Event
MSE Seminar Series: Kartik Srinivasan
Friday, March 28, 2014
1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m.
Room 2110 Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Building
JoAnne Kagle
301 405 5240
jkagle@umd.edu
Nanophotonic Transducers for Sensing and Quantum Science Research
Kartik Srinivasan
Project Leader
Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Nanophotonic geometries can be used to confine light to wavelength-scale volumes with low loss, enhancing the strength of light-matter interactions dramatically and enabling the coherent coupling between photons and other information carriers, such as phonons, excitons, or photons of another color. Our lab has been developing such nanophotonic transducers in a variety of contexts. For example, we are developing cavity optomechanical devices as sensors for atomic force microscopy that combine high bandwidth and sensitivity in an integrated, chip-scale format. Nanocavity optomechanical systems are also being explored for potential use in signal transduction, where strong radiation pressure forces enable coherent coupling between photons and phonons. We have used this to produce optical frequency converters in which translation between widely spaced optical frequencies is mediated by coupling to phonons. I will compare the functionality of these devices with a second class of nanophotonic frequency converters we are developing, based on Kerr nonlinear media. I will discuss the potential of both technologies in the context of photonic quantum information science, where spectro-temporal manipulation of quantum states of light will be an important resource.
About the Speaker
Kartik Srinivasan is a Project Leader at the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST). He received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology, where his graduate research was supported by a Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship. At the CNST, he leads projects in the field of nanophotonics, with a current focus on topics in photonic quantum information science and optical sensors. He has been awarded the NIST Sigma Xi Young Scientist Award and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
