Probing borders between geometry and physics with micro-billiard lasers

TYPESolid State Institute Seminar
Speaker:Professor Joseph Zyss
Affiliation:Laboratoire de Photonique Quantique et Moléculaire, ENS, Cachan, Universite Paris-Saclay, France
Date:06.04.2016
Time:12:30
Location:Solid State Auditorium(Entrance)
Remark:Host: Distinguished Professor Moti Segev
Presentation:
Abstract:The billiard paradigm is being widely studied in nonlinear dynamics and mathematical
physics, as an avenue onto deep issues pertaining to quantum and wave physics, all the way to
quantum chaos. It can be implemented in mechanics, optics or electromagnetism, depending on
experimental configurations and on the billiard length-scale. The elusive borders between wave
and geometric optics on the one hand, and between quantum and classical mechanics on the
other, exhibit deep analogies, which can be both experimentally probed in billiard-like physical
systems. We will show the relevance in this context of micro-billiard shaped lasers, thanks to new
experimental and technological advances in the realm of polymer based photonics at micron and
nanometer scales. Closed orbits to be viewed as folded spatial geodesics within a confining
contour, are playing a central role, to be connected to a distributed electromagnetic approach via
semi-classical physics methods. Particular attention will be paid to systematic theoretical and
experimental investigations of triangular cavities in relation with their symmetry types, full
elucidation of the remarkable emission properties of square cavities at the proximity of threshold
and preliminary extensions to 3-D micro-billiards.
This work is being performed at LPQM/ENS Cachan/UPS, together with Clément Lafargue (Ph.D.
student), Stefan Bittner (postdoctoral fellow) and Mélanie Lebental (assistant professor), in
collaboration with Eugene Bogomolny from LPTMS (University Paris-Saclay and CNRS).