Hannover 2016 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 19: Ultracold Atoms, Ions and Molecules III (with A)

Q 19.7: Talk

Tuesday, March 1, 2016, 12:30–12:45, f342

Nonlinear Optics in a Rydberg-Excited Semiconductor Cavity — •Valentin Walther, Robert Johne, and Thomas Pohl — Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden

Recent experiments have demonstrated excitons with extraordinarily large binding energies in some two-dimensional semiconductors (TMDCs), whose Rydberg states give rise to giant interactions and, therefore, hold great promise for optical utility.

We evaluate the optical response under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), accounting for the full excited level structure and numerous decoherence mechanisms in a semiconductor. Strong exciton-exciton interactions result in enormous effective photon-photon potentials. Using experimental parameters, we show that the photonic nonlinearity exceeds that of traditional semiconductors by several orders of magnitude and we assess the material properties required for coherent optical applications.

Further, we investigate interesting optical effects in the transverse mode structure of a driven-dissipative cavity arising from the unusually large nonlinearity.