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Transformation Optics in Silicon Photonics

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The Luneburg lens is a gradient index lens that focuses light from all incident directions, thus being free from aberrations that affect conventional lenses. Like the Maxwell fish-eye lens or the Eaton lens, the Luneburg lens can be described via non-Euclidean transformation, where light in a medium is experiencing a curved spatial geometry. The Luneburg lens focuses light on the edge of the lens in the same direction of the incident light. The position of the focus thus indicates the direction of light corresponding to a Fourier transform in terms of light waves. Luneburg lenses are commonly used in microwave technology and have recently been… Read More »Transformation Optics in Silicon Photonics

Flexible Metamaterials

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Metamaterials (MMs) are man made materials with unusual electromagnetic properties that are not typically found in Nature. They are the key to achieving such extraordinary properties as invisibility cloaks and perfect lenses. At present, they are bulky and confined to laboratories. If they were flexible, they could become much more versatile and practical. We are working towards a novel concept for flexible MMs (Metaflex) that will turn current cloaking devices from suits of armour into true cloaks.   In the following figure a single layer of Metaflex is placed on a commercial disposable contact lens, to show the potential of the approach. Our interest in Metaflex… Read More »Flexible Metamaterials

Slotted Photonic Crystals

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In Slotted Photonic Crystal (SPhCs) devices the light is squeezed, confined and guided through air cuts realized in a Photonic Crystal (PhC) background. This confining mechanism is based on both the total internal reflection (experienced by the field at the discontinuous edges of the slot) and the resonant confinement offered by the periodicity of the Photonic Crystal. Figure 1 shows the SEM picture of a typical slotted PhC waveguide. In this structures light is confined in extremely reduced volumes, hence with a significant intensity. The narrow air features can then be infiltrated with media spanning from gas to biological analytes to nonlinear and/or active material to take… Read More »Slotted Photonic Crystals