Lecturer: Prof. Tal Carmon
Affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Abstract:
While theory predicts photon lifetime in
exceeding of 10 second for optical
cavities, it is hard to make the required
solid device that does not have even a
single missing atom in the crystal
(dislocation), is free of thermal stress (for
glasses), and without a single atom
popping out of its perfectly smooth
interface. In contrast with solids and quite
the opposite, it is hard to imagine a liquid
with an atomic-scale void or surface
irregularity. To give it a quantitative scale,
a Bohr-radius scale void, representing a
missing liquid atom in liquids, will feel a
compensating force that is 10¹⁶ times
larger than gravity. In their inherent
essence therefore, liquids permit what
solids restrict in the effort for reaching
giant quality factors.
I will review recent experiments from my
laboratory where optomechancial
oscillations were excited in droplets. This
can transform optics to enable dislocation
free devices ant transform quality factors
to be giant.