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MSE Seminar: “Nonlinear and Topological Quantum Photonics” University of Central Florida
November 2, 2023 at 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
In this talk we will discuss how to engineer the dispersion relation of photonic platforms to provide robust propagation of classical and quantum states of light.
In the first part of this talk, we will unveil how to leverage the interaction of nonlinearity with higher orders of dispersion to create novel types of solitons, wave packets that propagate unperturbed for long distances. These objects have advantageous energy-width scaling laws with respect to conventional nonlinear Schrodinger solitons and show promise for applications in ultrafast lasers and integrated frequency combs.
Subsequently, we will cover recent developments in topological quantum photonics. Topological photonics studies topological phases of light and leverages the appearance of robust topological edge states. We will emphasize our experimental demonstration of nonlinearly generated and topologically protected photon pairs and path-entangled biphoton states in silicon waveguide arrays. Further, we will detail our latest experiments demonstrating entanglement between topologically distinct modes, highlighting topology as an entanglement degree of freedom.
Andrea Blanco-Redondo
FPCE Endowed Professor of Optics and Photonics at CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida
Andrea Blanco-Redondo is an FPCE Endowed Professor of Optics and Photonics at CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, at the University of Central Florida. Her group focuses on novel concepts on nonlinear and topological quantum nanophotonics. For the prior four years she was the Head of Silicon Photonics Research at Nokia Bell Labs in New Jersey, USA. Prior to that, from 2015 to 2019, she was first a postdoctoral researcher and then the Professor Harry Messel Research Fellow at the School of Physics of the University of Sydney, Australia. From 2007 to 2015 she was photonics researcher and project manager with the Aerospace and Telecom departments of Tecnalia, Spain. She received her PhD and MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of the Basque Country (2014) and the University of Valladolid (2007), respectively.
She has served as Optica Director at Large, Associate Editor for Optics Continuum, and Guest Editor for several Special Issues. She received the 2018 OSA Ambassador distinction, the 2016 Geoff Opat Award of the Australian Optical Society to the top Australian Early Career Researcher, and one of the two 2014 Ada Byron Award to the top Women in Technology in Spain.