Coordination and workshops

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Martin Aeschlimann; Professor Dr. Walter Pfeiffer
• Subject Area: Experimental Condensed Matter Physics
• Term: from 2009 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 139099955

The aim of this priority program is to analyze, coherently control, and utilize the spatiotemporal dynamics of electromagnetic excitations in metallic nanostructures and hybrid nanostructures. In such systems, electromagnetic excitations tend to be highly localized and strongly enhanced. Such field-localization phenomena play a key role in a variety of important applications across the disciplines, including the realization 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 nanolocalized 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 program 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 realized in the interdisciplinary field between physics, chemistry and biology.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1391: Ultrafast Nanooptics