PT-symmetric laser absorber

By S. Longhi. 2010

747 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In a recent work, Y. D. Chong et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 053901 (2010)] proposed the idea of a coherent perfect absorber (CPA) as the time-reversed counterpart of a laser, in which a purely incoming radiation pattern is completely absorbed by a lossy medium. The optical medium that realizes CPA is obtained by reversing the gain with absorption, and thus it generally differs from the lasing medium. Here it is shown that a laser with an optical medium that satisfies the parity-time (PT) symmetry condition {epsilon}(-r)={epsilon}*(r) for the dielectric constant behaves simultaneously as a laser oscillator (i.e., it can emit outgoing coherent waves) and as a CPA (i.e., it can fully absorb incoming coherent waves with appropriate amplitudes and phases). Such a device can thus be referred to as a PT-symmetric CPA laser. The general amplification or absorption features of the PT CPA laser below lasing threshold driven by two fields are determined.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5f9d768c724df171699c765567bcbba8e6b62721

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

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Citations in the corpus

Thin perfect absorbers for electromagnetic waves: Theory, design, and realizations (2015, background): “With this respect, it is interesting to note recent papers on so-called “ coherent absorbers, ” where the second coherent wave is created by splitting the incident beam into two and directing both beams to the same thin lossy sheet via a system of mirrors [76 – 79] or a prism [80].”
Exceptional points in optics and photonics (2019, background): “3B, can simultaneously act as a laser and a coherent perfect absorber at the exceptional point (55, 62).”
Generalized parity–time symmetry condition for enhanced sensor telemetry (2018, background): “…reciprocally scaling operation is to provide an additional knob to tailor the threshold gain of PT -symmetric single-mode lasers [18]-[20] or coherent perfect absorber-lasers [16],[17] by breaking the exact balance of gain and loss coefficients, while preserving the spectrum of eigenvalues.”
Unidirectional reflectionless light propagation at exceptional points (2017, background): “case, the system is in the exact PT phase, whereas, in the latter one, it is in the broken symmetry phase [21, 22, 35].”
Parity–time-symmetric whispering-gallery microcavities (2013, background): “systems with coexisting coherent perfect absorption (CPA) and lasing [21-23] require PTsymmetric optical resonators, which we are demonstrating for the first time here.”
Symmetry and Topology in Non-Hermitian Physics (2018, background): “[46] S.”