Resonant Enhancement of Nonlinear Processes in Statistical Nanophotonics

本提案旨在研究和开发新的方法来控制材料对非常大强度的入射电磁波的响应。特别是，我们将探索由于光与嵌入半导体材料中的单个杂质或空气与贵金属之间界面处的自由电子集体运动的相互作用的共振性质，材料的非线性光学响应的强烈增强。新的控制技术的核心是我们能够控制发射电磁波的光源的统计特性，这些电磁波共振地激发所研究的材料。拟议研究的结果将应用于物理学，生物医学科学，太阳能收集，环境科学和国家安全等领域。例如，可以利用空气-金属界面处的非线性响应的共振增强来显著提高现有传感器技术的精度。后者将使医生能够更好地检测癌细胞，反恐小组和环境专家能够以前所未有的准确度检测到甚至微量的潜在有害化学物质，甚至可以达到单分子水平！ 我们还提出了在共振光学系统中研究罗格波激发机制及其统计控制。流氓波是一种振幅异常大的波，它似乎不知从哪里出现，然后消失得无影无踪。对Rogue波的激发机制、统计和控制的了解将为实现Rogue波激光器铺平道路，Rogue波激光器是一种以高度可控的方式产生相干大振幅光脉冲的光学器件。我们对光学流氓波的探索可以帮助我们从根本上理解它们的普遍性质，从而导致在工程等不同领域的新应用，我们希望能够可靠地预测流氓波的发生概率，以及我们希望能够避免或抑制流氓波的海洋旅行，这些流氓波已经导致了一些致命的航海事故。

The present proposal aims to research and develop novel ways to control material response to incident electromagnetic waves of very large intensities. In particular, we will explore strong enhancement of nonlinear optical responses of materials due to a resonant nature of the light interaction either with individual impurities, embedded into semiconductor materials, or with collective motions of free electrons at the interface between the air and noble metals. The novel control techniques have at their heart our ability to control statistical properties of light source emitting the electromagnetic waves which resonantly excite the studied materials. The results of the proposed research will find applications to the fields as diverse as physics, biomedical sciences, solar energy harvesting, environmental sciences, and national security. For example, the resonant enhancement of nonlinear responses at air-metal interfaces can be utilised to significantly improve the accuracy of the existing sensor technology. The latter will allow doctors to better detect cancer cells, the anti-terror squads and environmental experts to detect with the unprecedented accuracy even minute amounts of potentially harmful chemicals, down to the single-molecule level! We also propose to examine the rogue-wave excitation mechanism(s) and their statistical control in resonant optical systems. Rogue waves are the waves of unusually large amplitudes that seem to appear from nowhere and vanish leaving no vestige. The knowledge of the rogue-wave excitation mechanism, statistics and control will pave the way for the realization of a rogue-wave laser, an optical device generating coherent large-amplitude optical pulses in a highly controlled manner. Our explorations into optical rogue waves can help our fundamental understanding of their universal nature, leading, in turn, to novel applications in the areas as diverse as engineering, where we would like to be able to reliably predict the rogue wave occurence probability, and the ocean travel where we would like to be able to avoid or suppress the rogue waves which have already lead to a number of fatal seafaring accidents.