DCMPMS Seminars
SYNTHETIC DIMENSIONS: HARNESSING INTERNAL DEGREES OF FREEDOM OF LIGHT FOR QUANTUM AND TOPOLOGICAL PHOTONICS
by Dr. Avik Dutt (Stanford University)
Friday, April 16, 2021
from
to
(Asia/Kolkata)
at Online through ZOOM Webinar(Zoom link: ( https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86220048712?pwd=U2N4L1FlU3QvTFRzZ0VQbFhxT3NIUT09 )
at Online through ZOOM Webinar(Zoom link: ( https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86220048712?pwd=U2N4L1FlU3QvTFRzZ0VQbFhxT3NIUT09 )
Description |
The dimensionality of a physical system strongly influences its properties. Moreover, richer topological features typically arise with increasing dimensionality, which necessitate complicated high-dimensional spatial structures. Recently, “synthetic dimensions” have emerged to circumvent the challenge of realizing such 0 high-dimensional structures, by replacing one or more spatial dimensions with intrinsic properties of photons such as frequency, spin or temporal modes. Synthetic dimensions enable very simple photonic structures to be used for classical and quantum simulation of high-dimensional physics, complementing the recent surge in studying low-dimensional physics in quantum materials, 2D materials and cold atoms. In this talk, I will discuss how dynamically modulated photonic cavities provide a fertile ground to realize synthetic dimensions and demonstrate complex topological effects. We introduce and demonstrate a synthetic-dimension spectroscopy technique to directly read out band structures from a time-resolved transmission. Using this technique, we probed 2D quantum Hall physics in a single cavity by simultaneously harnessing two synthetic dimensions of frequency and spin, thus elucidating how higher-dimensional physics can be implemented in simpler, experimentally feasible lower-dimensional structures. In such a cavity, neutral photons experience an artificial magnetic field, allowing us to observe a wide variety of phenomena such as spin-orbit coupling, spin-momentum locking, chiral edge currents and a Meissner-to-vortex phase transition at room temperature. Examples of the extreme tunability of synthetic-space photonic circuits to realize flexibly reprogrammable long-range complex coupling and reconfigurable lattice Hamiltonians will also be provided, in a manner that is challenging in real-space architectures. The talk will conclude with prospects for studying new phases of light and matter such as higher-order topological insulators and non-Hermitian phases, and also provide an outlook for using such concepts for quantum and nanophotonic technologies. |