General theory of spontaneous emission near exceptional points
Name
1604.06478.pdf
Size
1.15 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
ca6a513005f12e4d699c95f152f8ec11
Author(s)
Pick, Adi
Miller, Owen D.
Hsu, Chia W.
Rodriguez, Alejandro W.
Zhen, Bo
Hernandez, Felipe
Soljacic, Marin
Johnson, Steven G
Date Issued
May 2017
Journal
Optics Express
Publisher
The Optical Society
Citation
Pick, Adi, et al. “General Theory of Spontaneous Emission near Exceptional Points.” Optics Express, vol. 25, no. 11, May 2017, p. 12325.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
We present a general theory of spontaneous emission at exceptional points (EPs)- exotic degeneracies in non-Hermitian systems. Our theory extends beyond spontaneous emission to any light-matter interaction described by the local density of states (e.g., absorption, thermal emission, and nonlinear frequency conversion). Whereas traditional spontaneous-emission theories imply infinite enhancement factors at EPs, we derive finite bounds on the enhancement, proving maximum enhancement of 4 in passive systems with second-order EPs and significantly larger enhancements (exceeding 400×) in gain-aided and higher-order EP systems. In contrast to non-degenerate resonances, which are typically associated with Lorentzian emission curves in systems with low losses, EPs are associated with non-Lorentzian lineshapes, leading to enhancements that scale nonlinearly with the resonance quality factor. Our theory can be applied to dispersive media, with proper normalization of the resonant modes.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.25.012325
