Engineers bend light to enhance wavelength conversion — ScienceDaily

Cortez Deacetis

Electrical engineers from the UCLA Samueli University of Engineering have developed a extra productive way of changing gentle from 1 wavelength to another, opening the door for enhancements in the general performance of imaging, sensing and communication programs.

Mona Jarrahi, professor of electrical and computer system engineering at UCLA Samueli, led the Nature Communications-printed investigate.

Acquiring an successful way to change wavelengths of gentle is important to the advancement of lots of imaging and sensing technologies. For case in point, converting incoming mild into terahertz wavelengths allows imaging and sensing in optically opaque environments. Having said that, past conversion frameworks were being inefficient and required cumbersome and complicated optical setups.

The UCLA-led group has devised a resolution to greatly enhance wavelength-conversion effectiveness by exploring a commonly unwanted but all-natural phenomenon known as semiconductor floor states.

Surface area states take place when surface area atoms have an inadequate selection of other atoms to bind to, creating a breakdown in atomic framework. These incomplete chemical bonds, also known as “dangling bonds,” induce roadblocks for electrical expenses flowing via semiconductor gadgets and have an impact on their functionality.

“There have been several attempts to suppress the effect of area states in semiconductor devices with out realizing they have special electrochemical qualities that could help unparalleled device functionalities,” explained Jarrahi, who prospects the UCLA Terahertz Electronics Laboratory.


In simple fact, since these incomplete bonds create a shallow but huge built-in electric powered industry throughout the semiconductor floor, the scientists determined to acquire advantage of area states for enhanced wavelength conversion.

Incoming light-weight can hit the electrons in the semiconductor lattice and shift them to a bigger power condition, at which level they are free to bounce all-around inside the lattice. The electrical field created across the surface of the semiconductor further accelerates these image-energized, higher-vitality electrons, which then unload the excess power they received by radiating it at diverse optical wavelengths, therefore changing the wavelengths.

Nevertheless, this electrical power exchange can only occur at the floor of a semiconductor and demands to be extra effective. In order to remedy this challenge, the team integrated a nanoantenna array that bends incoming mild so it is tightly confined around the shallow area of the semiconductor.

“By this new framework, wavelength conversion transpires easily and without any added additional source of vitality as the incoming mild crosses the subject,” stated Deniz Turan, the study’s lead writer and a member of Jarrahi’s analysis laboratory who a short while ago graduated with his doctorate in electrical engineering from UCLA Samueli.

The scientists correctly and efficiently converted a 1,550-nanometer wavelength light-weight beam into the terahertz portion of the spectrum, ranging from wavelengths of 100 micrometers up to 1 millimeter. The group demonstrated the wavelength-conversion efficiency by incorporating the new technological know-how into an endoscopy probe that could be utilised for in depth in-vivo imaging and spectroscopy utilizing terahertz waves.

Devoid of this breakthrough in wavelength conversion, it would have demanded 100 instances the optical energy amount to reach the exact same terahertz waves, which the slim optical fibers employed in the endoscopy probe are not able to guidance. The advance can implement to optical wavelength conversion in other sections of the electromagnetic spectrum, ranging from microwave to considerably-infrared wavelengths.

Two addition associates of Jarrahi’s study group, Ping Keng Lu and Nezih Yardimci, are co-authors of the research. Other co-authors are from Specialized University Darmstadt in Germany and the Ames Laboratory, a U.S. Division of Energy (DOE) lab affiliated with Iowa Condition College.

The Business office of Naval Study supported the exploration, and the DOE delivered a grant for Turan.

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