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Parametric amplification of a superconducting plasma wave

Nature Physics volume 12, pages 1012–1016 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Many applications in photonics require all-optical manipulation of plasma waves1, which can concentrate electromagnetic energy on sub-wavelength length scales. This is difficult in metallic plasmas because of their small optical nonlinearities. Some layered superconductors support Josephson plasma waves2,3, involving oscillatory tunnelling of the superfluid between capacitively coupled planes. Josephson plasma waves are also highly nonlinear4, and exhibit striking phenomena such as cooperative emission of coherent terahertz radiation5,6, superconductor–metal oscillations7 and soliton formation8. Here, we show that terahertz Josephson plasma waves can be parametrically amplified through the cubic tunnelling nonlinearity in a cuprate superconductor. Parametric amplification is sensitive to the relative phase between pump and seed waves, and may be optimized to achieve squeezing of the order-parameter phase fluctuations9 or terahertz single-photon devices.

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Figure 1: Schematic representation of Josephson plasma waves.
Figure 2: Linear JPWs in LBCO9.5.
Figure 3: Nonlinear JPWs in LBCO9.5.
Figure 4: Amplification and suppression of plasma oscillations.
Figure 5: Time-delay-dependent and frequency-dependent loss function.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement no. 319286 (QMAC). We acknowledge support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft via the excellence cluster ‘The Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging—Structure, Dynamics and Control of Matter at the Atomic Scale’ and the Priority Program SFB925. Work performed at Brookhaven was supported by US Department of Energy, Division of Materials Science under contract no. DE-AC02-98CH10886.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany

    S. Rajasekaran, E. Casandruc, Y. Laplace, D. Nicoletti & A. Cavalleri

  2. Center for Free-Electron Laser Science, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany

    S. Rajasekaran, E. Casandruc, Y. Laplace, D. Nicoletti & A. Cavalleri

  3. Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973-5000, USA

    G. D. Gu

  4. Department of Physics, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, UK

    S. R. Clark

  5. Department of Physics, Oxford University, Clarendon Laboratory, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK

    S. R. Clark, D. Jaksch & A. Cavalleri

  6. Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117543, Singapore

    D. Jaksch

Authors
  1. S. Rajasekaran
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  2. E. Casandruc
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  3. Y. Laplace
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  4. D. Nicoletti
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  5. G. D. Gu
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  6. S. R. Clark
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  7. D. Jaksch
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  8. A. Cavalleri
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Contributions

A.C. conceived the project together with S.R. S.R. built the terahertz pump–probe experimental set-up, performed the measurement and analysed the experimental data with the support of D.N. The simulations were performed by S.R. and E.C., with input from Y.L., S.R.C. and D.J. The results were discussed and interpreted by S.R., Y.L. and A.C. The sample was grown and characterized at Brookhaven by G.D.G. The manuscript was written by A.C., S.R. and D.N., with input from all authors.

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Correspondence to A. Cavalleri.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Rajasekaran, S., Casandruc, E., Laplace, Y. et al. Parametric amplification of a superconducting plasma wave. Nature Phys 12, 1012–1016 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3819

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