we demonstrate the integration of these quantum dots with CMOS foundry-made silicon photonic circuits. The foundry chip is designed to individually tune quantum dots using the quantum confined stark shift with localized electric fields at different sections of the chip. This feature could potentially enable the tuning of multiple quantum emitters for large-scale integration of single photon sources for on-chip quantum information processing.Item An Integrated Photonic Platform For Quantum Information Processing(2021) Dutta, Subhojit; Waks, Edo EW; Electrical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Quantum photonics provides a powerful toolbox with vast applications ranging from quantum simulation, photonic information processing, all optical universal quantum computation, secure quantum internet as well as quantum enhanced sensing. Many of these applications require the integration of several complex optical elements and material systems which pose a challenge to scalability. It is essential to integrate linear and non-linear photonics on a chip to tackle this issue leading to more compact, high bandwidth devices. In this thesis we demonstrate a pathway to achieving several components in the quantum photonic toolbox on the same integrated photonic platform. We focus particularly on two of the more nontrivial components, a single photon source and an integrated quantum light-matter interface. We address the problem of a scalable, chip integrated, fast single photon source, by using atomically thin layers of 2D materials interfaced with plasmonic waveguides. We further embark on the challenge of creating a new material system by integrating rare earth ions with the emerging commercial platform of thin film lithium niobate on insulator. Rare earth ions have found widespread use in classical and quantum information processing. However, these are traditionally doped in bulk crystals which hinder their scalability. We demonstrate an integrated photonic interface for rare earth ions in thin film lithium niobate that preserves the optical and coherence properties of the ions. This combination of rare earth ions with the chip-scale active interface of thin film lithium niobate opens a plethora of opportunities for compact optoelectronic devices. As an immediate application we demonstrate an integrated optical quantum memory with a rare earth atomic ensemble in the thin film. The new light matter interface in thin film lithium niobate acts as a key enabler in an already rich optical platform representing a significant advancement in the field of integrated quantum photonics.Item Investigation of nanophotonic structures for imaging and sensing(2017) ZHANG, ZHIJIAN; Yu, Miao; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The ability to image micro/nano scale objectives with miniaturized optical components has always been of great interest due to its great potential in applications such as microscopy, nanofabrication, and biomedical monitoring. However, in traditional practice using dielectric lenses, the focal size is inevitably limited by the Abbe’s diffraction limit (0.51fλ/ρ). Here, λ is the wavelength in vacuum, and f and ρ are the focal length and the radius of the lens, respectively. Moreover, the performance of conventional spherical lenses deteriorates as their sizes approach the wavelength. On the other hand, owing to the recent advances in micro/nano fabrication techniques, miniature sensors have received much attention, which are highly desirable in many sensing applications for physical, chemical, and biomedical parameter measurements. However, the performance of miniature sensors usually suffers from the similar difficulty as miniaturized imaging systems. Recently nanophotonic structures have been explored for the development of miniaturizing imaging and sensing systems due to their capability of confining and manipulating light at a subwavelength scale. In this dissertation work, several different mechanisms that nanophotonic structures can be used to help enhance the performance of imaging and sensing in miniaturized systems are investigated. First, plasmonic lens utilizing the nanophotonic structure to achieve the subwavelength focusing ability is studied. Three different regions in the plasmonic lens design are defined. Furthermore, a plasmonic lens in the Fresnel’s region is designed and k.ed to achieve a sub-diffraction limit focus. Second, radially polarized light generated by the TEM mode in the annular aperture in metal is investigated, which can further enhance the focusing ability. Third, in terms of sensing, an ultra-thin plasmonic interferometer constructed with a nano-hole array is fabricated on a fiber facet. By using this structure, the multi-parameter sensing capability of this interferometer is demonstrated; high sensitivity refractive index and temperature sensing are achieved. Finally, a novel sensor design based on the cladding modes and buffer modes generated by the planar grating on the fiber facet is proposed. Experimental studies of this sensor demonstrate its superior temperature sensitivity and the potential of multi-parameter sensing.