Solid State & Optics Seminar Series
sponsored by “The Flint Fund Series on Quantum Devices and Nanostructures”
Wednesday, March 9, 2022
1:00pm
Via Zoom: https://yale.zoom.us/j/94720154098?pwd=N1hvZUQvWng2a2lZdndVVldDT1FzQT09 (passcode: 604783)
Xu Yi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering, University of Virginia
Dr. Xu Yi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Courtesy Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Virginia. He obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 2017. His research interest has been focused on optical microresonators, optical frequency combs, integrated photonic and their applications in microwave photonics, spectroscopy, astronomical calibration, and quantum optics. Dr. Yi has demonstrated many critical developments in the field of optical microresonator-based frequency combs (microcombs), including the first chip-based soliton microcombs at microwave repetition rates, the discovery of Stokes solitons, demonstration of the first microcomb-based astronomical calibration for exoplanet detection, and recent demonstration of the first deterministic quantum microcombs. Dr. Yi is the recipient of the NASA group achievement award in 2017 and the Air Force Young Investigator Program award in 2021.
Microresonator-based optical frequency combs: new opportunities for classical and quantum applications
Electromagnetic waves, such as radio frequency waves in electronic oscillators or visible lights in lasers, have huge impacts on science and technology. The optical frequency combs provide a way to coherently connect waves in the electrical and optical frequency domains and unify the electromagnetic spectrum. A new, miniature realization, the microcomb, that uses chip-based microresonators can potentially revolutionize instrumentation, time keeping, spectroscopy, and navigation. In this talk, I will start by reviewing the fundamentals of optical frequency combs and microresonators. Our recent progress demonstrating mode-locked soliton microcombs will then be presented. This demonstration creates a rich landscape for research in nonlinear optical phenomena as well as frequency comb applications. Some of these results will be described, including optical synthesizer, optical frequency division for microwave synthesis, and astronomical calibration for exoplanet studies. Finally, I will introduce our recent results of pushing microcombs into the deterministic quantum regime for quantum applications.