Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SECOONDO (Second Order nano-Oxide Nonlinear Disordered phOtonics)
Berichtszeitraum: 2018-04-01 bis 2020-03-31
Materials with a tremendous potential in terms of large-scale applicability are disordered NLOMs, thanks to the many advantages they could give for fabrication, scalability and cost. Very generally, they are an ensemble of optically nonlinear single-crystal domains, grains, with random positions, orientations, sizes and shapes. Disordered NLOMs have shown capabilities of broadband conversion with a large acceptance angle and without the need of phase-matching tuning. The nonlinear conversion in this structures relies on the so-called random quasi-phase-matching (RQPM), in which the frequency-converted waves generated by different grains interfere neither constructively nor destructively and the total intensity of the generated wave is the sum of the intensities arising from the single grains.
In this project, we investigated the physics of disordered NLOMs at the micro- and nanoscale, in the transition region where the size of the nonlinear grains gets comparable with or smaller than the wavelength. The toolbox in this research comprised metal-oxide nanoparticles (nano-oxides) and bottom-up assembly techniques, which have been employed to realize miniaturized systems with nano-structured nonlinear disorder and with a perfectly controlled geometry. In this conditions, optical resonances and light scattering play a significant role on the linear optical properties of the disordered structure, providing new degrees of freedom to optimize and control the random quasi-phase-matched nonlinear generation.
Most significant achievements have been: 1) the realization of disordered micro-assemblies (0.5-50 microns) of oxide nanoparticles having a perfect spherical shape (micro-spheres) and with very different linear scattering properties, from the transparent (barium titanate) to the strongly scattering (litium niobate) regime; 2) the unambiguous observation of RQPM in the strongly scattering regime, obtained with precise control on the number of interacting nanoparticles; 3) the first observation of a Mie-resonant modulation of the SHG in the RQPM regime and the development of a random walk model for its description; 4) the development of a numerical model to simulate RQPM in disordered materials with optical birefringence by explicitly considering the phase propagation and the interference SHG components;
It was also possible to carry on a collaboration on the optical characterization of solution processed barium titanate woodpile photonic structures and to conclude a side project on the statistical properties of bacteria trajectories in complex environment.
Results have been presented at 7 international conferences and 3 international workshops, as well as popularized through 1 non-technical article. They have been continuously highlighted on social media. So far, there have been 2 publications in international peer-reviewed journal and 1 paper is under review. Other 2 manuscripts are under preparations. All publications have or will have open access. This project has funded the organization of the first international workshop on “Complex Materials for Nonlinear Photonics”, a multidisciplinary event gathering international scientists from the fields of disordered and complex photonics, nonlinear optics and material science. The workshop hosted 26 international speakers, 10 posters presenters and more than 50 participants, representing the generation of a scientific community interested in the topics of this project.
Finally, this project gave me the invaluable opportunity to transit from being “a researcher” to being “an independent researcher”, who proposes ideas, takes risks and manage projects on his own. The wealth of experience gathered in the last two years will impact my future as a scientist and drive my choices as a person.