39 38 Key research Area ULTRA OPTICS ULTRA OPTICS Key research Area KEY RESEARCH AREA ULTRA OPTICS Optical technologies form an indispensable basis for addressing pressing tasks of our society. Hence they are researched, developed, and provided by the Abbe Center of Photonics (ACP). This requires complete control of light in all its properties. Firstly, this control makes it possible to initiate processes with light. Secondly, it enables the use of light as an instrument, tool or information carrier. ACP‘s key research area ULTRA OPTICS takes on this challenge as a synergistic combination of two fields of modern optics, Nano Optics and Laser Physics, with major contributions from the enabling fields Photonic Materials, Optical Systems and Quantum Technologies. The objective of the key research area ULTRA OPTICS is to thoroughly control light with extreme parameters – in terms of wavelength, pulse duration, spatial concentration, and power – from basic research all the way to applications. Initiated by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, ULTRA OPTICS was originally founded in 2005 as a Center for Innovation Competence (ZIK). ULTRA OPTICS was the major driving force to found ACP in order to integrate Jena‘s research on optics and photonics with a much wider scope. Today ULTRA OPTICS is a successful and mature center of research and innovation for optical technologies. At the same time, it forms an integral part of ACP to combine with the key research areas STRONG FIELD PHYSICS and BIOPHOTONICS in a synergetic way. NANO OPTICS Nanotechnology is an approach to understand and master the properties of light and matter at the nanoscale. It is considered to be a major factor of innovation in science and economy of this century, since it will enable to shrink and integrate optics to make it compatible to the size of electronics and to realize truly opto-electronic systems. Within this strongly interdisciplinary development, ULTRA OPTICS‘ research field Nano Optics conducts major efforts to provide fundamental understanding as well as key solutions to ground breaking applications, such as light harvesting, nanosized single photon sources, biophotonic sensors, nanoelectronics, and nanomedicine. State-of-the-art nanofabrication technologies allow for the realization of optical structures with sub-wavelength and therefore sub-micron dimensions. These structures can be either tiny photonic components, such as, e.g. waveguide bends, apertures, microdiscs, and nanoantennas, or they can exhibit periodic arrangements as e.g. diffraction gratings, photonic fibers, artificial crystals and metamaterials. In close collaboration between theory, technology, and experiments, fundamental effects of Nano Optics are examined by ACP‘s scientists. Relevant, producible nanostructures are designed, modeled and characterized with the aim of realizing and using optical systems with new functionality. Examples of recent research activities of ACP‘s scientists targeted the strong coupling of plasmonic nanoantennas to quantum systems, the light-induced self-organization of photonic nanostructures, the synthesis of nano-scaled multiphoton light sources, or the generation and control of diffractionless plasmonic beams, just to mention a few. LASER PHYSICS Together with the global photonics community, ACP‘s principal scientists celebrated the 50th an- niversary of the invention of the laser in 2010. Based on the quantum-mechanical effect of stimulated emission, which was postulated by Albert Einstein in 1917, the laser has enabled a number of seminal discoveries in modern science over the last decades. Moreover a considerable market for laser devices has been developed, which is revolutionizing industrial production and has broad impact on our daily life. ULTRA OPTICS‘ research area Laser Physics covers activities ranging from the development of lasers able to create extreme intensities (>1020 W/cm2) or ultra-high average powers above the kW barrier. It includes the control of laser radiation at ultrafast time scales as well as theoretical and experimental studies on light-matter interactions under extreme conditions and in novel structures. The research programs run Spectrocsopic characterization of artificial, nanostructured photonic materials. ULTRA OPTICS NANO OPTICS CONTROLLING LIGHT BELOW THE DIFFRACTION LIMIT BY USE OF NANOSTRUCTURES. PHOTONIC MATERIALS ENGINEERING MATERIAL PROPERTIES OF LIGHT-MATTER INTERACTION. OPTICAL SYSTEMS COMBINING EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES INTO COMPLEX MULTIFUNCTIONAL PHOTONIC SYSTEMS. QUANTUM TECHNOLOGIES EXPLORING QUANTUM SUPERPOSITION AND ENTANGLEMENT FOR NOVEL APPLICATIONS. LASER PHYSICS EXPLORING NEW COMPACT LIGHT SOURCES WITH EXTREME PROPERTIES. ULTRA OPTICS fuses its five complementary fields into a combined effort, where the synergy of multiple fields open up fundamentally new possibilities for the realization of truly multifunctional optical systems.
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