Nicolae Coriolan Panoiu

Bound states in the continuum (BICs) have greatly impacted our ability to manipulate light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. However, in periodic structures, BICs are typically realized below the diffraction limit, thus leaving a broad spectral domain largely unexplored. Here, we introduce another type of at- Γ BICs of photonic crystal (PhC) slabs supporting higher-diffraction orders, which we call hybrid BICs (h-BICs), whereby symmetry protection and parameter tuning are utilized to suppress light emission in the zeroth- and higher-diffraction orders, respectively. By tuning certain structural parameters of the PhC slab, we fully characterize the dynamics of the topological structure of these h-BICs, including the generation, merging, splitting, and annihilation of circularly polarized states. We further show that the relative amount of light radiated in the first-order diffraction channels can be effectively controlled by simply breaking the C 4 v symmetry of the PhC slab. Our findings reveal a versatile approach to realize different types of BICs above the diffraction limit, and could potentially inspire efforts toward the development of photonic nanodevices, such as multivortex-beam generators, frequency converters, and lasers.

Light sources for generation of optical angular momentum (OAM) are popular on telecommunication systems and in demand for key telecommunications platforms, including on-chip ultra-compact integrated communication systems, free-space optical communication and optical fiber networks. Here, we demonstrate an ultralow-threshold laser based on optical bound states in the continuum (BIC), which serves as an ideal light source for generation of beams with OAM. In this context, given semiconductor material stability and robustness, the proposed BIC laser, comprising an InAs/GaAs quantum-dot (QD) active region and lasing at a wave-length of ∼1.3 μm, is characterized by a power threshold of 7.5 μW (0.038 kW cm⁻²) at room temperature. Moreover, our experimental measurements and computational analysis of the generated optical field reveal the vortex nature of the optical beam, as well as its non-trivial topological properties. This work demonstrates an energy-efficient, stable, and versatile single-mode QD BIC laser, which, as a source of optical vortex beams with large light extraction efficiency, offers great potential to facilitate high-capacity data transmission in future optical communication systems.

We derive the T -matrix formalism tailored for numerical analysis of second-harmonic (SH) generation from arbitrarily shaped particles made of centrosymmetric optical materials. First, the transfer matrix of a single particle is computed via the extended boundary condition method, in which the electromagnetic fields both at fundamental frequency and SH are expanded in vector spherical wave functions, and the integral formulation is satisfied away from the surface of the scatterer. We allow for the accurate physical description of the SH sources by taking into account both local surface and nonlocal bulk polarization contributions to the nonlinear polarization density source responsible for the generation of the SH signal by a particle. This single-particle formalism is then extended to arbitrary distributions of particles by incorporating into the formalism linear and nonlinear electromagnetic wave scattering from the particles in the cluster. Importantly from a practical point of view, our method can be applied to particles of arbitrary shape made of optical materials characterized by general frequency-dispersion relations, so that it can describe the linear and nonlinear optical response of clusters of metallic, semiconductor, or polaritonic particles, as well as mixtures of such particles. The approach proposed here is faster and more memory-efficient than well-established numerical techniques, especially in the analysis of spheroidal particles, due to the favorable symmetries of spherical wave basis functions used in the wave scattering analysis.

Optical bound-states in the continuum (BICs) have greatly enriched the field of nonlinear optics with novel ways to control and manipulate light-matter interaction at the nanoscale. This has been made possible by their unique physical properties, including effective confinement of light, non-trivial topological features, and robustness upon the propagation of the optical field both in the real and momentum space. Regarding the exploration of nonlinear optical response in various photonic nanostructures supporting BICs, particular attention has been paid to optical metasurfaces, chiefly due to their ability to control the light flow at subwavelength scale, design and fabrication flexibility, and convenient phase-matching conditions. In this review, we outline and discuss recent advances in metasurface-based frequency conversion processes utilizing the versatile physics of BICs, with a particular emphasis on the main physics background pertaining to nonlinear optical phenomena and optics of BICs, as well as state-of-the-art functionalities enabled by BIC-driven nonlinear metasurfaces. These applications include harmonic generation, harmonic chiroptical effects, generation of complex quantum states, and broadband terahertz generation. In addition, several emerging research fields and the existing challenges of photonic nanodevices relying on BICs are discussed.

Dielectric metasurfaces open new avenues in nonlinear optics through their remarkable capability of boosting frequency conversion efficiency of nonlinear optical interactions. Here, a metasurface consisting of a square array of cruciform‐shaped silicon building blocks covered by a monolayer MoS ₂ is proposed. By designing the metasurface so that it supports optical bound states in the continuum (BICs) at the fundamental frequency and second harmonic, nearly 600× enhancement of the second‐harmonic generation (SHG) in the MoS ₂ monolayer as compared to that of the same MoS ₂ monolayer suspended in air is achieved. To gain deeper insights into the physics of the metasurface‐induced enhancement of nonlinear optical interactions, an eigenmode expansion method is employed to analytically investigate the main characteristics of SHG and the results show a good agreement with the results obtained via full‐wave numerical simulations. In addition, a versatile nonlinear homogenization approach is used to highlight and understand the interplay between the BICs of the metasurface and the efficiency of the SHG process. This work suggests a promising method to enhance the nonlinear optical processes in two‐dimensional materials, enabling the development of advanced photonic nanodevices.

Amorphous photonic structures are mesoscopic optical structures described by electrical permittivity distributions with underlying spatial randomness. They offer a unique platform for studying a broad set of electromagnetic phenomena, including transverse Anderson localization, enhanced wave transport, and suppressed diffusion in random media. Despite this, at a more practical level, there is insufficient work on both understanding the nature of optical transport and the conditions conducive to vector-wave localization in these planar structures, as well as their potential applications to photonic nanodevices. In this study, we fill this gap by investigating experimentally and theoretically the characteristics of optical transport in a class of amorphous photonic structures and by demonstrating their use to some basic waveguiding nanostructures. We demonstrate that these 2-D structures have unique isotropic and asymmetric band gaps for in-plane propagation, controlled from first principles by varying the scattering strength and whose properties are elucidated by establishing an analogy between photon and carrier transport in amorphous semiconductors. We further observe Urbach band tails in these random structures and uncover their relation to frequency- and disorder-dependent Anderson-like localized modes through the modified Ioffe-Regel criterion and their mean free path - localization length character. Finally, we illustrate that our amorphous structures can serve as a versatile platform in which photonic devices such as disorder-localized waveguides can be readily implemented.

Nonlinear dielectric metasurfaces provide a promising approach to control and manipulate frequency conversion optical processes at the nanoscale, thus facilitating both advances in fundamental research and the development of new practical applications in photonics, lasing, and sensing. Here, we employ symmetry-broken metasurfaces made of centrosymmetric amorphous silicon for resonantly enhanced second- and third-order nonlinear optical response. Exploiting the rich physics of optical quasi-bound states in the continuum and guided mode resonances, we comprehensively study through rigorous numerical calculations the relative contribution of surface and bulk effects to second-harmonic generation (SHG) and the bulk contribution to third-harmonic generation (THG) from the meta-atoms. Next, we experimentally achieve optical resonances with high quality factors, which greatly boosts light-matter interaction, resulting in about 550 times SHG enhancement and nearly 5000-fold increase of THG. A good agreement between theoretical predictions and experimental measurements is observed. To gain deeper insights into the physics of the investigated nonlinear optical processes, we further numerically study the relation between nonlinear emission and the structural asymmetry of the metasurface and reveal that the generated harmonic signals arising from linear sharp resonances are highly dependent on the asymmetry of the meta-atoms. Our work suggests a fruitful strategy to enhance the harmonic generation and effectively control different orders of harmonics in all-dielectric metasurfaces, enabling the development of efficient active photonic nanodevices.

Amorphous photonic structures are mesoscopic optical structures described by electrical permittivity distributions with underlying spatial randomness. They offer a unique platform for studying a broad set of electromagnetic phenomena, including transverse Anderson localization, enhanced wave transport, and suppressed diffusion in random media. Despite this, at a more practical level, there is insufficient work on both understanding the nature of optical transport and the conditions conducive to vector-wave localization in these planar structures, as well as their potential applications to photonic nanodevices. In this study, we fill this gap by investigating experimentally and theoretically the characteristics of optical transport in a class of amorphous photonic structures and by demonstrating their use to some basic waveguiding nanostructures. We demonstrate that these 2-D structures have unique isotropic and asymmetric band gaps for in-plane propagation, controlled from first principles by varying the scattering strength and whose properties are elucidated by establishing an analogy between photon and carrier transport in amorphous semiconductors. We further observe Urbach band tails in these random structures and uncover their relation to frequency- and disorder-dependent Anderson-like localized modes through the modified Ioffe-Regel criterion and their mean free path - localization length character. Finally, we illustrate that our amorphous structures can serve as a versatile platform in which photonic devices such as disorder-localized waveguides can be readily implemented.