Linran Fan, Assistant Professor of Optical Sciences
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Abstract: Kerr nonlinearity is arguably the most important optical nonlinear property that is present in all photonic systems. In the classical domain, it underpins the recent development of optical frequency comb and soliton with rich nonlinear phenomena and broad applications. In the quantum domain, Kerr nonlinearity has been widely used for parametric quantum state generation. Over the history of nonlinear optics, Kerr nonlinearity is typically regarded as the fixed property determined by photonic materials and structures. In this talk, I will present a novel approach to break this stereotype of the fixed Kerr nonlinearity. We realize the full coherent control of single-photon Kerr nonlinearity beyond the material intrinsic limit and structure restriction. This has led to the first observation of single-photon Fano resonances in the nonlinear regime. The single-photon Kerr nonlinearity can be continuously tuned with amplitude over 20 dB and full phase. We further demonstrate that the enhanced single-photon Kerr nonlinearity can significantly improve the quality of photonic quantum state generation. With the unique capability to reconfigure Kerr nonlinearity, we also demonstrate the control of spontaneous symmetry breaking conditions of photonic chirality.
*Refreshments served at 2:45PM in PAS 218
Note: Fall 2022 Colloquium in-person only