The Isaac Newton Lecture: Photonic Crystals: Optical Antennas

Photonic Crystals-Inhibited Spontaneous Emission: Optical Antennas-Enhanced Spontaneous Emission

Speaker: Professor Eli Yablonovitch, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Photonic crystals have now been identified within the coloration of peacocks, parrots, chameleons, butterflies and many other species. But photonic crystals are also part of everyday technological life in opto-electronic telecommunication devices that provide us with internet, cloud storage, and email.Â

Nonetheless, the original motivation of photonic crystals was to create a “bandgap” in which the spontaneous emission of light would be prevented. The “optical antenna” can have the opposite effect, accelerating spontaneous emission. Over 100 years after the radio antenna, we finally have tiny “optical antennas” which can act on molecules and quantum dots. With optical antennas, spontaneous light emission can become faster than stimulated emission.Â