Georgia Tech-CNRS Laboratory

The quest towards the integration of ultra-fast, high-precision optical clocks is reflected in the large number of high-impact papers on the topic published in the last few years. This interest has been catalysed by the impact that high-precision optical frequency combs (OFCs) have had on metrology and spectroscopy in the last decade [ [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] ]. OFCs are often referred to as optical rulers: their spectra consist of a precise sequence of discrete and equally-spaced spectral lines that represent precise marks in frequency. Their importance was recognised worldwide with the 2005 Nobel Prize being awarded to T.W. Hänsch and J. Hall for their breakthrough in OFC science [ 5 ]. They demonstrated that a coherent OFC source with a large spectrum – covering at least one octave – can be stabilised with a self-referenced approach, where the frequency and the phase do not vary and are completely determined by the source physical parameters. These fully stabilised OFCs solved the challenge of directly measuring optical frequencies and are now exploited as the most accurate time references available, ready to replace the current standard for time. Very recent advancements in the fabrication technology of optical micro-cavities [ 6 ] are contributing to the development of OFC sources. These efforts may open up the way to realise ultra-fast and stable optical clocks and pulsed sources with extremely high repetition-rates, in the form of compact and integrated devices. Indeed, the fabrication of high-quality factor (high-Q) micro-resonators, capable of dramatically amplifying the optical field, can be considered a photonics breakthrough that has boosted not only the scientific investigation of OFC sources [ [8] , [13] , [11] , [12] , [10] , [7] , [9] ] but also of optical sensors and compact light modulators [ [14] , [6] ]. In this framework, the demonstration of planar high-Q resonators, compatible with silicon technology [ [14] , [13] , [11] , [12] , [10] ], has opened up a unique opportunity for these devices to provide entirely new capabilities for photonic-integrated technologies. Indeed, it is well acknowledged by the electronics industry that future generations of computer processing chips will inevitably require an extremely high density of copper-based interconnections, significantly increasing the chip power dissipation to beyond practical levels [ [15] , [16] , [17] ]; hence, conventional approaches to chip design must undergo radical changes. On-chip optical networks, or optical interconnects, can offer high speed and low energy per-transferred-bit, and micro-resonators are widely seen as a key component to interface the electronic world with photonics. Many information technology industries have recently focused on the development of integrated ring resonators to be employed for electrically-controlled light modulators [ [14] , [15] , [16] , [17] ], greatly advancing the maturity of micro-resonator technology as a whole. Recently [ [13] , [11] , [12] ], the demonstration of OFC sources in micro-resonators fabricated in electronic (i.e. in complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)) compatible platforms has given micro-cavities an additional appeal, with the possibility of exploiting them as light sources in microchips. This scenario is creating fierce competition in developing highly efficient OFC generators based on micro-cavities which can radically change the nature of information transport and processing. Even in telecommunications, perhaps a more conventional environment for optical technologies, novel time-division multiplexed optical systems will require extremely stable optical clocks at ultra-high pulse repetition-rates towards the THz scale. Furthermore, arbitrary pulse generators based on OFC [ [18] , [19] ] are seen as one of the most promising solutions for this next generation of high-capacity optical coherent communication systems. This review will summarise the recent exciting achievements in the field of micro-combs, namely optical frequency combs based on high-Q micro-resonators, with a perspective on both the potential of this technology, as well as the open questions and challenges that remain.

We report on the implementation of a reverse-reconciliated coherent-state continuous-variable quantum key distribution system, with which we generated secret keys at a rate of more than $2\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{kb}∕\mathrm{s}$ over $25\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{km}$ of optical fiber. Time multiplexing is used to transmit both the signal and phase reference in the same optical fiber. Our system includes all experimental aspects required for a field implementation of a quantum key distribution setup. Real-time reverse reconciliation is achieved by using fast and efficient low-density parity check error correcting codes.

Solid state UV emitters have many advantages over conventional UV sources. The (Al,In,Ga)N material system is best suited to produce LEDs and laser diodes from 400 nm down to 210 nm—due to its large and tuneable direct band gap, n- and p-doping capability up to the largest bandgap material AlN and a growth and fabrication technology compatible with the current visible InGaN-based LED production. However AlGaN based UV-emitters still suffer from numerous challenges compared to their visible counterparts that become most obvious by consideration of their light output power, operation voltage and long term stability. Most of these challenges are related to the large bandgap of the materials. However, the development since the first realization of UV electroluminescence in the 1970s shows that an improvement in understanding and technology allows the performance of UV emitters to be pushed far beyond the current state. One example is the very recent realization of edge emitting laser diodes emitting in the UVC at 271.8 nm and in the UVB spectral range at 298 nm. This roadmap summarizes the current state of the art for the most important aspects of UV emitters, their challenges and provides an outlook for future developments.

We propose a method for encrypting a signal within the high dimensional chaotic fluctuations of the wavelength from a delayed feedback tunable laser diode. Decoding is performed remotely by using a slave laser diode fully synchronized with the master one. No additional synchronization channel is required.

Although flakes of two-dimensional (2D) heterostructures at the micrometer scale can be formed with adhesive-tape exfoliation methods, isolation of 2D flakes into monolayers is extremely time consuming because it is a trial-and-error process. Controlling the number of 2D layers through direct growth also presents difficulty because of the high nucleation barrier on 2D materials. We demonstrate a layer-resolved 2D material splitting technique that permits high-throughput production of multiple monolayers of wafer-scale (5-centimeter diameter) 2D materials by splitting single stacks of thick 2D materials grown on a single wafer. Wafer-scale uniformity of hexagonal boron nitride, tungsten disulfide, tungsten diselenide, molybdenum disulfide, and molybdenum diselenide monolayers was verified by photoluminescence response and by substantial retention of electronic conductivity. We fabricated wafer-scale van der Waals heterostructures, including field-effect transistors, with single-atom thickness resolution.

We report on the experimental study of the propagation of surface guided waves in a periodic arrangement of pillars on a semi-infinite medium. Samples composed of nickel pillars grown on a lithium niobate substrate were prepared and wide bandwidth transducers were used for the electrical generation of surface elastic waves. We identify a complete band gap for surface guided waves appearing at frequencies markedly lower than the Bragg band gap. Using optical measurements of the surface vibrations and by comparison with a finite element model, we argue that the low frequency band gap arises because of local resonances in the pillars. When resonance is reached, the acoustic energy is confined inside the pillars and transmission through the array is strongly reduced. At higher frequencies and inside the Bragg band gap, the incident surface elastic waves are almost completely reflected and the observed exponential decay of the transmission is similar to the case of phononic crystals made of holes in a substrate.

We investigate theoretically the propagation of acoustic waves in a two-dimensional array of cylindrical pillars on the surface of a semi-infinite substrate. Through the computation of the band structure of the periodic array and of the transmission of waves through a finite length array, we show that the phononic crystal can support a number of surface propagating modes in the nonradiative region of the substrate, or sound cone, as limited by the slowest bulk acoustic wave. The modal shape and the polarization of these guided modes are more complex than those of classical surface waves propagating on a homogeneous surface. Significantly, an in-plane polarized wave and a transverse wave with sagittal polarization appear that are not supported by the free surface. In the band structure, guided modes define band gaps that appear at frequencies markedly lower than those expected from the Bragg interference condition. We identify them as originating from local resonances of the individual cylindrical pillars and show their dependence on the geometrical parameters, in particular with the height of the pillars. The transmission of surface acoustic waves across a finite array of pillars shows the signature of the locally resonant band gaps for surface modes and their dependence on the symmetry of the source and its polarization. Numerical simulations are performed by using the finite element method and considering silicon pillars on a silicon substrate.

High- and ultrahigh-Q whispering-gallery mode resonators have the capability to trap photons by total internal reflection for a duration ranging from nanoseconds to milliseconds. These exceptionally long photon lifetimes enhance the light–matter interactions at all scales, namely at the electronic, molecular, and lattice levels. As a consequence, nonlinear photon scattering can be triggered with very low threshold powers, down to a few microwatts. The possibility to efficiently harness photon–photon interactions with a system optimizing size, weight, power, and cost constraints has created a new, quickly thriving research area in photonics science and technology. This topic is inherently cross-disciplinary, as it stands at the intersection of nonlinear and quantum optics, crystallography, optoelectronics, and microwave photonics. From a fundamental perspective, high-Q whispering-gallery mode resonators have emerged as an ideal platform to investigate light–matter interactions in nonlinear bulk materials. From an applied viewpoint, technological applications include time-metrology, aerospace engineering, coherent optical fiber communications, or nonclassical light generation, among others. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the most recent advances in this area, which is increasingly gaining importance in contemporary photonics.

A critical issue in optical chaos-based communications is the possibility to identify the parameters of the chaotic emitter and, hence, to break the security. In this paper, we study theoretically the identification of a chaotic emitter that consists of a semiconductor laser with an optical feedback. The identification of a critical security parameter, the external-cavity round-trip time (the time delay in the laser dynamics), is performed using both the auto-correlation function and delayed mutual information methods applied to the chaotic time-series. The influence on the time-delay identification of the experimentally tunable parameters, i.e., the feedback rate, the pumping current, and the time-delay value, is carefully studied. We show that difficult time-delay-identification scenarios strongly depend on the time-scales of the system dynamics as it undergoes a route to chaos, in particular on how close the relaxation oscillation period is from the external-cavity round-trip time.

We investigate theoretically the possibility of retrieving the value of the time delay of a semiconductor laser with an external optical feedback from the analysis of its intensity time series. When the feedback rate is moderate and the injection current set such that the laser relaxation-oscillation period is close to the delay, then the time-delay identification becomes extremely difficult, thus improving the security of chaos-based communications using external-cavity lasers.

Electron and x-ray diffraction are well-established experimental methods used to explore the atomic scale structure of materials. In this work, a computational method is implemented to produce virtual electron and x-ray diffraction patterns directly from atomistic simulations without a priori knowledge of the unit cell. This method is applied to study the structure of [0 1 0] symmetric tilt low-angle and large-angle grain boundaries in Ni. Virtual electron diffraction patterns and x-ray diffraction 2 θ line profiles show that this method can distinguish between low-angle grain boundaries with different misorientations and between low-angle boundaries with the same misorientation but different dislocation configurations. For large-angle Σ5 (2 1 0), Σ29 (5 2 0) and Σ5 (3 1 0) coincident site lattice [0 1 0] symmetric tilt grain boundaries, virtual diffraction methods can identify the misorientation of the grain boundary and show subtle differences between grain boundaries in the x-ray 2 θ line profiles. A thorough analysis of the effects of simulation size on the relrod structure in the electron diffraction patterns is presented.

We provide experimental evidence of the existence of a locally resonant sonic band gap in a two-dimensional stubbed plate. Structures consisting of a periodic arrangement of silicone rubber stubs deposited on a thin aluminium plate were fabricated and characterized. Brillouin spectroscopy analysis is carried out to determine the elastic constants of the used rubber. The constants are then implemented in an efficient finite-element model that predicts the band structure and transmission to identify the theoretical band gap. We measure a complete sonic band gap for the out-of-plane Lamb wave modes propagating in various samples fabricated with different stub heights. Frequency domain measurements of full wave field and transmission are performed through a scanning laser Doppler vibrometer. A complete band gap from 1.9 to 2.6 kHz is showed using a sample with 6-mm stub diameter, 5-mm thickness, and 1-cm structure periodicity. Very good agreement between numerical and experimental results is obtained.

Abstract Autonomous robotic weeding systems in precision farming have demonstrated their full potential to alleviate the current dependency on agrochemicals such as herbicides and pesticides, thus reducing environmental pollution and improving sustainability. However, most previous works require fast and constant‐time weed detection systems to achieve real‐time treatment, which forecloses the implementation of more capable but time‐consuming algorithms, for example, learning‐based methods. In this paper, a nonoverlapping multicamera system is applied to provide flexibility for the weed control system in dealing with the indeterminate classification delays. The design, implementation, and testing of our proposed modular weed control unit with mechanical and chemical weeding tools are presented. A framework that performs naive Bayes filtering, 3D direct intra‐ and inter‐camera visual tracking, and predictive control, while integrating state‐of‐the‐art crop/weed detection algorithms, is developed to guide the tools to achieve high‐precision weed removal. The experimental results show that our proposed fully operational weed control system is capable of performing selective mechanical as well as chemical in‐row weeding with indeterminate detection delays in different terrain conditions and crop growth stages.

We show experimentally that plate-type acoustic metamaterials can serve to totally prohibit low frequency structure-borne sound at selective resonance frequencies ranging from 650 to 3500 Hz. Our metamaterial structures are consisting of a periodic arrangement of composite stubs (tungsten/silicone rubber) deposited on a thin aluminium plate. We report that these metamaterials present a broadband gap of out-of-plane modes at frequencies where the relevant sound wavelength in air is about three orders of magnitude larger than the plate thickness. Confinement and waveguiding of structure-borne sound in this sub-wavelength resonant regime is also experimentally evidenced and discussed.

While secrecy in communication systems has historically been obtained through cryptographic means in the upper layers, recent research efforts have focused on the physical layer and have unveiled ample opportunities for security design. In particular, the combination of signal processing techniques with channel coding for secrecy has been central to the development of physical-layer security efforts. Although implicit coding techniques for secrecy have been known since the 1970s, explicit code constructions have only been discovered within the last decade. The purpose of this article is to provide a synopsis of the state of the art in coding for secrecy. We discuss the general principles of coding, and we illustrate them with several examples. In particular, we discuss the importance of a nested code structure and stochastic encoding, which allow for both data reliability and security.

We report on the theoretical analysis of the enlargement of locally resonant acoustic band gap in two-dimensional sonic crystals based on a double-side stubbed plate. A significant enlargement of the relative bandwidth by a factor of 2 compared to the classical one-side stubbed plates is obtained and discussed. Based on an efficient finite element method, we show that this band gap enlargement is due to the coupling between the same nature of the resonant eigenmodes (in-plane or out-of-plane) of the stubs located in each plate side, producing a strong interaction with the plate’s Lamb modes. Acoustic displacement fields are computed to illustrate such mechanism and to discuss the physics behind it.

This paper reports the experimental investigation of two different approaches to random bit generation based on the chaotic dynamics of a semiconductor laser with optical feedback. By computing high-order finite differences of the chaotic laser intensity time series, we obtain time series with symmetric statistical distributions that are more conducive to ultrafast random bit generation. The first approach is guided by information-theoretic considerations and could potentially reach random bit generation rates as high as 160 Gb/s by extracting 4 bits per sample. The second approach is based on pragmatic considerations and could lead to rates of 2.2 Tb/s by extracting 55 bits per sample. The randomness of the bit sequences obtained from the two approaches is tested against three standard randomness tests (ENT, Diehard, and NIST tests), as well as by calculating the statistical bias and the serial correlation coefficients on longer sequences of random bits than those used in the standard tests.

We propose a method based on a scalar second-order difference-differential equation to obtain intensity chaos from a laser diode with a nonlinear delayed feedback. The method can be used for encrypting, transmitting, and decrypting a signal in a chaos-based communication system. The core of the chaotic transmitter and receiver is formed by an electrooptic modulator that is used to generate a strong reproducible nonlinearity and chaotic waveforms of extremely high Lyapunov dimensionality. The system opens the way to ultrafast chaotic communications.

This article reports on two-dimensional (2D) layered hexagonal BN (h-BN) grown on sapphire by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE). The highly oriented lattice and hexagonal phase of the epitaxial layers were confirmed by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectrum, and cross-section scanning transmission electron microscopy. The surface of BN over a 2-in. wafer exhibits specific 2D material morphology features for different BN thicknesses, from an atomically flat surface to a honeycomb wrinkle network. The grown epitaxial layers demonstrate a large absorption coefficient (∼10 6 cm –1 ) above the bandgap energy of 5.87 eV with direct band transition behavior. Near-bandgap luminescence at 216.5 nm (5.73 eV) and characteristic defect band recombination at longer wavelengths were observed by cathodoluminescence at 77 K. This wafer-scale MOVPE-grown layered h-BN with different 2D morphology and with near bandgap emission can facilitate applications such as graphene-based electronics, advanced van der Waals heterostructures, and deep UV photonics.

The influence of material loss on the complex band structure of two-dimensional phononic crystals is investigated. A viscoelasticity model is added to the extended plane-wave expansion (EPWE) method, with viscosity proportional to the frequency. It is found that losses have a stronger influence on the real than on the imaginary part of Bloch waves, in contrast with propagation in homogeneous media. Flat bands, i.e., bands initially showing low group velocity without losses, acquire an enhanced damping as compared to bands with larger group velocities. Losses are also found to limit the appearance of large group slownesses, or conversely small group velocities.