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Updated: Aug 19, 2026

Fabrication and Testing of Microfluidic Optomechanical Oscillators
Published on: May 29, 2014
Optical analogue of electronic Bloch oscillations
Riccardo Sapienza1, Paola Costantino, Diederik Wiersma
1European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy and INFM, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino (Florence), Italy.
Abstract:
We report on the observation of Bloch oscillations in light transport through periodic dielectric systems. By introducing a linear refractive index gradient along the propagation direction the optical equivalent of a Wannier-Stark ladder was obtained. Bloch oscillations were observed as time-resolved oscillations in transmission, in direct analogy to electronic Bloch oscillations in conducting crystals where the Wannier-Stark ladder is obtained via an external electric field. The observed oscillatory behavior is in excellent agreement with transfer matrix calculations.
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