Noble-metal nanostructures support collective electron resonances, known as plasmons, that can concentrate optical fields down to nanometer-scale volumes, well below the conventional diffraction limit. The strong localization of electromagnetic fields greatly enhances nonlinear optical processes, both in the metal nanostructure itself and in adjacent optical materials. Because the processes occur entirely within a sub-wavelength volume, the usual phase-matching conditions for these processes are lifted. Observable signals have thus been produced even from single nanostructures. When the strength of coupling between the plasmons in the metal nanostructures and resonant materials (such molecules, molecular aggregates, quantum dots) exceeds decay rates in the coupled system, new phenomena appear. In particular, mixed light-matter systems known as polaritons are formed in this “strong-coupling” regime. These quasiparticles synergistically combine the nonlinear properties of the plasmonic and excitonic constituents and are thus ideal for the development of efficient nonlinear photonic devices. Ensembles of quantum emitters optically coupled to plasmonic nanocavities, have recently emerged as new platforms for strong light-matter interactions. This talk overviews recent advances in the research field of polaritonic systems discussing both linear and nonlinear optical phenomena.

Bio: Dr. Maxim Sukharev is Professor of Physics at Arizona State University. He received his MS in theoretical physics from Moscow Engineering Physics Institute in 1997, and PhD in 2000 from the Department of High-Power Lasers (General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences). From 1998 to 2001, he worked as a research assistant at the Fiber Optics Research Center, Moscow. In 2001, he received the French Ministry of Research Postdoctoral Fellowship and joined the research group of Professor Annick Suzor-Weiner at the CNRS Laboratory of Molecular Photophysics (University of Paris South, Orsay). During his appointment, he was involved in the research of optimal and coherent control of atoms and molecules in strong laser fields. In summer of 2003, he joined the research group of Professor Tamar Seideman at the Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University as a postdoctoral fellow. He joined the Arizona State University faculty in 2008. His current research interests include computational nano-optics; coherent control, and physics of light-matter interaction in strong and ultra-strong coupling regimes. http://sukharev.faculty.asu.edu ; https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/1271759