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The nano-device has been used to create and control “rogue optical waves” to help with research in energy, advanced imaging and environmental safety.
The team is working with scientists from Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands to help better understand the dynamics of such destructive events by controlling their formation in photonic crystal-based optical chips.
The university writes:
The team began the research by developing new theoretical ideas to explain the formation of rare energetic natural events such as rogue waves, large surface waves that develop out of the blue in deep water and represent a potential risk for vessels and open-ocean oil platforms. Specifically the researchers linked the probability of these events with the rate at which energy is lost in a chaotic sea.
The chip generates ultrafast (163 fs long) and subwavelength (203 mn wide) nanoscale rogue optical waves.
“The advantage of using light confined in an optical chip is that we can control very carefully how the energy in a chaotic system is dissipated, giving rise to these rare and extreme events,” said Dr Di Falco, leader of the Synthetic Optics group at the University’s School of Physics and Astronomy.
“It is as if we were able to produce a determined amount of waves of unusual height in a small lake, just by accurately landscaping its coasts and controlling the size and number of its emissaries.”
‘Triggering extreme events at the nanoscale in photonic seas‘ is published by Nature Physics.
