Tailoring Light through Temporal Structure

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• Emanuele Galiffi, Advanced Science Research Centre, CUNY
• Thursday 20 April 2023, 13:15-14:30
• Theory Library.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Hannah Price.

A sufficiently fast temporal drive can induce a host of peculiar temporal wave scattering phenomena, some of which mimic the ubiquitous spatial reflection and diffraction, while obeying different causal relations. In this talk I will present key advancements in the manipulation of light in the temporal domain via giant, ultrafast modulation schemes, ranging from microwaves to optical frequencies. Specifically, I will discuss recent theoretical and experimental advances in the efficient broadband scattering of electromagnetic waves from sharp temporal inhomogeneities, as well as new emerging scattering concepts that stem from temporal wave control, such as broadband coherent control enabled by time-interfaces, and an application to the instantaneous shaping of entire pulses, effectively sculpting light with light. I will complement these findings with a deeper discussion of the fundamental electrodynamic considerations that underpin dispersionless and dispersive time-interfaces. Finally, I will discuss the first realization of time-diffraction at near-optical frequencies, and the ongoing quest to use low-electron-density materials to realize time-interfaces in the optical domain, as well as highlight several theoretical directions recently opened in the context of spatiotemporally modulated structures.

References:

Galiffi, E., Xu, G., Yin, S., Moussa, H., Radi, Y., & Alù, A. (2023). “Broadband Coherent Wave Control Through Photonic Collisions at Time Interfaces”.

Tirole, R., Vezzoli, S., Galiffi, E., Robertson, I., Maurice, D., Tilmann, B., ... & Sapienza, R. (2023). “Double-slit time diffraction at optical frequencies”. Nature Physics

Moussa, H., Xu, G., Yin, S., Galiffi, E., Radi, Y., & Alù, A. (2023). “Observation of temporal reflections and broadband frequency translations at photonic time-interfaces”. Nature Physics

Galiffi, E., Yin, S., & Alù, A. (2022). ”Tapered Photonic Switching”. Nanophotonics, 11(16), 3575-3581.

Galiffi, E., Huidobro, P. A., & Pendry, J. B. (2022). “An Archimedes’ screw for light”. Nature communications, 13(1), 1-9. [Editor’s highlight]

This talk is part of the Theoretical Physics Seminars series.

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