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，我们将探索材料的非线性光学响应的强烈增强，这是由于光与嵌入到半导体材料中的单个杂质或与空气和贵金属之间的自由电子的集体运动相互作用的共振性质。新的控制技术的核心是我们有能力控制发射电磁波的光源的统计特性，这些电磁波能共振地激发所研究的材料。拟议的研究结果将在物理、生物医学科学、太阳能收集、环境科学和国家安全等领域找到应用。例如，可以利用空气-金属界面上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以前所未有的精度检测甚至是极少量的潜在有害化学物质，甚至是单分子水平！我们还建议研究共振光学系统中的流氓波激发机制(S)及其统计控制。无赖波是振幅异常大的波，似乎不知从哪里出现，又消失了，没有留下任何痕迹。对无赖波激发机制、统计和控制的了解将为实现无赖波激光器铺平道路，无赖波激光器是一种以高度受控的方式产生相干大幅度光脉冲的光学装置。我们对光学无赖波的探索可以帮助我们从根本上了解它们的普遍性质，进而导致在工程等领域的新应用，我们希望能够可靠地预测无赖波发生的概率，以及我们希望能够避免或抑制已经导致许多致命航海事故的无赖波的海洋旅行。

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.