title: Zener tunneling of light waves in an optical superlattice.
abstract: We report on the observation of Zener tunneling of light waves in spectral and time-resolved transmission measurements, performed on an optical superlattice made of porous silicon. The structure was designed to have two photonic minibands, spaced by a narrow frequency gap. A gradient in the refractive index was introduced to create two optical Wannier-Stark ladders and, at a critical value of the optical gradient, tunneling between energy bands was observed in the form of an enhanced transmission peak and a characteristic time dependence of the transmission.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Trento and INFM, via Sommarive 14, I-38050 Povo (Trento), Italy. mghool@science.unitn.it
authors.forename: Mher
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ghulinyan
authors.forename: Claudio J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Oton
authors.forename: Zeno
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gaburro
authors.forename: Lorenzo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pavesi
authors.forename: Costanza
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Toninelli
authors.forename: Diederik S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Wiersma