Related papers: Visualizing strongly focused 3D light fields in an…
Hot alkali metal vapors enclosed in sub-micron spectroscopic cells provide an ideal system for fundamental studies of the atom-wall and atom-light interactions at nanoscale. Here, we propose a novel approach for calculating the eigenmodes…
Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) plasmonic structures can confine electromagnetic waves to a deep subwavelength regime, enabling strong light-matter interactions with potential applications in nonlinear optics and on-chip photonic circuitry. In…
We develop formalisms for a network of vector sensors, sensitive to certain spatial components of the signals, to identify the properties of a light axion or a dark photon background. These bosonic fields contribute to vector-like signals…
Strongly scattering media disrupt both the wavefront distribution and the polarization state of the incident light field. Controlling and effectively utilizing depolarization effects are crucial for optical applications in highly scattering…
Partially coherent electromagnetic sources with cylindrical symmetry and infinite extent radiating outwards are introduced. Their 3x3 cross-spectral density matrix is given through expansions of the field components in terms of basis…
We report the realization of an optical filter based on an optical vortex mask designed to exclusively detect a weak coherent laser field in the presence of much stronger spatially-overlapping field. We demonstrate the performance of such…
We theoretically describe and numerically investigate the operation of "vectorial" optical differentiation of a three-dimensional light beam, which consists in simultaneous computation of two partial derivatives of the incident beam profile…
Structured light harnessing multiple degrees of freedom has become a powerful approach to use complex states of light in fundamental studies and applications. Here, we investigate the light field of an ultrafast laser beam with a…
The properties of vector vortex beams in vertical-cavity-surface emitting lasers with frequency-selective feedback is investigated. They are interpreted as high-order vortex solitons with a spatially non-uniform, but locally linear…
Using a model system, we demonstrate both experimentally and theoretically that coherent scattering of light can be robust in hot atomic vapors despite a significant Doppler effect. By operating in a linear regime of far-detuned light…
The existence of cosmic fields made from yet unknown light bosons is predicted in many extensions to the Standard Model. They are especially of interest as possible constituents of dark matter. To detect such light and weakly interacting…
We propose a novel approach to the important fundamental problem of detecting weak optical fields at the few photon level. The ability to detect with high efficiency (>99%), and to distinguish the number of photons in a given time interval…
Vector vortex beams have played a fundamental role in the better understanding of coherence and polarization. They are described by spatially inhomogeneous polarization states, which present a rich optical mode structure that has attracted…
Coupling photons to Rydberg excitations in a cold atomic gas yields unprecedentedly large optical nonlinearities at the level of individual light quanta, where the formation of nearby dark-state polaritons is blocked by the strong…
We investigate, both theoretically and experimentally, the phenomenon of polarization rotation of a weak, linearly-polarized optical (probe) field in an atomic system with multiple three-level electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT)…
Reversible exchange of photons between a material and an optical cavity can lead to the formation of hybrid light--matter states where material properties such as the work function\cite{Hutchison_AM2013a}, chemical…
The topological phase acquired by vector vortex optical beams is investigated. Under local unitary operations on their polarization and transverse degrees of freedom, the vector vortices can only acquire discrete geometric phase values, 0…
Applying large magnetic fields to gain access to the hyperfine Paschen-Back regime can isolate three-level systems in a hot alkali metal vapors, thereby simplifying usually complex atom-light interactions. We use this method to make the…
The creation and detection of atomic polarization is examined theoretically, through the study of basic optical-pumping mechanisms and absorption and fluorescence measurements, and the dependence of these processes on the size of ground-…
A theoretical analysis is presented for the excitation of single many-electron atoms and ions by twisted (or vortex) light. Special emphasis is put on excitations that can proceed via several electric and magnetic multipole channels. We…