B.

Tech Seminar Report

ANTI-LASER TECHNOLOGY

Submitted in partial fulfillment for the award of the Degree of Bachelor of Technology in Electronics And Communication Engineering

Submitted by NITHIN M (Candidate Code: 08420021)

Under the guidance of

Mrs. ANJALY SWAPNA

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT, PUNNAPRA KERALA
NOVEMBER 2011

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the thesis entitled ANTI-LASER TECHNOLOGY is a bonafide record of the seminar presented by NITHIN M (Roll No.08420021) under my supervision and guidance, in partial fulfillment for the award of Degree of Bachelor of Technology in Electronics And Communication Engineering from the University of Kerala for the year 2011.

----------------------------Mrs. ANJALI SWAPNA

(Seminar

------------------------(seminar co-ordinator) Asst.Professor Dept. of ECE

guide) Asst.Professor Dept. of ECE

--------------------------------------

DEEPAK V. K Asst.Professor & HOD Dept. of ECE

Place: Alappuzha

Date:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost, I wish to place on records my ardent and earnest gratitude to my
seminar guide Mrs. ANJALI SWAPNA, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Electronics And

Communication Engineering. Her tutelage and guidance was the leading factor in translating my efforts to fruition. Her prudent and perspective vision has shown light on our trail to triumph.

I am extremely happy to mention a great word of gratitude to Mr. DEEPAK V.K, Head of the Department of Electronics And Communication Engineering for providing me with all facilities for the completion of this work.

Finally yet importantly, I would like to express my gratitude to Prof A.J SAJI, the principal of our institution for providing me with all facilities for the completion of this work.

I would also extend my gratefulness to all the staff members in the Department. I also thank all my friends and well-wishers who greatly helped me in my endeavour.

NITHIN M

ABSTRACT
More than 50 years after the invention of the laser, scientists at Yale University have built the world's first anti-laser, in which incoming beams of light interfere with one another in such a way as to perfectly cancel each other out. The discovery could pave the way for a number of novel technologies with applications in everything from optical computing to radiology. A Coherent perfect absorber (CPA), or anti-laser, is a device which absorbs coherent light and converts it to some form of internal energy such as heat or electrical energy. It is the time reversed counterpart of a laser. It is a two-channel CPA device which absorbs the output of two lasers, but only when the beams have the correct phases and amplitudes. The initial device was able to absorb 99.4 percent of all incoming light, but the team behind the invention believes it will be possible to increase this number to 99.999 percent.

In this time-reversed counterpart to laser emission, incident coherent optical fields are perfectly absorbed within a resonator that contains a loss medium instead of a gain medium. The incident fields and frequency must coincide with those of the corresponding laser with gain. We demonstrated this effect for two counter propagating incident fields in a silicon cavity, showing that absorption can be enhanced by two orders of magnitude, the maximum predicted by theory for our experimental setup. In addition, it shows that absorption can be reduced substantially by varying the relative phase of the incident fields. The device, termed a coherent perfect absorber, functions as an absorptive interferometer, with potential practical applications in integrated optics.

CONTENTS
Chapter No TITLE List of Abbreviations List of Figures Page No i ii

INTRODUCTION

1.1 1.2

CPA (Coherent Perfect Absorber) Time Reversed Laser or Anti- Laser

1 2

HISTORY OF ANTI-LASER

2.1 2.2

DASER Concept Anti-Laser Concept

3 3

LASER

3.1 3.2 3.3

LASER Concept Components of LASER Working Principle of LASER

5 5 6

PRINCIPLE BEHIND ANTI-LASER

4.1 4.2 4.3

Time-Reversed Lasing Action Time -Reversal Symmetry Property of Optical Systems Basic Working Design

8 8 9

ANTI-LASER THEORY

12

5.1 5.1.1 5.1.2 5.2

CPA Theorem S Matrix Concept Interferometric Absorption

12 12

Time-Reversed Lasing and Interferometric Control of Absorption

15

APPLICATIONS OF ANTI-LASER TECHNOLOGY

24

CURRENT RESEARCHES AND ACHIEVEMENTS

30

CHALLENGES TO ANTI-LASER TECHNOLOGY

32

CONCLUSION

33

REFERENCES

34

ii List of Abbreviations
GPS SCAN LCD PIC Global Positioning System Spoken Content-Based Audio Navigation Liquid Crystal Display Peripheral Interface Controller Electrically Erasable Programmable Read only Memory

EEPROM

ii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure No

Title

Page No

3.1 3.2 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3

Constructional Details of LASER Basic principle behind Laser action Working Principle behind the Anti-Laser
Modulation depth of Anti-Laser Output Signal

5 6 9 16 18 21

Phase modulation of beam absorption Complex refractive indices for the uniform Dielectric slab as a CPA

5.4
6.1

Semi-log plot of normalized output intensities Optical switching by means of laser action Optical Transistor (Schematic View)

22 25 27

6.2

Anti-Laser Technology

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 CPA (Coherent Perfect Absorber) An arbitrary body or aggregate can be made perfectly absorbing at discrete frequencies, if a precise amount of dissipation is added under specific conditions of coherent monochromatic illumination. This effect arises from the interaction of optical absorption and wave interference, and corresponds to moving a zero of the S-matrix onto the real wave vector axis. It is thus the time-reversed process of lasing at threshold. The effect may be demonstrated in a Si slab illuminated in the 500-900nm range. Coherent perfect absorbers form a novel class of linear optical elements-absorptive interferometers which may be useful for controlled optical energy transfer. A laser is a physical system which, when subjected to an energy flux (pump), selforganizes at a threshold value of the pump to produce narrow-band coherent electromagnetic radiation. In the absence of inhomogeneous broadening and quantum fluctuations, this radiation has zero line width. Above the first lasing threshold, lasers are nonlinear systems, but at the first threshold they satisfy a linear wave equation with a negative (amplifying) imaginary part of the refractive index, generated by the population inversion due to the pump. In conventional lasers, the gain medium is confined in resonators with a relatively high quality factor (Q), and the lasing modes are closely related to passive-cavity modes. However, recent demonstrations of random lasers have shown that the lasing threshold can be reached and coherent lasing obtained in resonators with no high-Q passive-cavity modes. It can be rigorously shown within semi classical laser theory that the first lasing mode in any cavity is an eigenvector of the electromagnetic scattering matrix (S matrix) with an infinite eigenvalue, i.e., lasing occurs when a pole of the S matrix is pulled up to the real axis by including gain as a negative imaginary part of the refractive index. This viewpoint suggests the possibility of the time-reversed process of lasing at threshold. A specific degree of dissipation (loss medium) is added to the resonator, corresponding to a positive imaginary refractive index equal in absolute value to that at the lasing threshold. The system is illuminated

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Anti-Laser Technology

coherently and monochromatically by the time reverse of the output of a lasing mode, and the incident radiation is perfectly absorbed. We refer to such an optical system as a coherent perfect absorber (CPA). 1.2 Time Reversed Laser or Anti-Laser Now the anti-laser become a reality and on 17 February 2011 Yale physicist A. Douglas Stone and his team published a study explaining the theory behind an anti-laser, demonstrating that such a device could be built using silicon, the most common semiconductor material. But it wasn't until now, after joining forces with the experimental group of his colleague Hui Cao, that the team actually built a functioning anti-laser. In the anti-laser, a coherent beam of light is inserted into a loss medium, which can be the same material as the gain medium or one less likely to emit light, such as the silicon used in this experiment. Any material will absorb some photons and scatter the rest, but picking just the right wavelength for the particular material and the length of the anti-laser cavity ensures that all the photons will be absorbed if they stay in the material long enough The device could be used to create a signal in a photo detector. But because the anti-laser works with a specific wavelength in a coherent beam, it wouldnt have any practical use in solar cells. It also wouldnt help with stealth technology, and its not a shield against laser beams, Stone points out. The physicists are talking to researchers at Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., about whether the anti-laser might aid in the development of a hybrid optical and electronic computer that uses light instead of electrons for some calculations.

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Anti-Laser Technology

CHAPTER 2 HISTORY OF ANTI-LASER

2.1 DASER Concept In the 60s, the anti-laser concept was invented alongside the laser concept. It was a joke then, but recent research shows how interesting physics does lie within this concept. In 1960, the laser light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation was invented. The dasar darkness amplification by stimulated absorption of radiation was also invented as a parody in Towness lab, of course. Surprisingly, Yidong Chong and colleagues in the group of Douglas Stone at Yale University (Connecticut, USA) have now shown that new physics lies within the dasar or anti-laser concept. In a standard laser, light is forced to bounce back and forth across a material and is thus amplified in the process. Lasing comes about as a combination of constructive interference the self-interference of the light bouncing back and forth across the amplifying material and amplification, explains Chong, which, of course, involves the conversion of electricity, or some other source of energy, into light. A dasar works in exactly the opposite way as a laser and, at least in the original playful meaning, can be implemented with several ordinary objects. Take, for example, a black sheet of paper. If you shine a bright light on it, most of the light will get absorbed and dissipated through heat, but this is not just it! We were explaining how a laser works to a visitor some months ago, says Chong, when Prof. Stone pointed out that one way to understand this is to think about the reverse process, where an incoming light signal is completely absorbed by a body. We realized that there is some interesting physics lying within this concept and that work could actually be done.

2.2 Anti-Laser Concept

The proposed device, or Coherent Perfect Absorber (CPA), is described by the very same equations describing the laser, just with dissipation instead of amplification and destructive interference instead of constructive interference. Light is therefore Dept. of ECE CEM,Punnapra

Anti-Laser Technology

perfectly absorbed by the device and converted into some other non-optical forms, such as electricity or heat. In Chongs words, the properties and shape of the device are designed in such a way that the outgoing component of the scattered light interferes destructively with itself and never escapes the device. The light is trapped forever into the object and completely dissipated into electricity, heat, or other forms of energy. While a black piece of paper is a trivial and imperfect implementation of a dasar, the CPA requires specific material properties and a full understanding of the underlying physics. The CPA effect depends on interference and, therefore, it only works at specific frequencies, Chong explains. We cannot use it to replace absorbing materials. However, for a given size of the device, at these specific frequencies, it is possible to achieve much higher total absorption in a CPA than in any other material in absence of interference. In principle, any dissipative material can be used to make a CPA, in the same way that there are many different materials used to make lasers. Several devices have been invented in the past few years that operate along similar lines, such as resonant absorption modulators or critically coupled resonators. A single input beam can be sent into a device whose shape, for example, is optimized to increase the amount of light dissipated by the absorbing material. Typically these devices make use of the most basic version of the CPA effect, Chong points out. What we have done is to use the laser analogy to shed light, so to speak, on exactly how these devices work and to point out that the absorption can in principle be perfect, except for quantum fluctuations and other forms of noise. Under proper conditions, one can have nearly 100% absorption in CPAs, In regular absorptive materials, this number is never 100% unless the material is very absorptive, and/or large in size. CPAs can be made even from not-very-absorptive materials and with moderate sizes. Also, the same system could allow one to control the absorption process from very small (1%) to very large (nearly 100%) percentages. Only the future will reveal the potential of the anti-laser, but do keep in mind that even the laser at its beginning was referred to as a solution looking for a problem.

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Anti-Laser Technology

CHAPTER 3 LASER
3.1 LASER The word laser originally was the upper-case LASER, the acronym from Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, wherein light broadly

denotes electromagnetic radiation of any frequency, not only the visible spectrum; hence infrared laser, ultraviolet laser, X-ray laser, etc.Because the microwave predecessor of the laser, the maser, was developed first, devices that emit microwave and radio frequencies are denoted masers. In the early technical literature, especially in that of the Bell Telephone Laboratories researchers, the laser was also called optical maser, a currently uncommon term, moreover, since 1998, Bell Laboratories adopted the laser usage. Linguistically, the back-formation verb to laser means to produce laser light and to apply laser light to. 3.2 Components of LASER A laser consists of a gain medium inside a highly reflective optical cavity, as well as a means to supply energy to the gain medium. The gain medium is a material with properties that allow it to amplify light by stimulated emission. In its simplest form, a cavity consists of two mirrors arranged such that light bounces back and forth, each time passing through the gain medium. Typically one of the two mirrors, the output coupler, is partially transparent. The output laser beam is emitted through this mirror. The basic constructional details of a Laser is shown in fig. below

Fig 3.1 Constructional Details of LASER

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Anti-Laser Technology
Principal components are

1) Gain medium 2) Laser pumping energy 3) High reflector 4) Output coupler 5) Laser beam

3.3 Working Principle of LASER Light of a specific wavelength that passes through the gain medium is amplified (increases in power); the surrounding mirrors ensure that most of the light makes many passes through the gain medium, being amplified repeatedly. Part of the light that is between the mirrors (that is, within the cavity) passes through the partially transparent mirror and escapes as a beam of light. The process of supplying the energy required for the amplification is called pumping. The energy is typically supplied as an electrical current or as light at a different wavelength. Such light may be provided by a flash lamp or perhaps another laser. Most practical lasers contain additional elements that affect properties such as the wavelength of the emitted light and the shape of the beam. Basic principle behind Laser action can be represented as

Fig 3.2 Basic principle behind Laser action

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Anti-Laser Technology

Laser medium is the heart of the laser system and is responsible for producing gain and subsequent generation of laser. It can be a crystal, solid, liquid, semiconductor or gas medium and can be pumped to a higher energy state. The material should be of controlled purity, size and shape and should have the suitable energy levels to support population inversion. In other words, it must have a metastable state to support stimulated emission. In a four level laser, the material is pumped to level 4, which is a fast decaying level, and the atoms decay rapidly to level 3, which is a metastable level. The stimulated emission takes place from level 3 to level 2 from where the atoms decay back to level 1. In Four level lasers, the laser transition takes place between the third and second excited states. Since lower laser level 2 is a fast decaying level which ensures that it rapidly gets empty and as such always supports the population inversion condition.

We may conclude that, laser action is preceded by three processes, namely, absorption, spontaneous emission and stimulated emission - absorption of energy to populate upper levels, spontaneous emission to produce the initial photons for stimulation and finally, stimulated emission for generation of coherent output or laser.

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Anti-Laser Technology

CHAPTER 4 PRINCIPLE BEHIND ANTI-LASER

4.1 Time-Reversed Lasing Action
Time-reversal symmetry is a fundamental symmetry of classical electromagnetic theory and of non relativistic quantum mechanics. It implies that if a particular physical process is allowed, then there also exists a time reversed process that is related to the original process by reversing momenta and the direction of certain fields (typically external magnetic fields and internal spins). These symmetry operations are equivalent to changing the sign of the time variable in the dynamical equations, and for steady state situations they correspond to interchanging incoming and outgoing fields. The power of time-reversal symmetry is that it enables exact predictions of the relationship between two processes of arbitrary complexity. A familiar example is spin echo in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) : A set of prcising spins in a magnetic field fall out of phase because of slightly different local field environments, quenching the NMR signal. The signal can be restored by imposing an inversion pulse at time T, which has the effect of running the phase of each spin backward in time, so that after 2T they are back in phase, no matter how complicated their local field environment. Time-reversal symmetry is the origin of the well known weak localization effect in the resistance of metals, the coherent backscattering peak in the reflection from multiple scattering media , and the elastic enhancement factor familiar in nuclear scattering. Effects due to direct generation of time-reversed waves via special mirrors have been extensively studied for sound waves and microwave radiation.

4.2 Time -Reversal Symmetry Property of Optical Systems

Recently, several of the authors explored theoretically an exact time-reversal symmetry property of optical systems: the time-reversed analog of laser emission. In the lasing process, a cavity with gain produces outgoing optical fields with a definite frequency and phase relationship, without being illuminated by coherent incoming fields Dept. of ECE CEM,Punnapra

Anti-Laser Technology

at that frequency. The laser is coupled to an energy source (the pump) that inverts the electron population of the gain medium, causing the onset of coherent radiation at a threshold value of the pump. Above threshold the laser is a nonlinear device, but at threshold for the first lasing mode, the laser is described by the linear Maxwell equations with complex (amplifying) refractive index. Because of the properties of these equations under time reversal, it follows that the same cavity, with the gain medium replaced by an equivalent absorbing medium, will perfectly absorb the same frequency of light, if it is illuminated with incoming waves with the same field pattern. Additional analysis showed that if the cavity is illuminated with coherent field patterns not corresponding to the timereversed emission pattern, it is possible to decrease the absorption well below the value for incoherent illumination. Such a device, related to a laser by time reversal, was termed a coherent perfect absorber (CPA). The properties of CPAs point to a new method for controlling absorption through coherent illumination. Here we demonstrate both the strong enhancement and reduction of absorption in a simple realization of the CPA: a silicon wafer functioning as solid Fabry-Perot etalon.

4.3 Basic Working Design

The working principle behind the Anti-Laser can be schematically represented as fig.given below

Fig 4.1 Working Principle behind the Anti-Laser

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In the fig 4.1 A laser beam from a tunable (800 to 1000 nm) continuous- wave Ti:sapphire source enters a beam splitter (designated 1). The two split beams are directed normally onto opposite sides of a silicon wafer of thickness ~110 mm, using a MachZehnder geometry. A phase delay in one of the beam paths controls the relative phase of the two beams. An additional attenuator ensures that the input beams have equal intensities, compensating for imbalances in the beam splitters and other imperfections. The output beams are rerouted, via beam splitters (designated 2, 3, and 4), into a spectrometer. The inset is a schematic of the CPA mechanism. The incident beams from left and right multiply scatter within the wafer with just the right amplitude and phase so that the total transmitted and reflected beams destructively interfere on both sides, leading to perfect absorption. The basic working design is that two identical lasers are fired into a cavity containing a silicon wafer, a light-absorbing material that acts as a "loss medium." The wafer aligns the light waves from the lasers so they become trapped, causing most of the photons to bounce back and forth until they are absorbed and transformed into heat. Furthermore, many of the remaining light waves are cancelled out by interfering with each other. In contrast a normal laser uses a gain medium which amplifies light instead of absorbing it. In the context of lasers, time reversal isnt a way for scientists to travel back to childhood and fix their embarrassing mistakes. Its a technique for rewinding and undoing a process by reversing the mathematics underlying it in this case, by changing a plus sign to a minus sign to make the energy absorbed by the anti-laser equal to the energy produced by a laser. Using time reversal of the lasing operation and the source of the laser, [the Yale researchers] found a very elegant way to make a perfect absorber of light, says Mathias Fink, a physicist at ESCPI Paris Tech who developed the first time reversal techniques applied to sound waves. Lasers work by passing light through a material that amplifies it a piece of crystal, glass, semiconductor or other gain medium to produce an intense, coherent beam. The

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Yale contraption runs this process backward. An incoming beam enters a splitter, which divides it into two beams of equal strength. Mirrors sync up these beams and guide them into opposite sides of a silicon wafer, a material that absorbs light. The energy not absorbed by the silicon disappears as the beams collide and interfere with each other; less than 1 percent of the beams energy escapes the silicon death trap. Lasers work by using a gain medium, often gallium arsenide or some other semiconductor, to produce light waves with the same frequency and amplitude. These waves, which are in step with one another, make up a focused beam of coherent light. By contrast, the anti-laser utilizes a silicon wafer loss medium. When two laser beams were shone into a cavity containing that wafer, it aligned the light waves so that they became perfectly trapped, causing them to ricochet back and forth until they were absorbed and transformed into heat.

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CHAPTER 5 ANTI-LASER THEORY

5.1 CPA Theorem

A laser is a physical system which, when subjected to an energy pump, selforganizes at a threshold value of the pump to produce coherent narrow-band electromagnetic radiation. Above the first threshold, a laser is a non-linear system, but at the first threshold it satisfies a linear wave equation with a negative (amplifying) imaginary part of the refractive index, generated by the population inversion. Semi classical laser theory shows that the first lasing mode in any cavity is an eigenvector of the scattering matrix (S-matrix) with infinite eigenvalue; i.e. lasing occurs when a pole of the S-matrix is pulled up" to the real axis by including gain as a negative imaginary part of the refractive index. This suggests the possibility of the time-reversed process of lasing at threshold. A specific amount of dissipation is added to the medium, corresponding to a positive imaginary refractive index equal in absolute value to that at the lasing threshold. The system is illuminated coherently and monochromatically by the time-reverse of the output of a lasing mode, and the incident radiation is perfectly absorbed. We refer to such an optical system as a coherent perfect absorber (CPA) or Anti-laser.

5.1.1 S Matrix Concept

Coherent perfect absorption is a general and robust phenomenon related to the analytic properties of the S-matrix. For simplicity, we consider scattering in one or two dimensions, for which the (TM) electric field is a scalar obeying the equation

( )

( )=0

Here k=/c (a scalar), is the frequency, and n = n + n is the complex refractive index, with n 0 < for gain and n 0 > for absorption. There is an external region, extending from some radius rs to infinity, where n = 1. The field in the external region is

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Anti-Laser Technology

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a combination of incoming waves (amplitudes m) and outgoing waves (amplitudes m). The scattering channel amplitudes are related by

zeros, symmetrically placed at

( k)

m =m

Continuing k into the complex plane, S(k) possesses a countably infinite set of poles and

where

Adding gain or dissipation moves the zeros and poles of S(k) in the complex k plane. There exist several theoretical methods for locating these zeros and poles, such as the R-matrix" theory of Wigner and Eisenbud. With sufficient dissipation, a zero can cross the real axis at k = ~km. Radiation incident at each ~km can be completely absorbed if it corresponds to the specific eigenvector of the S-matrix having eigenvalue zero. This is the heart of the CPA process, arising from the interplay of interference and absorption: with specific amounts of dissipation, there exist interference patterns that trap incident radiation for an infinite time. Even small rates of single-pass absorption can lead to perfect absorption, albeit within narrow frequency bands.

We now give a more precise statement of the CPA theorem. For simplicity, consider the scalar wave equation.

( )

( ) = 0.1

Where k = w/c, w is the frequency, c is the speed of light, k(r) is the electric field, and n = n + in is the refractive index (n 0 < for gain and n 0 > for absorption). Outside of the cavity, n is assumed to be real and constant. Steady-state solutions of these equations are described by the electromagnetic scattering matrix (S-matrix).Which relates incoming and outgoing channel states whose weights are represented by complex vectors , , obeying

S[n(r)] . = 2
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The S-matrix is unitary if and only if n .0 = In general it satisfies the property that, under time reversal,

S[n* (r) k] . * =* ...3

Equations 2 and 3 imply that every scattering solution of the amplifying problem, with n = n in( n )0 > and outgoing amplitudes b, is accompanied by a solution to the absorbing problem with n = n + in and incoming amplitudes *.

5.1.2 Interferometric Absorption

Now consider a laser at threshold: There exists a specific solution, described by a vector of nonzero outgoing amplitudes (determined up to an overall scale factor), for infinitesimal incoming amplitudes ( 0). Thus, the S-matrix has an eigen value that tends to infinity. By the time reversal property (Eq. 3), a lossy cavity with n = n ,n +n must possess a solution corresponding to the time-reversed lasing mode, for which the incident field (*) is completely absorbed (* 0); the associated S-matrix eigenvector has eigen value zero. This lossy cavity is the CPA, the time-reversed counterpart to the original laser. Furthermore, if the CPA cavity is accessible by more than one asymptotic channel, it typically possesses other eigenvectors with nonzero eigen values, so there are many other incident radiation patterns, at the same frequency, that are not fully absorbed. Early laser studies had briefly noted the possibility of the timereversed process of lasing, but detailed theory and investigation of practical realizations began with . The simplest realization, a single-channel CPA, consists of an asymmetric cavity with a perfectly reflecting mirror at one end and coupled at the other end to a single input channel. When the absorption of the cavity is tuned to an optimal value, the reflection from the back mirror of the cavity destructively interferes with the reflection from the front face, and the incident radiation is perfectly absorbed. Several investigators have discovered the coherent absorption effect for this case, without making use of the analogy to a laser at threshold. III-V semiconductor devices that are essentially equivalent to the single channel CPA have been widely developed over the past two decades as modulators (asymmetric Fabry-Perot modulators) and detectors (resonant

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cavity-enhanced photo detectors). In addition, a closely related device, used as an optical switch or filter, is the critically coupled resonator, which typically has a ring geometry and is equivalent to two decoupled single-channel CPAs.

5.2 Time-Reversed Lasing and Interferometric Control of Absorption Our two-channel CPA is qualitatively different from the single-channel case because it requires two coherent input beams, and perfect absorption is only achieved when these beams have the correct relative phase and amplitude. Thus, it is not only sensitive to frequency but to the amplitude and phase of the input light and can function as an absorptive interferometer, potentially useful as a modulator, detector, or phase controlled optical switch. Reaching the precise CPA condition of perfect absorption requires tuning two parameters (e.g., n and n or n and ); by analogy to the laser, the CPA must have the correct absorption to reach threshold and also must satisfy an appropriate interference condition in the cavity. However, simply tuning near the band gap of a semiconductor can bring the system very close to the CPA condition, increasing the absorption by many orders of magnitude.

The simplest two-channel CPA has a uniform complex refractive index n approaching one of the values needed for the CPA condition, connected to a single propagating mode on the left and another on the right. In our implementation (Fig. 1), two collimated counter propagating free space laser beams are directed onto opposite

surfaces of a Si wafer, which functions as a low-Q Fabry-Perot etalon based on Fresnel reflection at the surfaces (Q 840). Although these illumination conditions are not truly single-channel because of the finite width of the free-space beams, our results indicate that this is not the main source of deviation from the ideal behavior. The output beams are collected into a high-resolution spectrometer, and the intensities in each individual output beam, as well as the total output intensity, are measured.

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Fig 5.1 Modulation depth-the ratio of maximum to minimum output intensity vs input phase The fig 5.1 shows the Modulation depth-the ratio of maximum to minimum output intensity obtained by varying the relative input phase, M= max(Iout)/min(Iout)-as a function of wavelength. The wavelength spacing of adjacent M-peaks is ~1.27 nm, closely matching the free spectral range of the Si etalon. Between these maxima, M goes nearly to unity, corresponding to the phase-insensitive points where the two S-matrix eigen values have the same magnitude. (B) Ratio of these maximum and minimum values to the value 2(R + T), obtained when the two input beams do not interfere coherently, demonstrating both enhancement and suppression of cavity absorption by interference. Squares (A) and triangles (B) are experimental data [in (B), upright triangles denote reduced absorption, whereas inverted triangles denote enhanced absorption]; solid curves are theory, including resolution effects. In this geometry, the physical origin of the CPA effect is clear . As illustrated in the inset of Fig.5.1, the multiply scattered transmission from the left beam interferes

destructively with the multiply scattered reflection from the right beam at the right interface, and vice versa at the left face. At the precise CPA condition, this leads to an ideal interference trap for the two beams, so that eventually the radiation is entirely dissipated by the inter band absorption processes in the silicon. Counterintuitively,

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increasing the single-pass absorption would actually reduce the net absorption by disturbing the ideal balance of absorption and interference at the operating wavelength. For a given cavity Q-value, only a certain narrow range of absorption coefficients will yield strong CPA resonances. The reflection symmetry of our cavity implies that CPA resonances arise when the reflectance (R) and transmittance (T ) are equal, which occurs as varies through the band gap and strong absorption sets in. We use this condition to determine the operating wavelength range of 990 nm <~ <~ 1010 nm for our system ; fine-tuning within this interval yields strong CPA resonances. The key quantity measured in the experiment is the total intensity of the scattered radiation (reflectance plus transmittance from both sides). This is determined theoretically by the eigenvectors of the 2 2 S-matrix, which satisfy S(k) = s for = 1, 2. Because of the cavitys reflection symmetry, the eigenvectors take the form

where I is the incident intensity of the balanced beams and = 0, . The total scattered intensity for each eigenvector is 2|si|2I. Figure 3A shows a theoretical plot of S-matrix eigenvalue intensities, |s|2, assuming n = 3.6 + 0.0008i and slab thickness a = 115.79 mm (12). Multiple CPA resonances exist, occurring alternatively for even and odd eigenvectors.

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Fig 5.2 Phase modulation of beam absorption. If we work at a wavelength corresponding to a CPA resonance, such as the central minimum shown in Fig. 5.2A, In which (A) represents the Theoretical plot of normalized total output intensities as a function of wavelength l for parity-odd (blue) and parity-even (red) scattering eigenmodes. The dashed black line is the result for incoherent input beams. (B to D) represents the Theoretical output intensities at three representative values of l as the relative phase of the input beams is varied, showing intensities emitted to the right (magenta) and left (green) sides of the slab, and the total intensity (black). Values of l corresponding to (B) to (D) are marked by vertical lines in (A); (B) is the CPA resonance. (E to G) Experimental results at values of l approximately corresponding to (B) to (D). Solid lines are fits to the data, not theory curves; results are normalized to max(Iout) of the fit then, upon varying the relative phase from 0 to (keeping the two beam intensities constant and equal), the system goes from enhanced scattering (red curve) to nearly zero scattering (blue curve). Intermediate values of do not correspond to a single S-matrix eigenstate, so the scattered intensity interpolates between the extremal values. The black curve in Fig. 5.2A shows the expected scattered intensity for incident beams neglecting their interference, 2(R + T)I. At the CPA resonance, it lies

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roughly a factor of 2 below the scattered intensity of the even (red) mode, demonstrating substantial coherent reduction of absorption for thismode. This is due to constructive interference in this mode for escape from the cavity, reducing its total absorption; other, more complicated structures allow even larger contrast between the CPA mode and the scattered mode (11). There also exist phase-insensitive points between each pair of CPA resonances, seen in Fig. 5.2A where the red and blue curves cross. Here, the scattered intensity is completely independent of the relative phase of the two input beams and equal to the value for incoherent illumination.

The experimental data (Fig. 5.2, E to G) are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions (Fig 5.2, B to D). The theoretical plots show the normalized total output intensity at three representative values of the wavelength, indicated by the corresponding labels (b to d) in Fig. 5.2A. They show, respectively, an odd-parity CPA resonance (Fig. 5.2B); an intermediate wavelength, with a smaller total intensity variation with f but still a factor of ~2.5 in the scattering of the even and odd-parity beams (Fig. 5.2C); and a phase insensitive point (Fig. 5.2D). Also shown, along with the total output intensity, are the intensities as measured on the left and right. Generally, these two intensities have maximum attenuation at different values of . However at the wavelength corresponding to the CPA resonance (Fig. 5.2B), their minima coincide at a single (0 or ), producing an absorption contrast of several orders of magnitude. At the phase-insensitive point (Fig. 5.2D), the left and right outputs are precisely out of phase; varying f leaves the total output unchanged but switches the dominant output between left and right.

A convenient figure of merit for how close the experiment comes to the exact CPA condition is the modulation depth M() = max(Iout)/min(Iout), the ratio of the maximum to minimum total output intensity as we vary f. The observed values as a function of are shown in Fig. 5.1A. For a device satisfying the exact CPA condition, min(Iout)0 and so M. This does not occur in the present device because we slightly

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miss the CPA condition by tuning only one parameter, , leading to a maximum modulation depth of ~ to .

However, the limiting factors in the experiment are the temporal and spatial coherence of the laser, reducing M() to ~ . The finite laser line width (0.18 nm) smears out the CPA resonances, which are optimized for a monochromatic input. This effect can be partially compensated by filtering the output through a spectrometer [resolution 0.05 nm (12)]. This finite resolution of the spectrometer can be incorporated into the analysis, and the resulting theoretical curve, shown in Fig. 5.1A, agrees well with the experimental data. The dual role of interference in both enhancing and suppressing absorption can be seen more clearly in Fig. 5.1B, which compares the maximum and minimum output intensities to 2(R + T), the expected output intensity for two incoherent input beams. At the CPA resonant wavelength, the minimum output intensity is less than 1% of the input, while the incoherent illumination gives ~35% output. When the phase is adjusted to maximize the scattering, the output reaches ~70%.

Although we have demonstrated coherent reduction of absorption in our experiment, this effect should be distinguished from the phenomenon of

electromagnetically induced transparency, in which absorption is suppressed by coherently driving the absorbing medium itself, instead of by enhancing escape from the cavity by constructive interference, as in our system. Because this optical effect is easily realized in silicon, coherent perfect absorbers may enable novel functionalities in silicon integrated photonic circuits of the type envisioned for next generation optical communications and computing applications as well as for coherent laser spectroscopy. The simplest versions of the device immediately would serve as compact on-chip interferometers, which absorb or scatter the input beams instead of steering them. Although our current CPA operates near the silicon band edge, it should be possible to fabricate devices in which an additional parameter tunes the absorption coefficient independently of (e.g., by free carrier injection or by optical pumping), allowing one to fix the operating wavelength by design. Directband gap semiconductors also are suitable materials for CPAs, assuming that fluorescent emission can be tolerated or avoided in a

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specific application. Recent theoretical work has proposed a fascinating extension of the CPA concept, suitable for directband gap materials: Systems with balanced gain and loss can function simultaneously as a CPA and as a laser (i.e., as an interferometric amplifier attenuator). The CPA effect is not immediately applicable to photovoltaic or stealth technology because it is a narrow-band effect requiring coherent inputs.

The simplest possible CPA is a single port reflector,similar to critically-coupled fiber-resonator" systems. However, important properties of the CPA are only revealed with multiple ports and hence non-trivial eigenvectors. We study a two-port case, consisting of a one-dimensional slab of thickness a and uniform index n, with two input channels for each k corresponding to incident radiation from left and right. In Fig 5.3, we plot the{nv(k)} which produces a zero of the S-matrix for a fixed k, where ka = 664.7. In practice, a material will have a frequency-dependent n(k); when the material is fabricated and illuminated in a 2-port configuration, one may realize a CPA by scanning k and looking for coincidences, i.e. n(k)nv(k) for some integers v.

Fig 5.3 Complex refractive indices for the uniform dielectric slab as a CPA

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In the fig 4 Parity-even solutions are shown as hollow blue circles; parity-odd solutions are omitted for clarity. The green curve shows the refractive index of Si at different frequencies. Inset: parity-even solutions (hollow blue circles) and parity-odd solutions (filled red circles) in the region 3.55 < Re(n) < 3.62; the green cross shows the index of Si at ka = 664.7, a = 100 m (i.e. = 945.3 nm). Fig. 5.4 shows the S-matrix eigenvalue intensities for a slab of undoped Si, with a = 100 m where S are S-matrix eigenvalues) vs. the wavelength = 2/k, for a 100 m Si slab.
Solid lines show ( ) for a parity-even (blue) or parity-odd (red) eigenmode. The dashed line shows 2(r2 + t2), the total output intensity when the two input beams are incoherent. Inset: upper and lower bounds for s2 over a wide range of . Deep CPA minima

are achieved in the neighborhood of = 945nm, with a maximum intensity contrast 50 dB, and more than ten substantial minima are visible in the range 938nm < < 954nm. The location of these minima is a-dependent and hence tunable within a given material. Further aspects of the CPA phenomenon can be explored with non-uniform and/or higher-dimensional systems. For instance, we have shown that it is possible to use a periodic array of slabs (i.e., a one-dimensional photonic crystal) to optimize the contrast between the perfectly absorbed and incoherent/reduced-absorption illumination conditions.

Fig 5.4 Semi-log plot of normalized output intensities Dept. of ECE CEM,Punnapra

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More generally, the exact time-reversal symmetry property that relates laser emission to coherent perfect absorption implies that an arbitrarily complicated scattering system can be made to perfectly absorb at discrete frequencies if its imaginary refractive index can be tuned continuously over a reasonable range of values, and if appropriate coherent incident beams can be imposed. Progress in these areas would open up interesting new avenues for future research and applications.

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CHAPTER 6 APPLICATIONS OF ANTI-LASER TECHNOLOGY

In the anti-laser the absorbed photon energy may flow out of the cavity in a number of different forms. In direct band gap materials, a large fraction will be reemitted via fluorescence, which is not generally desirable, whereas in indirect band gap materials such as Si, it can be extracted in the form of heat and/or photocurrent, either of which could be useful. Therefore, materials which are not useful as lasing media, such as Si, make good CPAs, whereas good lasing materials, such as GaAs, make poor CPAs. By utilising this property and the complete light absorbing capability CPAs can be used in number of applications and some of them are listed here.

CPAs are potentially useful as transducers, modulators, or optical switches, for example, in on-chip integrated optical circuits based on Si waveguide or resonator technology. We have verified that with realistic non optimized parameters a Si single-mode waveguide with 0.9 m distributed-Bragg-reflector mirrors and a 4 m loss region of pure intrinsic Si exhibits a CPA absorption resonance at 947 nm with contrast of roughly 90%. Operation likely can be extended into the communications wavelengths around 1.5 m by designing devices with index tuning via free carrier injection as has already been achieved in other Si-based resonant photonic circuits

The main applications of CPA are 1. CPAs are potentially useful as transducers, modulators, or optical switches, for example, in on-chip integrated optical circuits based on Si waveguide or resonator technology. In telecommunication, an optical switch is a switch that enables signals in optical fibers or integrated optical circuits (IOCs) to be selectively switched from one circuit to another. Systems that perform this function by physically switching light are often referred to as "photonic" switches, independent of how the light itself is switched. Away from the world of telecom systems, an optical switch is the unit that actually switches Dept. of ECE CEM,Punnapra

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light between fibers, and a photonic switch is one that does this by exploiting nonlinear material properties to steer light (i.e., to switch wavelengths or signals within a given fiber). Hence a certain portion of the optical switch market is made up of photonic switches. These will contain within them an optical switch, which will, in a small number of cases, be a photonic switch. An optical switch may operate by mechanical means, such as physically shifting an optical fiber to drive one or more alternative fibers, or by electro-optic effects, magneto-optic effects, or other methods. Slow optical switches, such as those using moving fibers, may be used for alternate routing of an optical

switch transmission path, such as routing around a fault. Fast optical switches, such as those using electro-optic or magneto-optic effects, may be used to perform logic operations; also included in this category are the semiconductor optical amplifiers, which are optoelectronic devices that can be used as optical switches and be integrated with discrete or integrated microelectronic circuits. In such a way there is a huge application for CPA to be act as an optical switch in integrated optical circuits since these can control the light flow by enabling and disabling the anti-laser action.

Fig 6.1 Optical switching by means of laser action

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2. Coherent perfect absorbers can be used to build absorptive interferometers, which could be used in detectors, transducers, and optical switches In general, the goal of absorption spectroscopy is to measure how well a sample absorbs or transmits light at each different wavelength. Since the CPA are capable of perfectly absorbing the light of specific wavelength they have an important role in absorptive interferometers The absortive spectrometer is just a Michelson interferometer but one of the two fully-reflecting mirrors is movable, allowing a variable delay (in the travel-time of the light) to be included in one of the beams. 3. The applications of anti-laser could lead to optical switches replacing transistors in future computers. Optical computers could potentially be much more powerful than today's computers, given that the size of components could be shrunk beyond the limits of today's electron-based technologies. An optical computer (also called a photonic computer) is a device that performs its computation using photons of visible light or infrared (IR) beams, rather than electrons in an electric current. The computers we use today use transistors and semiconductors to control electricity but computers of the future may utilize crystals and metamaterials to control light. This is why scientists have been trying for some time to find ways to produce integrated circuits that operate on the basis of photons instead of electrons. The reason is that photons do not only generate much less heat than electrons, but they also enable considerably higher data transfer rates. And the research group has now achieved a decisive breakthrough by successfully creating an optical transistor with a single molecule. By using one laser beam to prepare the quantum state of a single molecule in a controlled fashion, scientists could significantly attenuate or amplify a second laser beam. This mode of operation is identical to that of a conventional transistor, in which electrical potential can be used to modulate a second signal.

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Fig 6.2 optical transistor schematic view 4. The CPA device could be an integral element in optical computers, a long promised successor to today's computers that would use light instead of electrons to process information. Researchers have created a new process for making complex miniature waveguides that can steer optical signals in three dimensions through solid materials. All optical computers could approach the theoretical speed of a photonic switch which is estimated to be on the order of petahertz ( ). They should definitely achieve multi-

terahertz speeds. So 1000 to 1 million times faster than current computers at 4 Gigahertz (4x ).

5. An anti-laser switch could help solve one of the toughest challenges in building an optical computer, namely the management and manipulation of the light used to encode information. For instance, a CPA could be used in an optical switch, one that would absorb light of a particular wavelength while letting light with other wavelengths pass. An electric current creates heat in computer systems and as the processing speed increases, so does the amount of electricity required; this extra heat is extremely damaging to the hardware. Photons, however, create substantially less amounts of heat than electrons, on a given size scale, thus the development of more powerful processing systems becomes possible. By applying some of the advantages of visible and/or IR networks at the device and component scale, a computer might someday be developed that can perform operations significantly faster than a conventional electronic computer.

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Coherent light beams, unlike electric currents in metal conductors, pass through each other without interfering; electrons repel each other, while photons do not. For this reason, signals over copper wires degrade rapidly while fiber optic cables do not have this problem. Several laser beams can be transmitted in such a way that their paths intersect, with little or no interference among them - even when they are confined essentially to two dimensions.

6. It could also be used to detect incoming light, or as a waveguide to direct beams of light along certain routes. Currently a packet has to traverse a certain number of routers, before reaching its destination and the network routers must analyze each packet and forward it towards the direction of the destination node. However since a flow is defined as a sequence of packets going from the same source to the same destination, if the router recognises the flow it could create a short-cut by creating a switched connection allowing all the packets belonging to the same IP flow to proceed directly towards the correct direction without being analyzed one after the other. This general idea is known as IP switching.

If the shortcut however occurs at an optical level, the process becomes Optical IP Switching. The advantage of OIS comes from the fact that today packets are transmitted optically between two points but at each routing station they have to be converted into electrical signal, routed and converted back into optical to continue their travel over the optical fiber. If instead the router is able to recognise a flow, it could create a shortcut (cut-through connection) directly at the optical level, and all the packets belonging to the same flow could be directed to the right destination without the optical-to-electrical conversion process. This would save time, energy, memory and processing resources on the router.

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8. The simplest versions of the anti-laser immediately would serve as compact on-chip interferometers, which absorb or scatter the input beams instead of steering them. 9. The most potential application is in radiology, where the principle of the CPA might be used to precisely target electromagnetic radiation inside human tissues for therapeutic or imaging purposes

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CHAPTER 7 CURRENT RESEARCHES AND ACHIEVEMENTS IN ANTI-LASER TECHNOLOGY

Now the anti-laser become a reality and on 17 February 2011 Yale physicist A. Douglas Stone and his team published a study explaining the theory behind an anti-laser, demonstrating that such a device could be built using silicon, the most common semiconductor material. But it wasn't until now, after joining forces with the experimental group of his colleague Hui Cao, that the team actually built a functioning anti-laser.

In anti-laser the scientists focused two laser beams with a specific frequency into a cavity containing a silicon wafer that acted as a "loss medium." The wafer aligned the light waves in such a way that they became perfectly trapped, bouncing back and forth indefinitely until they were eventually absorbed and transformed into heat. Using time reversal of the lasing operation and the source of the laser, [the Yale researchers] found a very elegant way to make a perfect absorber of light, says Mathias Fink, a physicist at ESCPI Paris Tech who developed the first time reversal techniques applied to sound waves.

The anti-laser, officially known as a coherent perfect absorber (CPA), is about one centimeter across, and capable of absorbing 99.4 percent of incoming light. According to Yale physicist A. Douglas Stone, however, the current model is merely a proof-of-concept. He believes that future versions should be able to absorb 99.999 percent of the light, and could be built as small as six microns approximately onetwentieth the width of a human hair. The current CPA is also limited to absorbing nearinfrared light, but Stone believes that by altering the cavity and the loss medium, future versions should be able to handle visible and infrared light. The Yale physicist A. Douglas Stone and his team published a study explaining the theory behind an anti-laser, demonstrating that such a device could be built using silicon, the most common semiconductor material. But it wasn't until now, after joining forces with the

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experimental group of his colleague Hui Cao, that the team actually built a functioning anti-laser. The team, whose results appear in the Feb. 18 issue of the journal Science, focused two laser beams with a specific frequency into a cavity containing a silicon wafer that acted as a "loss medium." The wafer aligned the light waves in such a way that they became perfectly trapped, bouncing back and forth indefinitely until they were eventually absorbed and transformed into heat. Stone believes that CPAs could one day be used as optical switches, detectors and other components in the next generation of computers, called optical computers, which will be powered by light in addition to electrons. Another application might be in radiology, where Stone said the principle of the CPA could be employed to target electromagnetic radiation to a small region within normally opaque human tissue, either for therapeutic or imaging purposes. Theoretically, the CPA should be able to absorb 99.999 percent of the incoming light. Due to experimental limitations, the team's current CPA absorbs 99.4 percent. "But the CPA we built is just a proof of concept," Stone said. "I'm confident we will start to approach the theoretical limit as we build more sophisticated CPAs." Similarly, the team's first CPA is about one centimeter across at the moment, but Stone said that computer simulations have shown how to build one as small as six microns (about one-twentieth the width of an average human hair). The team that built the CPA, led by Cao and another Yale physicist, Wenjie Wan, demonstrated the effect for near-infrared radiation, which is slightly "redder" than the eye can see and which is the frequency of light that the device naturally absorbs when ordinary silicon is used. But the team expects that, with some tinkering of the cavity and loss medium in future versions, the CPA will be able to absorb visible light as well as the specific infrared frequencies used in fiber optic communications. It was while explaining the complex physics behind lasers to a visiting professor that Stone first came up with the idea of an anti-laser. When Stone suggested his colleague think about a laser working in reverse in order to help him understand how a conventional laser works, Stone began contemplating whether it was possible to actually build a laser that would work backwards, absorbing light at specific frequencies rather than emitting it.

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CHAPTER 8 CHALLENGES TO ANTI-LASER TECHNOLOGY

However the anti-laser is physically a reality but the application of this

technology in the existing technologies need more studies and experiments This technology is only limited to coherent light which reduces the wide applications of the technology in the field of science. The CPA effect is not immediately applicable to photovoltaic or stealth technology because it is a narrow-band effect requiring coherent inputs.

The application of CPA in the computing field is currently very expensive.

The implementation of the technology in the research fields are very complicated one.

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CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSION
Here we discussed about the Anti-Laser technology (coherent perfect absorber technology) which exactly the opposite that of the Laser technology in which the darkness amplification by stimulated absorption of radiation is occurring thats why it is
also called DASER. This technology is based on the optoelectronic principle of Time-

Reversed Lasing and Interferometric Control of Absorption. In the Anti-Laser in which

incoming beams of light interfere with one another in such a way as to perfectly cancel each other out to form a complete darkness otherwise it causes the complete exactly 99.99% absorption of the incoming coherent light. The Anti-Laser technology has a tremendous scope in the field of optical computing which would be the next generation super computers in which light is used to process the data instead of electrons in the conventional computers .It is also applicable in laser spectroscopy and many other fields. In future this technology will make a huge impact in computing and many other areas.

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REFERENCES 1. Time-Reversed Lasing and Interferometric Control of Absorption

Wenjie Wan, Yidong Chong, Li Ge, Heeso Noh, A. Douglas Stone, Hui Cao* Science 331, 889 (2011); DOI: 10.1126/science.1200735

2. Coherent Perfect Absorbers: Time-reversed Lasers IEEE 2010

Y. D. Chong, Li Ge, Hui Cao, and A. D. Stone Department of Applied Physics, Yale University, New Haven, OCIS codes: (030.1670) Coherent optical absorbers; (290.5825) Scattering theory 3. IEEE Spectrum online magazine 2011 feb edition 4. www.wikipedia.com 5. science daily online science magazine 2011 may edition 6. www. iee.ucsb.edu 7. Optical computing Damien Woods Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence University of Seville, Spain 2008

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