Martina Hentschel, TU Chemnitz

Leuchs-Russell Auditorium, A.1.500, Staudtstr. 2

Location details

Abstract:
Nonlinear dynamics and chaos are paradigm examples for complex dynamical behaviour. Quantum chaos, the quantum or wave mechanical treatment of classically chaotic systems, has attracted a lot of interest since the 1990s when mesoscopic electronic and photonic systems provided an experimental platform. Their semiclassical treatment based on the principle of ray-wave correspondence in real and phase space contributed significantly to their understanding. We extended this approach towards anisotropic systems and will highlight some results. 
The intrinsically open nature of optical microcavities classifies them as non-Hermitian systems with complex eigenvalues and the existence of exceptional points as one prominent feature. Here, we discuss their appearance in two contexts. In coupled optical microcavities we observe the robust formation of chains of exceptional points in the parameter space spanned by the interacavity distance and refractive index. The chains extent over a wide range of intercavity distances and are characterized by a switch in mode chirality at a certain refractive index that can be explained based on the single cavity properties. Second, we discuss the mode interaction in three-dimensional optical microcavities and illustrate that a a network of exceptional points structures the mode morphology between the transverse electric and transverse magnetic polarization characteristics.