Strong Light-Matter Interaction in the Deeply Sub-wavelength Regime

Seminar | September 9 | 2-3 p.m. | 180 Tan Hall

Speaker/Performer:  Prof. Eric Y. Ma, UC Berkeley, Physics & EECS

Sponsor:  Berkeley Nanosciences and Nanoengineering Institute

The interaction between light – or more broadly, electromagnetic fields – and condensed matter underpins an extremely broad range of modern technology. As devices shrink into the nanoscale, we inevitably enter the deeply sub-wavelength regime for optical frequencies and below.

In this talk, I will present two examples of strong light-matter interaction in such a regime: Terahertz (THz) emission from ultrafast interlayer charge transfer in an atomically-thin semiconductor heterostructure, and the Reststrahlen effect – strong reflectivity in the mid-infrared from optical phonons – in optically-thin films of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). The latter turns out to be an extend-state analogy of the Superradiance effect of discrete quantum emitters.
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Eric Ma did his PhD and postdoc at Stanford and after briefly working at Apple joined our Physics Dept this past year.

Event Contact:  victorr@eecs.berkeley.edu, 510-643-6681

Access Coordinator:  Avi Rosenzweig,  victorr@eecs.berkeley.edu,  510-643-6681