JOSA B Feature Issue
Nonlinear Optics Near the Fundamental Limit
Submission Open: 1 April 2016
Submission Deadline: 31 July 2016
Since the invention of the laser, the field of nonlinear optics has grown into a worldwide research enterprise that has led to the discovery and the design of novel materials, devices, measurement methods, light sources, etc. Despite this, the development of practical nonlinear optical materials has stalled in recent years, in part because most of the design rules available to researchers reflect past, empirical paradigms that have led to molecules and materials that sport large absolute nonlinearities, but are not necessarily efficient when compared to the fundamental limit. An analysis based on fundamental limits and scale invariance—which removes the influence on molecular size—has spawned new methods for molecular design and optimization as well as new spinoffs to fundamental research in quantum mechanics, and a new meeting called Foundations of Nonlinear Optics (FoNLO), the third of which will be held at Tufts University in late summer, 2016.
Collective discoveries from the meeting, coupled with recent advances in synthetic chemistry, point toward the emergence of a coherent set of ideas for designing materials whose optical nonlinearities approach the fundamental limits. This feature issue will draw from past and future FoNLO participants, targeting theorists with new approaches whose work makes connections to specific quantum systems such as molecules and quantum wires; chemists, materials scientists and nanotechnologists who make molecules/materials; and experimentalists who characterize materials and apply these new theoretical guidelines to analyze experimental results and invent new classes of materials. A special issue of JOSA B will bring all this work together in one place. The readership will include researchers in chemical synthesis and molecular computation, experimental characterization, materials science and engineering, nanotechnology, lasers and microlasers, multimodal (cellular) imaging and related interdisciplinary fields.
The JOSA B special issue will focus on the development of a fundamental, first principles analysis of the nonlinear response focusing on its origins, and seeking to define and analyze scale-invariant quantities that determine the strength of the nonlinear optical response yet with special attention to the boundary conditions for real materials, such as the size and shape of molecules.
Topics for the feature issue include:
- Delineation of design features that result in large intrinsic (that is, large compared to the size of a molecule and/or the corresponding quantum limit) nonlinear optical responses
- Connection between new designs and prior art, showing the origin of the gap between experimental nonlinearities and fundamental limits
- Scaling in molecular systems consistent with achieving fundamental limits
- Experimental investigation of scaling properties
- Interpretation of experimental data in terms of the design features reflecting the underlying quantum nature of the system
- Proposals for new molecular and material designs that optimize a quantum system.
- Exotic materials optimally reflecting the new design features
- Relationship to bulk properties of materials
- Designing device materials from quantum principles that optimize the figures of merit
This special issue in JOSA B will feature both invited and contributed papers in the key areas covered by FoNLO. While past and upcoming meeting participants are particularly encouraged to submit their work, this special issue is open to all contributions. All papers need to present original, previously unpublished work, and will be subject to the normal standards and peer-review process of the journal. To be eligible for publication, the papers need to add substantial and/or significant new information to the original conference summary.
Manuscripts must be prepared according to the usual standards for submission to JOSA B (see: /josab/content/author/portal/item/templates-default) and uploaded through OSA's electronic submission system: (/josab/content/author/portal/item/templates-default), specifying from the drop-down menu that the manuscript is for the Feature Issue on Nonlinear Optics Near the Fundamental Limit.
Feature Issue Editors
Timothy Atherton, Tufts University (Lead)
Ivan Biaggio, Lehigh University
Koen Clays, University of Leuven, Belgium