Pulsed femtosecond lasers can generate acoustic pulses propagating in solids while displaying
either diffraction, attenuation, nonlinearity and/or dispersion. When acoustic attenuation …

We present the first experimental investigation of ultrafast optical switching in a three-dimensional
photonic crystal made of a Si-opal composite. Ultrafast (30 fs) changes in reflectivity …

At carrier densities above the Mott density, Coulomb screening destroys the exciton resonance.
This, together with band-gap renormalization and band filling, severely affects the optical …

Are excitons involved in lasing in ZnO nanowires or not? Our recently developed and
experimentally tested quantum many-body theory sheds new light on this question. We measured …

We demonstrate that a diffusive narrow wire of a length much longer than the elastic scattering
length and the phase-coherence length, but of the order of the energy relaxation length, …

We demonstrate the development of high-amplitude picosecond strain pulses in a sapphire
single crystal into an ultrafast compressional soliton train. For this purpose, large-intensity …

Acoustic solitons formed during the propagation of a picosecond strain pulse in a GaAs crystal
with a ZnSe/ZnMgSSe quantum well on top lead to exciton resonance energy shifts of up …

We study one-dimensional nonlinear propagation of high-amplitude acoustic waves in sapphire,
for various sample temperatures, sample thicknesses, and pump fluences. Strain waves …

We observe coherent interactions between an ultrashort, longitudinal acoustic soliton train
and the 29− cm− 1 electronic transition in photoexcited ruby. Propagation of the strain pulses …

We demonstrate spectral shifting of the photonic band gap in a three-dimensional photonic
crystal within a time of less than 350 fs. Single 120 fs high-power optical pulses are capable …