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Optical Switching
An optical transistor, also known as an optical switch or a light valve, is a device that switches or amplifies optical signals. Light occurring on an optical transistor's input changes the intensity of light emitted from the transistor's output while output power is supplied by an additional optical source. Since the input signal intensity may be weaker than that of the source, an optical transistor amplifies the optical signal. The device is the optical analog of the electronic transistor that forms the basis of modern electronic devices. Optical transistors provide a means to control light using only light and has applications in optical computing and fiber-optic communication networks. Such technology has the potential to exceed the speed of electronics, while conserving more power. Since photons inherently do not interact with each other, an optical transistor must employ an operating medium to mediate interactions. This is done without converting optical to electronic signa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optical Switch
An optical transistor, also known as an optical switch or a light valve, is a device that switches or amplifies optical signals. Light occurring on an optical transistor's input changes the intensity of light emitted from the transistor's output while output power is supplied by an additional optical source. Since the input signal intensity may be weaker than that of the source, an optical transistor amplifies the optical signal. The device is the optical analog of the electronic transistor that forms the basis of modern electronic devices. Optical transistors provide a means to control light using only light and has applications in optical computing and fiber-optic communication networks. Such technology has the potential to exceed the speed of electronics, while conserving more power. Since photons inherently do not interact with each other, an optical transistor must employ an operating medium to mediate interactions. This is done without converting optical to electronic signals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lasers
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow. A laser differs from other sources of light in that it emits light which is coherence (physics), ''coherent''. Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications such as laser cutting and Photolithography#Light sources, lithography. Spatial coherence also allows a laser beam to stay narrow over great distances (collimated light, collimation), enabling applications such as laser pointers and lidar (light detection and ranging). Lasers can also have high temporal coherence, which allows them to emit light with a very narrow frequency spectrum, spectr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exciton-polaritons
In physics the Exciton–polariton is a type of polariton; a hybrid light and matter quasiparticle arising from the strong coupling of the electromagnetic dipolar oscillations of excitons (either in bulk or quantum wells) and photons. Because light excitations are observed classically as photons, which are massless particles, they do not therefore have mass, like a physical particle. This property makes them a quasiparticle. Theory The coupling of the two oscillators, photons modes in the semiconductor optical microcavity and excitons of the quantum wells, results in the energy anticrossing of the bare oscillators, giving rise to the two new normal modes for the system, known as the upper and lower polariton resonances (or branches). The energy shift is proportional to the coupling strength (dependent, e.g., on the field and polarization overlaps). The higher energy or upper mode (UPB, upper polariton branch) is characterized by the photonic and exciton fields oscillating in-phase, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electric Dipole Moment
The electric dipole moment is a measure of the separation of positive and negative electrical charges within a system, that is, a measure of the system's overall polarity. The SI unit for electric dipole moment is the coulomb-meter (C⋅m). The debye (D) is another unit of measurement used in atomic physics and chemistry. Theoretically, an electric dipole is defined by the first-order term of the multipole expansion; it consists of two equal and opposite charges that are infinitesimally close together, although real dipoles have separated charge.Many theorists predict elementary particles can have very tiny electric dipole moments, possibly without separated charge. Such large dipoles make no difference to everyday physics, and have not yet been observed. (See electron electric dipole moment). However, when making measurements at a distance much larger than the charge separation, the dipole gives a good approximation of the actual electric field. The dipole is represented by a v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantum Well
A quantum well is a potential well with only discrete energy values. The classic model used to demonstrate a quantum well is to confine particles, which were initially free to move in three dimensions, to two dimensions, by forcing them to occupy a planar region. The effects of quantum confinement take place when the quantum well thickness becomes comparable to the de Broglie wavelength of the carriers (generally electrons and holes), leading to energy levels called "energy subbands", i.e., the carriers can only have discrete energy values. A wide variety of electronic quantum well devices have been developed based on the theory of quantum well systems. These devices have found applications in lasers, photodetectors, modulators, and switches for example. Compared to conventional devices, quantum well devices are much faster and operate much more economically and are a point of incredible importance to the technological and telecommunication industries. These quantum well devices a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electron Hole
In physics, chemistry, and electronic engineering, an electron hole (often simply called a hole) is a quasiparticle which is the lack of an electron at a position where one could exist in an atom or atomic lattice. Since in a normal atom or crystal lattice the negative charge of the electrons is balanced by the positive charge of the atomic nuclei, the absence of an electron leaves a net positive charge at the hole's location. Holes in a metal or semiconductor crystal lattice can move through the lattice as electrons can, and act similarly to positively-charged particles. They play an important role in the operation of semiconductor devices such as transistors, diodes and integrated circuits. If an electron is excited into a higher state it leaves a hole in its old state. This meaning is used in Auger electron spectroscopy (and other x-ray techniques), in computational chemistry, and to explain the low electron-electron scattering-rate in crystals (metals, semiconduct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electrons
The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no known components or substructure. The electron's mass is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton. Quantum mechanical properties of the electron include an intrinsic angular momentum ( spin) of a half-integer value, expressed in units of the reduced Planck constant, . Being fermions, no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state, in accordance with the Pauli exclusion principle. Like all elementary particles, electrons exhibit properties of both particles and waves: They can collide with other particles and can be diffracted like light. The wave properties of electrons are easier to observe with experiments than those of other particles like neutrons and protons because electrons have a lower mass and hence a longer de Broglie wav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exciton
An exciton is a bound state of an electron and an electron hole which are attracted to each other by the electrostatic Coulomb force. It is an electrically neutral quasiparticle that exists in insulators, semiconductors and some liquids. The exciton is regarded as an elementary excitation of condensed matter that can transport energy without transporting net electric charge. An exciton can form when a material absorbs a photon of higher energy than its bandgap. This excites an electron from the valence band into the conduction band. In turn, this leaves behind a positively charged electron hole (an abstraction for the location from which an electron was moved). The electron in the conduction band is then less attracted to this localized hole due to the repulsive Coulomb forces from large numbers of electrons surrounding the hole and excited electron. These repulsive forces provide a stabilizing energy balance. Consequently, the exciton has slightly less energy than the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rydberg State
The Rydberg states of an atom or molecule are electronically excited states with energies that follow the Rydberg formula as they converge on an ionic state with an ionization energy. Although the Rydberg formula was developed to describe atomic energy levels, it has been used to describe many other systems that have electronic structure roughly similar to atomic hydrogen. In general, at sufficiently high principal quantum numbers, an excited electron-ionic core system will have the general character of a hydrogenic system and the energy levels will follow the Rydberg formula. Rydberg states have energies converging on the energy of the ion. The ionization energy threshold is the energy required to completely liberate an electron from the ionic core of an atom or molecule. In practice, a Rydberg wave packet is created by a laser pulse on a hydrogenic atom and thus populates a superposition of Rydberg states. Modern investigations using pump-probe experiments show molecular pathways ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optical Cavity
An optical cavity, resonating cavity or optical resonator is an arrangement of mirrors or other optical elements that forms a cavity resonator for light waves. Optical cavities are a major component of lasers, surrounding the gain medium and providing feedback of the laser light. They are also used in optical parametric oscillators and some interferometers. Light confined in the cavity reflects multiple times, producing modes with certain resonance frequencies. Modes can be decomposed into longitudinal modes that differ only in frequency and transverse modes that have different intensity patterns across the cross-section of the beam. Many types of optical cavity produce standing wave modes. Different resonator types are distinguished by the focal lengths of the two mirrors and the distance between them. Flat mirrors are not often used because of the difficulty of aligning them to the needed precision. The geometry (resonator type) must be chosen so that the beam remains stable, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electromagnetically Induced Transparency
Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is a coherent optical nonlinearity which renders a medium transparent within a narrow spectral range around an absorption line. Extreme dispersion is also created within this transparency "window" which leads to "slow light", described below. It is in essence a quantum interference effect that permits the propagation of light through an otherwise opaque atomic medium. Observation of EIT involves two optical fields (highly coherent light sources, such as lasers) which are tuned to interact with three quantum states of a material. The "probe" field is tuned near resonance between two of the states and measures the absorption spectrum of the transition. A much stronger "coupling" field is tuned near resonance at a different transition. If the states are selected properly, the presence of the coupling field will create a spectral "window" of transparency which will be detected by the probe. The coupling laser is sometimes referred t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wavelength
In physics, the wavelength is the spatial period of a periodic wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. It is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase on the wave, such as two adjacent crests, troughs, or zero crossings, and is a characteristic of both traveling waves and standing waves, as well as other spatial wave patterns. The inverse of the wavelength is called the spatial frequency. Wavelength is commonly designated by the Greek letter ''lambda'' (λ). The term ''wavelength'' is also sometimes applied to modulated waves, and to the sinusoidal envelopes of modulated waves or waves formed by interference of several sinusoids. Assuming a sinusoidal wave moving at a fixed wave speed, wavelength is inversely proportional to frequency of the wave: waves with higher frequencies have shorter wavelengths, and lower frequencies have longer wavelengths. Wavelength depends on the medium (for example, vacuum, air, or water) that a wav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
