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SUMMARY:The stopped-light laser: an optical black hole on the nanoscale - 
 Professor Ortwin Hess (Imperial College)
DTSTART:20141119T200000Z
DTEND:20141119T210000Z
UID:TALK55418@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Nicolas Bricknell
DESCRIPTION:Professor Ortwin Hess from Imperial College gives a talk on st
 opped-light lasers - see the abstract below for more details.\n\nAdmission
  is free to CUPS members\, or £2 otherwise. As always\, wine and cheese w
 ill be served after the talk.\n\n(Abstract:) Ever since their first concep
 tion 50 years ago\, lasers have evolved from little more than a scientific
  curiosity in the laboratory to take a place at centre stage in today’s 
 society. Lasers do come in all kind of sizes and for an incredible variety
  of wavelengths – colours of the emitted light – but all have two vita
 l components: a (laser) gain material and coherent feedback of the emitted
  light.\n\nIn normal lasers feedback is provided by placing the gain mater
 ial between mirrors – i.e. inside a  cavity. Now\, could we accomplish s
 uch feedback by keeping photons that have just been emitted from an active
  laser medium\, simply from propagating away? Light is normally the fastes
 t ‘object’ in the universe\, but researchers have\, indeed\, recently 
 conceived ways of slowing it down considerably\, even long enough to consi
 der it as having been stopped altogether.\n\nIn the lecture\, I will expla
 in how these two fascinating aspects of light – lasing and stopped light
  – can be brought together in a tiny nanoplasmonic waveguide (with dimen
 sions much smaller than the wavelength of the emitted light itself) to for
 m the basis for a novel concept of a laser that no longer requires a cavit
 y for feedback and can be realized on the nano-scale: A stopped-light lase
 r.\n\nI will deliberate on how this is possible by creating stopped-light 
 singularities in the optical density of states that function in ways simil
 ar to an optical black hole and discus the complex spatio-temporal interac
 tion between plasmons\, light and nonlinear gain media on the nanoscale an
 d at ultrafast time-scales. The lecture will provide an outlook\, charting
  new opportunities of cavity-free lasers for integration on the nanoscale\
 , ultrafast broadband signalling and in exotic environments such as synthe
 tic tissue.
LOCATION:Pharmacology Lecture Theatre\, Tennis Court Road
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