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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.

We report on a polarization-sensitive optical gain in a blue-emitting Si/SiO(2) nanocrystalline system having a high degree of emission polarization memory. This system can show a positive optical gain or optical loss depending on the polarization state of the pump and emitted light. Under optical gain conditions, the degree of polarization of the amplified spontaneous emission increases with the pumping fluence. This effect has been attributed to an increase in the stimulated emission efficiency occurring for the linearly polarized emission component characterized by high photon occupation numbers (stimulating photon flux). This finding is independently supported by other experimental observations. The occurrence of polarization dependent stimulated emission strongly indicates the relevance of morphological effects in light emission from ultrasmall elongated silicon nanostructures.

The propagation of light in nonperiodic quasicrystals is studied by ultrashort pulse interferometry. Samples consist of multilayer dielectric structures of the Fibonacci type and are realized from porous silicon. We observe mode beating and strong pulse stretching in the light transport through these systems, and a strongly suppressed group velocity for frequencies close to a Fibonacci band gap. A theoretical description based on transfer matrix theory allows us to interpret the results in terms of Fibonacci band-edge resonances.