Ortwin Hess
Ortwin Hess | |
---|---|
Born | 1966 |
Alma mater | University of Erlangen |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Stanford University Tampere University of Technology University of Edinburgh University of Marburg University of Stuttgart |
Website | www |
Ortwin Hess (born 1966) is a German-born theoretical
Early life
Hess is a graduate of the
Research
Investigating slow light in metamaterials Hess has discovered and explained the ‘trapped-rainbow’ principle[4] by which the constituent colours of a light pulse are brought to a complete stand-still at different points inside a metamaterial (or plasmonic) heterostructre. He pioneered active metamaterials[5] with quantum gain,[6] developed the theory for optical chirality in self-organised nanoplasmonic metamaterials[7][8] and recently introduced ‘stopped-light lasing’[9] as a novel route to cavity-free nanolasing and localisation of amplified surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) that is reminiscent of SPP-condensation.
Interest in the field of ‘slow’ and ‘stopped’ light arises from the prospect of obtaining much better control over light signals, with extremely nonlinear effects in interactions between light and matter, and optical quantum memories facilitating new architectures to process quantum information.[10] With conventional dielectric materials, having a positive refractive index, it is impossible to ‘stop’ travelling light signals completely, not least because of the presence of structural disorder.[10] This was an important observation, which Hess made from his extensive studies of slow light in semiconductor quantum dots[11][12] and the dynamics of their spontaneous emission close to the stopped-light point in photonic crystals.[13] Hess showed theoretically that a way to overcome this fundamental limitation of conventional media was to use nanoplasmonic waveguide structures.[9][10]
Hess has also made contributions to spatiotemporal and nonlinear dynamics in semiconductor lasers[12][14][15][16] and research in computational photonics. Algorithms and codes developed in his group run on high-performance parallel computers and have been used to elucidate a rich variety of aspects of modern nano-physics ranging from the definition of temperature in nanoscale systems,[17] to optimisation of ultrashort pulses in experimentally realised quantum-dot semiconductor optical amplifiers.[12] Since 2011, Hess developed the theory of optical activity in chiral nanoplasmonic metamaterials[8] that provided explanation of experiments on tunability in self-organised gold metamaterials.[7]
Recently Hess has started to develop "meta-lasers" and proposed "stopped-light nanolasing". This exploits and unites his competence in nanoplasmonic metamaterials, quantum photonics and semiconductor lasers. Initially the motivation for the work was to compensate dissipative losses in metamaterials by introducing gain.[18] But now, one aims at realising a new class of ultrafast ‘stopped-light nanolasers’, with unprecedented design features such as being smaller than a fifth of the wavelength and ultrafast and providing a platform to integrate both light and amplified plasmons,[9][10] to enable integration at the nanoscale with semiconductor chips for telecommunications.
References
- ^ "Ortwin Hess". Google Scholar. Retrieved 4 May 2014.
- ^ "Professor Ortwin Hess". University of Surrey. Archived from the original on 4 May 2014. Retrieved 4 May 2014.
- ^ "Ortwin Hess". Abbe School of Photonics. Retrieved 4 May 2014.
- S2CID 34711078.
- PMID 22717488.
- S2CID 206545802.
- ^ S2CID 40084235.
- ^ S2CID 33216292.
- ^ PMID 25230337.
- ^ PMID 24815668.
- ^ Hess, O.; Gehrig E. (2011). "Photonics of Quantum Dot Nanomaterials and Devices: Theory and Modelling". London: Imperial College Press.
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- S2CID 8052791.
- PMID 10056995.
- ISBN 978-3-540-00741-8.
- S2CID 8052791.
- PMID 21807726.
- Hamm, J. M., & Hess, O. (2013). Two Two-Dimensional Materials are Better Than One, Science 340, 1298–1299.
- Pusch, A., Wuestner, S., Hamm, J. M., Tsakmakidis, K. L., & Hess, O. (2012). Coherent Amplification and Noise in Gain-Enhanced Nanoplasmonic Metamaterials: A Maxwell-Bloch Langevin Approach. ACS Nano, 6, 2420–2431.
- Hamm, J. M., Wuestner, S., Tsakmakidis, K. L., & Hess, O. (2011). Theory of light amplification in active fishnet metamaterials. Phys Rev Lett, 107, 167405.
- Wuestner, S., Pusch, A., Tsakmakidis, K. L., Hamm, J. M., & Hess, O. (2010). Overcoming losses with gain in a negative refractive index metamaterial. Phys Rev Lett, 105, 127401.
- Hess, O. (2008). Optics: Farewell to flatland. Nature, 455, 299–300.
- Bohringer, K., & Hess, O. (2008). A full-time-domain approach to spatio-temporal dynamics of semiconductor lasers. I. Theoretical formulation. Prog Quant Electron, 32, 159–246.
- Ruhl, T., Spahn, P., Hermann, C., Jamois, C., & Hess, O. (2006). Double-inverse-opal photonic crystals: The route to photonic bandgap switching. Adv Funct Materials, 16, 885.
- Gehrig, E., Hess, O., Ribbat, C., Sellin, R. L., & Bimberg, D. (2004). Dynamic filamentation and beam quality of quantum-dot lasers. Appl Phys Lett, 84, 1650.