Blog and latest news
Welcome to the home page of the research group on Nonlinear Photonic Nanostructures, which is lead by Fabio Biancalana. Our research is focused on the linear and nonlinear interactions between light and matter in structures of various dimensionality, spanning optical fibers, optical waveguides, bulk materials, plasmas and 2D materials. In particular, we are interested in the description of nonlinear light propagation and soliton formation in photonic crystal fibers, periodic and aperiodic photonic crystals, subwavelength fibers, free or metal plasmas, excitonic semiconductors and graphene layers.
More recently, we are also exploring topics at the border of soliton physics and Einstein's theory of gravity, with an eye to optical-gravity analogues.
Latest arxiv.org publications: click here
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Latest Research News:
April 2019: Breaking news! We have found a "magic formula" based on the Euler characteristic that is able to find in a straightforward manner the Hawking temperature for all black holes in physics! Check the preprint here
see the BBC interview and article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-47773553
January 2019: Breaking news! Our debut on pure Quantum Gravity, in collaboration with Carlo Trugenberger. Check the preprint
August 2018: Solitons = Black holes ! We have found deep connections between solitons in 2D and black holes. Now easy to calculate Hawking temperature and entropy for a large variety of solitons. Check the preprint here
August 2017: The SUSY method in 1D quantum mechanics has been extended to nonlinear Hamiltonians, allowing to find SUSY-partner equations of the NLSE! Check the preprint here
June 2017: Breaking news! We have found a new super-accurate formulation of the Ikeda map based on coupled Lugiato-Lefever! Check the preprint here (thanks to Miro, Stuart and Stephane for helping!)
March 2017: Giant nonlinearities in type-II supercondutors! see preprint here
January 2017: Breaking news! We found theoretically and experimentally (in collaboration with Tom Rogers in Daniele Faccio's group) a new type of resonant radiation emitted by solitons: see PRL paper here
October 2016: Rogue waves as interplay between Anderson localization and horizon effects! see preprint here
August 2016: Breaking news! We have discovered that ALL integrable solitons evaporate emitting Hawking-like quantum radiation! See the preprint here
June 2016: New experiments on the non-perturbative nonlinear optics of graphene! here
May 2016: We discovered a novel type of symmetry breaking in graphene, leading to new nonlinear effects! here
July 2015: Review paper on the soliton dynamics in hollow-core PCFs in presence of ionization and Raman gases, here
June 2015: Formulation of a new `extended' Lugiato-Lefever equation in cavities - showing negative frequency effects! here, accepted by PRL!
Read the SPIE Newsroom article here
May 2015: Finally explaining why rogue solitons in fibers are rare and why they form, with the Energy Landscape: here
January 2015: We have studied the self-phase modulation of an intense pulse in presence of third-harmonic generation and negative frequency components. Surprisingly, new SPM lobes appear near the pulse, another signature of negative frequencies in nonlinear optics. See the paper here.
January 2015: We have methodically worked out the main ingredients of supercontinuum generation in Raman-gas media. The dynamics strangely resembles the physics of electrons in periodic media subject to an external electric field. See the paper here.
