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Opportunities in optical microresonators: fundamentals and applications
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主讲人: Professor Lan Yang,Washington University in St. Louis
地点: 物理楼中楼215
时间: 2023年8月2日 (星期三) 10:00-10:40
主持 联系人: 施可彬 (Tel: 6276 8959)
主讲人简介: Professor Lan Yang is the Edwin H. and Florence G. Skinner professor in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. She is also the editor-in-chief of Photonics Research. She received B.S. from the University of Science and Technology of China and received PhD. in applied physics from Caltech in 2005. Her research interests have been focusing on the fundamental understanding of high-quality photonic resonators and their applications for sensing, lasing, light harvesting, and communications. Recently, her research interests expanded to parity-time-symmetry and non-Hermitian physics in high-quality resonators, which have led to a series of new discoveries for unconventional control of light transport in photonic structures. She received NSF CAREER Award in 2010 for her work on single nanoparticle detection and sizing using an on-chip optical resonator. She is also the recipient of the 2010 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). She is a Fellow of OSA (Optical Society of America), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), APS (American Physical Society), and AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science).

Light-matter interactions are the fundamental basis for many phenomena and processes in optical devices. This talk will cover ultra-high-quality whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) optical microresonators which provide an unprecedented capability to trap light in a highly confined volume smaller than a strand of human hair. Light beams can travel around the boundary of a WGM resonator over 10^6 times, significantly enhancing light-matter interactions, creating the potential for a wealth of new scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs. High-Q microresonators and microlasers have great potential for both fundamental science and engineering applications; the choices of materials for the photonic resonators enable various opportunities for different applications. Examples range from low-threshold lasers to parity-time-symmetric resonators and their application for sensing and nonreciprocal light transmission. Our recent exploration of fundamental physics, such as light-matter interactions around exceptional points (EPs) in high-quality WGM resonators, unravels innovative strategies to achieve a new generation of optical systems enabling unconventional control of light flow. Examples including loss engineering in a lasing system, directional lasing emission, and EPs enhanced sensing will be presented. I will conclude my talk with a new finding in EP-enhanced sensing that can expand this approach to a wide range of optical sensor systems. Our research discoveries just represent a glimpse of the potentials of photonic resonators; there are still many exciting opportunities by leveraging the enhanced light-matter interactions through resonant effects in the future.