ERC Starting Grant · 2017
Interaction and Symmetry Breaking of Counterpropagating Light
Light is generally expected to travel through media independent of its direction. Exceptions can be achieved through polarization changes induced by magnetic fields (known as the Faraday effect) together with polarization-sensitive birefringent materials. However, light can also be influenced by the presence of a counterpropagating light wave. We have recently shown that this leads to the surprising consequence that light sent into tiny glass rings (microresonators) can only propagate in one direction, clockwise or counterclockwise, but not in both directions simultaneously. When sending exactly the same state of light (same power and polarization) into a microresonator, the interaction…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.