Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
Thursday, September 30, 1999, 2 p.m.
Plant Sciences Building, Room 1130
Localization in Optics: Theory and Experiment
Shmuel Fishman
(Technion, Israel)
Abstract: A first experimental realization of an optical ``kicked''
system is presented. It exhibits localization analogous to that of
the quantum ``kicked-rotor''. In the experiment, free space propagating
light is periodically kicked by thin sinusoidal phase gratings, which produce
high order diffractions and tend to increase the spatial frequency band.
The wave property suppresses this diffusive spread. The localization is
realized in a regime near antiresonance of the system, which was also studied
theoretically. The behavior in this regime is similar to that of
electronic motion in incommensurate potentials. A crucial part of
the experiment is the grating in-phase positioning, which is done by using
the Talbot effect. If time permits, a special effect of localization
in the temporal frequency domain of light pulses which propagate in a dispersive
single mode fiber, in presence of a time periodic phase modulation that
is repeatedly applied at equidistant locations along the fiber, will be
presented.
Host: Richard Prange
Back to Condensed Matter Physics Seminar Home
Page
http://www2.physics.umd.edu/~yakovenk/seminar/