SPP 1391:  Ultrafast Nanooptics

• Subject Area: Physics
• Term: from 2009 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 72946949

The aim of this Priority Programme is to analyse, coherently control and utilise the spatiotemporal dynamics of electromagnetic excitations in metallic nanostructures and hybrid nanostructures. In such systems, electromagnetic excitations tend to be highly localised and strongly enhanced. Such field-localisation phenomena play a key role in a variety of important applications across the disciplines, including the realisation of novel laser structures, the exploitation of optical nonlinearities for ultra-sensitive chemical and biological probing, and the development of enhanced single-photon sources for quantum information processing. The coherent excitation of nanostructures by ultrafast broadband light pulses adds the temporal degree of freedom and allows for controlling the spatiotemporal properties of nanolocalised fields.
The evolving field of “Ultrafast nanooptics” offers substantially more than the sum of high temporal and spatial resolution. It yields enormous added value by providing access to near-field excitations and interactions that are beyond the reach of existing ultrafast techniques. Understanding and manipulating the electromagnetic field dynamics in nanostructures is a challenging and fundamental experimental and theoretical problem. On the theoretical side, the challenge consists in self-consistently describing the coupled evolution of quantum systems and mesoscopic electromagnetic fields.
The research topics tackled in this Priority Programme cover the coupling between ultrashort laser pulses and nanostructures, the propagation of broadband nanooptical excitations, nonlinear phenomena in nanooptics, and coherent control of nanooptical excitations. In addition to fundamental aspects also new spectroscopic applications are realised in the interdisciplinary field between physics, chemistry and biology.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• International Connection: Denmark

Projects

• Adaptive control of tip-enhanced near-field optical signals in carbon nanotubes (Applicant Hartschuh, Achim )
• Attosecond probing of localized surface plasmon fields (Applicant Kleineberg, Ulf )
• Coordination and workshops (Applicants Aeschlimann, Martin ;  Pfeiffer, Walter )
• Coupling mediated coherent control of localized plasmonic resonances (Applicant Zentgraf, Thomas )
• Exciton-plasmon interaction in metal-semiconductor hybrid nanostructures (Applicants Lienau, Ph.D., Christoph ;  Runge, Erich )
• Femtosecond dynamics and control of metal-organic hybrid plasmonic systems (Applicant Bauer, Michael )
• Femtosecond quantum optics with semiconductor-metal hybrid nanostructures (Applicant Bratschitsch, Rudolf )
• Hydrodynamic Modeling of the Ultrafast Nonlinear Optical Response of Metallic Nanostructures (Applicant Busch, Kurt )
• Light propagation and nonlinear optical respnose in silver cluster-porphyrin nanostructures (Applicant Mitric, Roland )
• Multipole interactions in nanooptical and plasmonic systems for nanosensors and nanooptical logical elements (Applicant Reinhardt, Carsten )
• Nanolocalization of time-reversed coherent optical fields in random scattering media (Applicant Pfeiffer, Walter )
• Nichtlineare Wechselwirkungen in einkristallinen plasmonischen Nanoschaltkreisen (Applicants Brixner, Tobias ;  Hecht, Bert )
• Nichtlinieare plasmonische Nanoantennen aus Lithiumniobat (Applicants Pertsch, Thomas ;  Rockstuhl, Carsten )
• Nonlinear optics in complex, chiral, and 3D plasmonic nanostructures (Applicant Giessen, Harald )
• Optical coherent control of electrical currents in semiconductor-metal hybrid nanostructures: physics and spectroscopic applications (Applicant Betz, Markus )
• Optical spatio-temporal optical control of electron-induced processes at graphene-supported metal cluster nano-structures (Applicant Bernhardt, Thorsten M. )
• Optimization, pulse shaping and optical control in nanostructures (Applicant Förstner, Jens )
• Physics and applications of a novel nanometer-sized femtosecond electron souce (Applicants Lienau, Ph.D., Christoph ;  Ropers, Claus )
• Real-time investigation of surface plasmon plariton propagation in nanoscale plasmonic phase structures (Applicants Aeschlimann, Martin ;  Oesterschulze, Egbert )
• Short-wavelength photon and electron emission in free and deposited nanoparticles by controlled ultrafast laserinduced nanolocalized fields (Applicants Fennel, Thomas ;  Kling, Matthias ;  Rühl, Eckart )
• Simultaneous spatial and temporal control of the local excitation of a nanostructure using polarization-shaped laser pulses (Applicants Aeschlimann, Martin ;  Brixner, Tobias ;  Pfeiffer, Walter )
• Theory of spatio-temporally resolved optical dynamics - excitation, propagation and detection of elementary processes in hybrid-nanostructures (Applicant Richter, Marten )
• Transfer of Angular Monentum by Circularly Polarized Near Fields (Applicants Butt, Hans-Jürgen ;  Elmers, Hans-Joachim )
• Ultrafast nanooptics: Plasmon Coupling, Propagation, and Interference on the Nanoscale, using femtosecond photoemmission microscopy (Applicant Meyer zu Heringdorf, Frank-Joachim )
• Ultrafast nonlinear optical response of metallic nanostructures: Collective effects and hybrid materials (Applicant Linden, Stefan )
• Ultrafast spatially-inhomogeneous optical nonlinearities of metal nanostructures analyzed by ab-initio based Maxwell-Bloch equations (Applicant Meier, Torsten )
• Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Microscopy of Exciton Dynamics in Hybrid Organic solar cell blend film/ Plasmonic Systems on the Nanometer Scale (Applicant Meixner, Alfred J. )
• Utilizing a nanoantenna for ultrafast spectroscopy of a single semiconductor nanocrystal (Applicant Lippitz, Markus )

• Spokespersons: Professor Dr. Martin Aeschlimann; Professor Dr. Walter Pfeiffer