Abstract

Integrated optical circuits for information processing promise to outperform their electronic counterparts in terms of bandwidth and energy consumption. However, such circuits require components that control the flow of light. In our group we employ micro- and nanophotonic components such as optical nanofibers to confine light at the wavelength scale and to control its flow in integrated optical environments. The strong confinement of the light leads to an inherent link between its local polarization and propagation direction, i.e., the light obtains a chiral character. This fundamentally alters the physics of light-matter interaction and gives rise to phenomena such as highly directional spontaneous emission [1] and direction-dependent coupling strengths [2].

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