Project Details
Projekt
Wannier Function Formalism for Defects in Periodic Materials for Microlaser Resonator and Cavity QED-Applications
Applicant
Professor Dr. Johann Kroha
Subject Area
Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas
Term
from 2007 to 2011
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5471245
Defect structures in photonic crystals are promising for applications as microlaser resonators and in cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity QED) where, for example, the spontaneous emission from an atom in the defect with a transition frequency inside a photonic bandgap can be suppressed and photon-atom bound states can be formed. The theoretical description of the photonic density of states and of the dynamics in such defects has been hampered by the necessity of simultaneously capturing the periodicity of the host crystal and the short-scale structure of the defect. In the standard Bloch or plane wave expansion (PWE) methods this implies using extraordinarily large sets of basis functions. In the present project an efficient formalism for the dynamical processes in photonic crystal microlaser resonators and cavity QED, based on a Wannier function expansion, will be developed, which allows using a relatively small set of basis functions. In particular, the so-called Bloch phase-optimization problem will be treated using an efficient genetic algorithm. The formalism will be applied to the dynamics in photonic crystal microlasers and in cavity QED using Green's function techniques. We expect stimulating interactions with the Projects R1 (Daniel Haertle, Karsten Buse), R3 (Arno Rauschenbeutel), and W1 (Dieter Meschede, Wolfgang Alt).
DFG Programme
Research Units
Participating Person
Privatdozent Dr. Dmitry Chigrin
