Intersubband transitions semiconductor heterostructures provide the possibility to quantum engineer the largest known nonlinear optical responses in condensed matter systems. I will discuss how we use these structures to make practical photonic devices with functionalities not available with any other technology. The first example is terahertz semiconductor laser sources based on efficient intra-cavity nonlinear frequency mixing in quantum cascade lasers [1-3]. These devices provide broadly-tunable emission in the 1-6 THz range and achieve mW-level THz power output at room temperature. They represent the first room-temperature semiconductor-laser-like source technology in terahertz. The second example is ultrathin highly-nonlinear metasurfaces that can provide broadband focal-plane frequency up- and down-conversion in the near-/mid-/far-infrared with only mW-level of optical pumping [4-6]. The exotic nonlinear optical properties in these metasurfaces are produced by coupling electromagnetically-engineered resonances in plasmonic nanostructures with quantum-engineered electronic states in semiconductor nanostructures.

Mikhail Belkin received his BS in Physics and Mathematics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1998 and PhD degree in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 2004. In 2004-2008 he did his postdoctoral work in Prof. Federico Capasso group in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He is currently an Associate Professor and a Myron L. Begeman Faculty Fellow in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department of the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Belkin’s research interests are in the field of mid-infrared and THz photonics and nonlinear optics. His recent recognitions include the 2015 Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from Humboldt Foundation, NSF CAREER Award, the DARPA Young Faculty Award, the AFOSR Young Investigator Program Award, and the Norman Hackerman Advanced Research Program Award from the state of Texas. Dr. Belkin is the Fellow of the OSA. 

References:

1. M.A. Belkin, F. Capasso, A. Belyanin, D.L. Sivco, A.Y. Cho, D.C. Oakley, C.J. Vineis, G.W. Turner, Nature Photon. 1, 288 (2007).

2. K. Vijayraghavan, Y. Jiang, M. Jang, A. Jiang, K. Choutagunta, A. Vizbaras, F. Demmerle, G. Boehm, M.C. Amann, and M.A. Belkin, Nat. Comm. 4, 2021 (2013).

3. M.A. Belkin and F. Capasso, Phys. Scr. 90, 118002 (2015).

4. J. Lee, M. Tymchenko, C. Argyropoulos, P.-Y. Chen, F. Lu, F. Demmerle, G. Boehm, M.-C. Amann, A. Alu, and M.A. Belkin, Nature 511, 65–69 (2014).

5. N. Nookala, J. Lee, J.S. Gomez-Diaz, M. Tymchenko, F. Demmerle, G. Boehm, K. Lai, G. Shvets, M.-C. Amann, A. Alù, and M.A. Belkin, Optica 3, 283 (2016).

6. J. Lee, N. Nookala, J. S. Gomez-Diaz, M. Tymchenko, F. Demmerle, G. Boehm, M.-C. Amann, A. Alù, and M.A. Belkin, Adv. Opt. Mat. 4, 664 (2016).