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The optical transition energies Eii of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) strongly depend on the dielectric function &egrq; of the nanotubes and the dielectric background constant &egr;bg of their surroundings. It becomes particularly evident when CNTs in solution and free-standing, vertically aligned CNTs are compared via their optical spectra. Using photoluminescence-excitation spectroscopy, we determine the first two transition energies for these two types of carbon-nanotube samples, i.e., for CNT-solution and CNT-forest samples. We observe considerable energy shifts and explain them by microscopic calculations based on the density-matrix formalism. Combining experiment and theory, we determine the dielectric background constant of the CNT-forest and CNT-solution samples to be 1.3 ± 0.1 and 1.8 ± 0.1, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The backscattering mean free path ξ, the average ballistic propagation length along a waveguide, quantifies the resistance of slow light against unwanted imperfections in the critical dimensions of the nanostructure. This figure of merit determines the crossover between acceptable slow-light transmission affected by minimal scattering losses and a strong backscattering-induced destructive interference when the waveguide length L exceeds ξ. Here, we calculate the backscattering mean free path for a topological photonic waveguide for a specific and determined amount of disorder and, equally relevant, for a fixed value of the group index ng which is the slowdown factor of the group velocity with respect to the speed of light in vacuum. These two figures of merit, ξ and ng, should be taken into account when quantifying the robustness of topological and conventional (nontopological) slow-light transport at the nanoscale. Otherwise, any claim on a better performance of topological guided light over a conventional one is not justified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interaction between phonons and photons is investigated theoretically in a phoxonic cavity inside a corrugated nanobeam waveguide presenting band gaps for both electromagnetic and elastic waves. The structure is made by drilling periodic holes on a silicon nanobeam with lateral periodic stubs and the tapered cavity is constructed by changing gradually the geometrical parameters of both the holes and stubs. We show that this kind of cavity displays localized phonons and photons inside the gaps, which can enhance their interaction and also promotes the presence of many optical confined modes with high quality factor. Using the finite-element method, we demonstrate that with appropriate design of the tapering construction, one can control the cavity modes frequency without altering significantly the quality factor of the photonic modes. By changing the tapering rates over the lattice constants, we establish the possibility of shifting the phononic cavity modes frequency to place them inside the desired gap, which enhances their confinement and increases the mechanical quality factor while keeping the strength of the optomechanic coupling high. In our calculations, we take account of both mechanisms that contribute to the acousto-optic interaction, namely photoelastic and interface motion effects. We show that in our case, these two effects can contribute additively to give high coupling strength between phononic and photonic cavity modes. The calculations of the coupling coefficient which gives the phonon-photon coupling strength give values as high as 2 MHz while photonic cavity modes display quality factor of 105 and even values up to 3.4 MHz but with smaller photonic quality factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]