Parametric Amplification of a Terahertz Quantum Plasma Wave

Srivats Rajasekaran, Eliza Casandruc, Yannis Laplace, Daniele Nicoletti, Genda D. Gu, Stephen R. Clark, Dieter Jaksch, Andrea Cavalleri

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

64 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Many applications in photonics require all-optical manipulation of plasma waves, which can concentrate electromagnetic energy on sub-wavelength length scales. This is difficult in metallic plasmas because of their small optical nonlinearities. Some layered superconductors support weakly damped plasma waves, involving oscillatory tunneling of the superfluid between capacitively coupled planes. Such Josephson plasma waves (JPWs) are also highly nonlinear, and exhibit striking phenomena like cooperative emission of coherent terahertz radiation, superconductor-metal oscillations and soliton formation. We show here that terahertz JPWs in cuprate superconductors can be parametrically amplified through the cubic tunneling nonlinearity. Parametric amplification is sensitive to the relative phase between pump and seed waves and may be optimized to achieve squeezing of the order parameter phase fluctuations or single terahertz-photon devices.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1012-1016
Number of pages6
JournalNature Physics
Volume12
Early online date11 Jul 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2016

Keywords

  • cond-mat.supr-con
  • physics.optics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Parametric Amplification of a Terahertz Quantum Plasma Wave'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this