Harnessing spontaneous Brillouin scattering for nonequilibrium phonon spectroscopy

Haverkamp, Danielle Raye (2021) Harnessing spontaneous Brillouin scattering for nonequilibrium phonon spectroscopy. Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University.

Text Haverkamp_2021_harnessing_spontaneous_brillouin_scattering_nonequilibr.pdf - Published Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (2MB) | Request a copy

Abstract

Phonon spectroscopy allows access to phonon populations of individual acoustic modes within a material, thereby offering information about the material’s optical and mechanical properties. Selectivemanipulation of phonon populations has been demonstrated using spontaneous backward Brillouin scattering in photonic systems [29, 43, 20]. In this work we demonstrate phonon spectroscopy in liquid core optical fibers using spontaneous backward Brillouin scattering and introduce a novel method for isolating and measuring thermal phonon populations. This inelastic scattering process paired with heterodyne spectroscopy offers an elegant solution for measuring Stokes and anti-Stokes phonon mode populations where one backscattered photon corresponds to one phase-matched phonon. An optical field is injected into a liquid core optical fiber and interacts with the material’s spontaneously generated vibrational modes. In the case of optical scattering from a forward propagating wave, the backscattered Stokes light is red-shifted in frequency where energy is deposited from the optical field into the phase-matched acoustic mode [32, 34, 2]. Similarly, backscattered anti-Stokes light is blue-shifted when the optical field interacts with a counter-propagating traveling acoustic wave. Through heterodyne detection, the backscattered signal combined with a known local oscillator produces a beatnote frequency directly corresponding to the phase-matched phonon population distribution. Additional damping of the anti-Stokes acoustic mode scales with optical power allowing for a form of laser modal cooling for the backward traveling acoustic phonons [29]. We introduce a method including two orthogonally polarized optical fields to isolate thermal phonon contributions intrinsic to the material from those driven by the optical field for the first time. In this way, we determine the thermal phonon occupation for the Stokes and anti-Stokes sidebands and demonstrate attenuation of the anti-Stokes phonon population.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Publisher’s Statement:	© Copyright is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Keywords:	Brillouin scattering; laser cooling; liquid core optical fiber; phonon spectroscopy; spontaneous Brillouin scattering; thermal phonon populations
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Student
Department/Unit:	Graduate College > Theses and Dissertations College of the Environment, Forestry, and Natural Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Date Deposited:	01 Mar 2022 17:04
Last Modified:	01 Mar 2022 17:04
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/5772

Actions (login required)

IR Staff Record View

Downloads