Séminaire d'Institut

Mardi 10 Mars 2026 à 10h30.

A unified model for light emission from solids

Jean-Jacques Greffet
(Laboratoire Charles Fabry)

Salle de convivialité (1ère partie, 10h30 - 11h30) puis Salle de Séminaires Lippmann (11h30 - 12h)

Invité(e) par
Kevin Vynck

présentera en 2 heures :

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Light emission from electronic excitations of a solid is due to different microscopic processes such as incandescence, fluorescence, electroluminescence, scintillation, cathodoluminescence, light emission by inelastic tunneling. These processes are associated to electronic transitions often described using Fermi golden rule. On the other hand, electrical engineers compute microwave emission using Maxwell equations and mechanical engineers model incandescence using Planck's law.

In the first part of the talk, I will introduce a general framework that reconciles the different points of view and can be used to derive a quantitative model of light emission by solids [1]. I will show how it can be used to account both for thermal emission [2] and for lasing [3] using the same framework.

In the second part of the talk, I will address light emission by two phenomena that have proven to be very difficult to model for many years: light emission by inelastic tunneling [4], photoluminescence by metals [5].

1. A unified model for light emission from solids, Jean-Jacques Greffet, Aurelian Loirette-Pelous, Nat. Nanotech. 10.1038/s41565-025-02085-x (2026)
2. Light emission by nonequilibrium bodies: local Kirchhoff law, J.J. Greffet, P. Bouchon, G. Brucoli, F. Marquier, Phys.Rev.X 8, 021008 (2018)
3. On the applicability of Kirchhoff's law to the lasing regime, Aurelian Loirette-Pelous, Jean-Jacques Greffet, Optica 11, 1621 (2024)
4. Unified Treatment of Light Emission by Inelastic Tunneling:Interaction of Electrons and Photons beyond the Gap, Unai Muniain, Ruben Esteban, Javier Aizpurua, Jean-Jacques Greffet, Phys.Rev.X 14, 021017 (2024)
5. Theory of photoluminescence by metallic structures, Aurelian Loirette-Pelous, Jean-Jacques Greffet, ACS Nano 18, 31823 (2024)

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