Black Hole Radiation: Can Virtual Photoconductivity Produce a Similar Effect in Semiconductors?

  • E. Yablonovitch
Chapter

Abstract

Shortly after Hawking’s prediction of thermal radiation from Black Holes, it became apparent that there were other contexts in which such radiation could appear. For example, it was predicted that accelerating observers are bathed in thermal radiation (Unruh radiation). Even a stationary observer who is looking at an accelerating mirror should see such radiant energy. The effect is very weak, however. An acceleration g=980 cm/sec2 produces a radiation temperature of only ~4×10-20 °K, making its detection a major experimental challenge. A nonlinear optical window, whose refractive index is changing rapidly with time, appears, to an observer, to be a window into an accelerating world. The sudden injection of a virtual electron-hole plasma into a semiconductor window can change its refractive index on a sub-picosecond time scale, and can produce an apparent acceleration ~ 1020g.

Keywords

Black Hole Event Horizon Thermal Radiation Casimir Force Frequency Chirp 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1991

Authors and Affiliations

  • E. Yablonovitch
    • 1
  1. 1.Bell Communications ResearchNavesink Research CenterRed BankUSA

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