Transregional Collaborative Research Center TRR 142 - Tailored Nonlinear Photonics: From Fundamental Concepts to Functional Structures

The central goal of this CRC is the exploration, development, and engineering of future nonlinear photonics, which uses state-of-the-art technological capabilities for the exploration of new physics and devices based on tailored strong nonlinearities and genuine quantum effects. Our research harnesses tailored solid-state systems and bridges the fields of semiconductor physics, nanooptics, and quantum optics. Hence, it opens new viable routes for the advancement of light-based nonlinear and quantum technologies, and thus strongly contributes to progression from fundamental science to technical applications in this area.The research program of the CRC/Transregio 142 combines the core expertise of Paderborn University in photonic materials, solid-state technology, quantum optics and theory with that of TU Dortmund University in nonlinear spectroscopy and instrumentation. It is focused on the tailoring of nonlinear interactions like frequency conversion processes, the control of quantum systems, light emission and propagation and nonlinearities at the single-photon level. From the material side, the research program is based on semiconductor quantum systems and photonic structures, nanostructured metamaterials, as well as thin-film lithium niobite on insulator (LNOI) as platform for integrated quantum optics. We use state-of-the-art micro- and nanotechnology to engineer innovative components for future information technologies, which cannot be realized by linear approaches.By the systematic exploitation of nonlinear interactions and the quantum character of our systems, the CRC/Transregio 142 will substantially contribute to the future development of nonlinear and quantum photonics. The ultimate goal is to drive nonlinear optical and quantum effects from the stage of fundamental physical investigations towards applications.

DFG Programme CRC/Transregios

Current projects

A02 - Nonlinear spectroscopy of semiconductor nanostructures with quantum light (Project Heads Akimov, Ilya; Meier, Torsten)

A04 - Nonlinear quantum process tomography and photonics of microcavity polaritons (Project Heads Aßmann, Marc Alexander; Bayer, Manfred; Schumacher, Stefan)

A06 - Tailored ultrafast acoustics for light emission modulation (Project Heads As, Donat Josef; Bayer, Manfred; Reuter, Dirk; Scherbakov, Ph.D., Alexey)

A08 - Nonlinear coupling of interlayer excitons in van der Waals heterostructures to plasmonic and dielectric nanocavities (Project Heads Cinchetti, Mirko; Jöns, Klaus; Zentgraf, Thomas)

A09 - Three-photon state generation with on-chip pump suppression in topological waveguides (Project Heads Brecht, Benjamin; Zentgraf, Thomas)

A10 - Nonlinear strong-field dynamics of atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (Project Heads Lange, Christoph; Meier, Torsten; Ruppert, Claudia)

A11 - Control of excitonic optical harmonic generation by electric fields (Project Heads Gerstmann, Uwe; Yakovlev, Ph.D., Dmitri)

B06 - Ultrafast coherent opto-electronic control of a photonic quantum system (Project Heads Förstner, Jens; Jöns, Klaus; Reuter, Dirk)

B07 - Polaron signatures in the optical response of lithium niobate (Project Heads Bartley, Tim; Eigner, Christof; Schmidt, Wolf Gero)

B08 - Subcycle nonlinearities of ultrastrong light-matter coupling (Project Heads Lange, Christoph; Reuter, Dirk)

B09 - Quasi-bound states in the continuum for efficient second harmonic generation and spatial phase tailoring in GaAs metasurfaces (Project Heads Meier, Cedrik; Zentgraf, Thomas)

C07 - Cavity-enhanced spontaneous parametric down-conversion with temporal filtering using integrated superconducting detectors (Project Heads Bartley, Tim; Silberhorn, Christine)

C08 - Hybrid lithium niobate on insulator quantum photonic integrated circuit (Project Heads Jöns, Klaus; Reuter, Dirk; Silberhorn, Christine)

C09 - On-demand ideal photon pair generation for entanglement swapping at telecom frequencies (Project Heads Jöns, Klaus; Reuter, Dirk; Schumacher, Stefan)

C10 - Generation and characterization of quantum light in nonlinear systems: A theoretical analysis (Project Heads Sharapova, Polina; Sperling, Jan)

C11 - Compact high performance photon pair source using ultrafast hybrid modulators based on CMOS and LNOI (Project Heads Scheytt, Christoph; Silberhorn, Christine)

Z02 - Central Tasks (Project Heads Silberhorn, Christine; Zrenner, Artur)

Completed projects

A01 - Two-photon emission in wide-gap semiconductors (Project Heads Betz, Markus; Ruppert, Claudia)

A03 - Cavity enhanced two-photon physics with semiconductor quantum dots (Project Heads Reuter, Dirk; Schumacher, Stefan; Zrenner, Artur)

A05 - Plasmonic nano-antenna enhanced nonlinear light emission and frequency conversion in dielectric and semiconductor micro-structures (Project Heads Förstner, Jens; Meier, Cedrik; Zentgraf, Thomas)

A07 - Widely non-defenerate stimulated two-photon emission in semiconductors (Project Heads Betz, Markus; Meier, Torsten; Ruppert, Claudia)

B01 - Nonlinear multi-photon and harmonics generation spectroscopy on ZnO-based nanostructures (Project Heads Meier, Cedrik; Rauls, Eva; Schmidt, Wolf Gero; Yakovlev, Ph.D., Dmitri)

B02 - Nonlinear optics and coherent intersubband physics of cubic GaN/Al(Ga)N heterostructures (Project Heads Akimov, Ilya; As, Donat Josef; Betz, Markus)

B03 - Effect of extended and point defects on the ferroelectric and optical properties of LiNbO3 (Project Heads Berth, Gerhard; Greulich-Weber, Siegmund; Sanna, Simone)

B04 - Ab initio theory for photonic materials (Project Heads Gerstmann, Uwe; Schindlmayr, Arno; Schmidt, Wolf Gero)

B05 - Tailored KTP and LiNbO3 waveguide structures for counter-propagating parametric down-conversion processes (Project Heads Berth, Gerhard; Silberhorn, Christine)

C01 - Engineered ffrequency conversion devices (Project Heads Bayer, Manfred; Silberhorn, Christine)

C02 - Integrated SU(1,1) interferometers (Project Heads Meier, Torsten; Sharapova, Polina; Silberhorn, Christine)

C03 - Nonlinear optics in quantum dot molecules (Project Heads Förstner, Jens; Greilich, Alex)

C04 - Ultrafast electric control of optical polarizations and transitions (Project Heads Förstner, Jens; Thiede, Andreas; Zrenner, Artur)

C05 - Nonlinear optical surfaces based on ZnO-plasmonic hybrid-nanostructures (Project Heads Förstner, Jens; Meier, Cedrik; Zentgraf, Thomas)

C06 - Integrated measurement-induced nonlinearity with superconducting detectors (Project Heads Bartley, Tim; Meier, Torsten)

Z01 - Molecular beam epitaxy of tailored GaAs-based heterostructures (Project Head Reuter, Dirk)

Participating disciplines Quantum optics, Photonics, Solid state physics, Ultrafast optoelectronics, Plasmonics, Photonic materials, Ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy, Many-particle theory, Theoretical materials physics, Nanophotonics, Nanostructures, Theoretical optoelectronics and photonics

Applicant Institution Universität Paderborn

Co-Applicant Institution Technische Universität Dortmund

Spokespersons Professorin Dr. Christine Silberhorn, since 1/2021; Professor Dr. Artur Zrenner, until 12/2020