Structured Light in Structured Media Incubator

Overview

The goal of this workshop was to discuss fundamental optical phenomena at the interface of singular optics (“structured light”), optical metamaterials (“structured media”), and potential applications for quantum optics and single photon interactions. Understanding the physics of the interaction of complex beams with nanostructured “engineered” media is likely to bring new dimensions to the science and applications of complex light, including novel regimes of spin-orbit interaction, extraordinary possibilities for dispersion engineering, and novel possibilities for nonlinear singular optics. A synergy between these diverse fields of modern optics is expected to have revolutionary impacts on multidimensional information encoding, secure communications, and quantum cryptography and on-chip optoelectronic signal processing.

Featured Topics

Metamaterials, singular and quantum optics, are truly fascinating branches of modern optics that until recently were rapidly developing in parallel yet independently. The goal of the incubator meeting is to explore the directions where a synergy of the three fields is likely to make a breakthrough. The topics would include: 

• Spin-optics and metasurfaces: Spin and orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photons may provide an additional degree of freedom in nanoscale photonics. Metasurfaces are likely to open new possibilities for the development of beam shaping and steering, plasmonic lenses, and other ultra-thin components for optics on a chip.
• Signal processing: OAM could be used to encode information for quantum and classical systems. The combined use of spin and orbital angular momentum is likely to enable the implementation of entirely new quantum information systems in a multidimensional space, which were recently demonstrated in real world experiments.
• Metamaterials with a twist: Singular optics can contribute to the development of complex metamaterial structures as described in a recent demonstration of chiral metal nanoneedles formed by helicity transfer from vortex to metal.
• Dispersion management: Metamaterials with precisely tailored dispersion profiles are likely to increase the efficiency of spontaneous parametric down-conversion effect, which was suggested as a source of high-dimensional states entangled in OAM.
• Metamaterials empowered photon-photon interactions for quantum photonics and quantum information applications: quantum theory of the nonlinear optical response and large effective nonlinear electric and magnetic susceptibilities in metamaterials; applications for non-destructive quantum measurements; nonlinear metamaterial designs for enhanced photon-photon interactions, subwavelength cavities, novel materials for nonlinear optics at nanoscale; quantum photonics components  and systems on a chip: highly-efficient photon detectors, sources, transistors, modulators, switches.

Meeting Schedule

[see full agenda]

Participants (as of 9-05-13)

Andrei Afanasev, George Washington University, United States; David Andrews, University of East Anglia Norwich, United Kingdom; Konstantin Bliokh, Institute of Radio Astronomy, Ukraine; Etienne Brasselet, Université de Bordeaux, France; Wenshan Cai, Georgia Institute of Technology, United States; Federico Capasso, Harvard University, United States; Alex Cartwright, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, United States; Dominique Dagenais, National Science Foundation, United States; Domenico de Ceglia, National Research Council, United States; Anton Desyatnikov, Australian National University, Australia; Aristide Dogariu, University of Central Florida, United States; Nader Engheta, University of Pennsylvania, United States; Rene Essiambre, Alcatel-Lucent, United States; Michael Fiddy, University North Carolina, Charlotte, United States; Sonja Franke-Arnold, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom; Ildar Gabitov, University of Arizona, United States; Qiaoqiang Gan, University of Buffalo, The State University of New York, ; Daniel J. Gauthier, Duke University, United States; Richard Hammond, United States Army Research Laboratory, United States; Joseph Haus, University of Dayton, United States; Guarav Jayaswal, University of Padova, Italy; Eric Johnson, Clemson University, United States; Ebrahim Karimi, University of Ottawa, Canada; Wieslaw Królikowski, Australian National University, Australia; Zhaxylyk Kudyshev, University of Buffalo, The State University of New York, United States; Natasha Litchinitser, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, United States; Yongmin Liu, Northeastern University, United States; Tania Moein, University of Bufallo, The State University of New York, United States; Gabriel Molina-Terriza, Macquarie University, Australia; Mikhail Noginov, Norfolk State University, United States; Natalia Noginova, Norfolk State University, United States; Takashige Omatsu, Chiba University, Japan; Miles Padgett, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom; Viktor Podolskiy, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, United States; Siddharth Ramachandran, Boston University, United States; Garreth Ruane, Rochester Institute of Technology, United States; Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop, University of Queensland, Australia; Yisa Rumala, Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers, City College-CUNY, United States; Mikhail Shalaev, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, United States; Vlad Shalaev, Purdue University, United States; Jingbo Sun, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, United States; Grover Swartzlander, Rochester Institute of Technology, United States; Nickolas Vamivakas, University of Rochester, United States; Maria Antonetta Vincenti, National Research Council, United States; Xi Wang, University of Bufallo, The State University of New York, United States; Abbie Watnik, Naval Research Laboratory, United States; Alan Willner, University of Southern California, United States; Xiaobo Yin, University of California, Berkeley, United States; John Zavada, National Science Foundation, United States; Jinwei Zeng, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, United States; Shuang Zhang, University of Birmingham, United States; Lei Zhou, Fudan University, China; Robert Alfano, The City College of New York, United States; Stephen Barnett, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom; Sir Michael Berry, University of Bristol, United Kingdom; Allan Boardman, University of Salford, United Kingdom; Robert Boyd, University of Rochester/University of Ottawa, United States/Canada; Mark Dennis, University of Bristol, United Kingdom; Kishan Dholakia, University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom; Erez Hasman, Technion, Israel; Yuri Kivshar, Australian National University, Australia; Boris Luk'yanchuk, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore; Lorenzo Marrucci, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Italy; Gernot Pomrenke, US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, USA; Monika Ritsch-Marte, Innsbruck Medical University, Australia; Marat Soskin, Institute of Physics, Ukraine; Lluis Torner, The Institute of Photonic Science, Spain; Juan Torres, The Institute of Photonic Science, Spain; Henry van Driel, University of Toronto, Canada; Xiang Zhang, University of California, Berkeley, United States; Martin Richardson, University of Central Florida, United States; Craig Arnold, Princeton University, USA; Marco Beijersbergen, cosine BV / Leiden University, Netherlands; Andrew Forbes, CSIR National Laser Centre, South Africa; David Grier, New York  University, United States; Jorge Jose, Indiana University, United States; Jonathan Leach, University of Ottawa, Canada; Wolfgang Loffler, Quantum Optics & Quantum Information Huygens Laboratory, The Netherlands; Ian McNulty, Argonne National Laboratory, USA; Tommaso Melodia, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, United States; David A.B Miller, Stanford University, USA; Peter Reynolds, Army Research Office, United States; Michael Scalora, Redstone Arsenal, United States; Aephraim Steinberg, University of Toronto, Canada; Fabrizio Tamburini, Padua University, Italy; Mark G. Thompson, University of Bristol, United Kingdom; Alexander Volyar, Taurida National V.I. Vernadsky University, Ukraine; Nanfang Yu, Columbia University, United States; Siyuan Yu, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

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