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  • Published: 27 January 2023

Self-evolving photonic crystals for ultrafast photonics

  • Takuya Inoue   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8206-8206 1   na1 ,
  • Ryohei Morita 2   na1 ,
  • Kazuki Nigo 1 ,
  • Masahiro Yoshida   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0653-8189 2 ,
  • Menaka De Zoysa 1 ,
  • Kenji Ishizaki 1 &
  • Susumu Noda   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4302-0549 1  

Nature Communications volume  14 , Article number:  50 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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  • Photonic crystals
  • Semiconductor lasers

Ultrafast dynamics in nanophotonic materials is attracting increasing attention from the perspective of exploring new physics in fundamental science and expanding functionalities in various photonic devices. In general, such dynamics is induced by external stimuli such as optical pumping or voltage application, which becomes more difficult as the optical power to be controlled becomes larger owing to the increase in the energy required for the external control. Here, we demonstrate a concept of the self-evolving photonic crystal, where the spatial profile of the photonic band is dynamically changed through carrier-photon interactions only by injecting continuous uniform current. Based on this concept, we experimentally demonstrate short-pulse generation with a high peak power of 80 W and a pulse width of <30 ps in a 1-mm-diameter GaAs-based photonic crystal. Our findings on self-evolving carrier-photon dynamics will greatly expand the potential of nanophotonic materials and will open up various scientific and industrial applications.

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Introduction

Ultrafast control of optical phenomena inside nanophotonic materials such as photonic crystals and metamaterials 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 is attractive for both fundamental physics and industrial applications. In order to realize such dynamic control, it is necessary to induce a change of the refractive index or absorption coefficient which is strong enough to alter their optical dispersions. Although such dynamic control was realized by optical pulse irradiation 1 , 3 , 4 , 7 or electrical pulse application 5 , 6 , 8 in previous studies, the former requires bulky external high-power lasers and the latter is difficult to realize on ultrafast (<ns) time scales. These problems become more and more serious as the device size increases and the optical power to be controlled becomes larger owing to the increase in the required energy for the external control. Other methods such as the use of temperature-sensitive phase-change materials 9 , 10 or micro-electro mechanical systems 2 , 6 have been also investigated, but they suffer from much slower response speeds.

Here, to overcome these issues involved in external control, we propose a concept of the self-evolving photonic crystal, where the spatial profile of the photonic band structure is dynamically changed without any external ultrafast stimulus. This concept is based on an ultrafast change of the refractive index induced by stimulated emission inside photonic-crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs) 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , leading to spontaneous short-pulse generation with a high peak power of 80 W and a pulse width of <30 ps.

Principle of self-evolving photonic crystal

The schematic of the proposed self-evolving photonic crystal is shown in Fig.  1a . Here, the lattice constant is gradually increased along the u -axis as shown in the right panel. The cross section of the structure is shown in the left panel, where the above graded photonic crystal is located near the active layer and is incorporated inside a p-n junction for current injection. For the photonic-crystal layer, we employ a double-lattice photonic crystal, in which two holes are shifted in the x and y directions by about one quarter of the lattice constant 15 , 16 (see Supplementary Note  1 for details).

figure 1

a Schematic picture of a photonic-crystal surface-emitting laser (PCSEL) with a self-evolving graded photonic-crystal, where the lattice constant of a double-lattice photonic crystal is monotonically increased inside the current injection region. b Typical photonic band diagram of a double-lattice photonic crystal. c Band-edge frequency distribution f edge (upper) and photon density distribution N p (lower) inside the self-evolving photonic crystal before lasing. d Band-edge frequency distributions (upper) and photon density distributions (lower) inside the self-evolving photonic crystal during lasing. Self-evolution of band-edge frequency distribution is caused by stimulated-emission-induced refractive-index change, which enables short-pulse high-power pulse generation. e Band-edge frequency distribution (upper) and photon density distribution (lower) inside the self-evolving photonic crystal at the end of lasing.

Figure  1b shows the photonic band structure of a typical double-lattice photonic crystal with a given lattice constant. As detailed in our previous paper 16 , for a double-lattice photonic crystal which has reflection symmetry along the u -axis, the band-edge modes can be classified into the following two groups: (1) anti-symmetric modes (A, C), which have electric-field vectors that are anti-symmetric about the u -axis, and (2) symmetric modes (B, D), which have electric-field vectors that are symmetric about the u -axis. In conventional PCSELs with uniform lattice constants, a band-edge mode with the smallest radiation constant (mode A in this case) induces a two-dimensional standing-wave resonance spreading over the whole area of the current injection region, resulting in uniform coherent lasing. On the other hand, in the proposed graded photonic crystal, the lattice-constant gradation induces the gradation of the photonic band-edge frequency as shown in Fig.  1c , which initially prevents the resonant mode from spreading over a large area due to the existence of the photonic mode-gap shown with blue in Fig.  1b (it should be noted that band D does not affect mode A due to the difference of the electric-field symmetry as described above). The resonant mode is repelled toward the outside of the current injection region as shown in the lower panel of Fig.  1c , where the modal loss increases because the active layer outside the current injection region induces absorption rather than gain. Once the device starts to lase, the band-edge frequency gradation where the photons exist is dynamically compensated by refractive-index change induced by stimulated emission (or stimulated carrier recombination), as shown in the upper panels of Fig.  1d . As a result, reflection due to the mode gap is weakened and the light propagates into the neighboring section in which many carriers are accumulated, leading to further amplification of light as shown in the lower panels of Fig.  1d . Such ultrafast self-evolution of the photonic band causes the spontaneous transition from high-loss to low-loss (large-gain) states and enables high-power short-pulse generation just by injecting continuous uniform current into the single electrode. When the photons reach the other side of the edge (Fig.  1e ), lasing oscillation halts because the carriers accumulated inside the entire current injection section are consumed, returning to a high-loss state. The above process of self-evolution is repeated many times as long as the current is supplied into the device.

Numerical simulations

To confirm the above-mentioned principle of self-evolution, we performed a numerical simulation of the transient waveforms of the proposed device by time-dependent three-dimensional coupled-wave theory 17 . The details of this simulation are provided in Supplementary Note  2 . In this simulation, we used a double-lattice photonic crystal composed of pairs of elliptical and circular air holes as shown in Fig.  1a . The distance between the holes of each pair and their filling factors were appropriately adjusted to achieve a moderate radiation constant of the lasing mode ( α v  ~ 10 cm −1 ) and a large threshold margin between the fundamental mode and higher-order modes (Δ α v  ~ 9 cm −1 ) 16 (see Supplementary Note  1 ). To introduce the band-edge frequency gradation, the lattice constant ( a ) inside the current injection region was gradually changed using three gradient parameters ( α 1 , α 2 , β ) while that in the surrounding region was fixed, as shown in Fig.  2a . Here, α 1 represents the maximum lattice constant difference along the u -axis of the current injection region, which physically determines the magnitude of the mode-gap effect shown in Fig.  1c , while β represents the lattice constant difference inside and outside the current injection region, which determines the in-plane loss of the lasing mode outside of the current injection region (see Supplementary Note  3 for details). In the designed graded photonic crystal, a lattice constant gradation along the v -axis ( α 2 ) is also considered. Such biaxial gradation can compensate the carrier-induced refractive-index distribution due to spatial hole burning along the v -axis, in order to greatly narrow the beam divergence angle (see Supplementary Note  4 for details). Figure  2b, c show the calculated temporal waveforms of the output power at an injection current of 20 A for devices without and with frequency gradation under uniform current injection. When the photonic crystal is uniform ( α 1  =  α 2  =  β  = 0 nm, Fig.  2b ), a constant output power is obtained after relaxation oscillations, which corresponds to single-mode continuous-wave lasing. On the other hand, in the self-evolving graded photonic crystal ( α 1  =  α 2  = 0.22 nm, β  = 0.11 nm, Fig.  2c ), the temporal waveform changes to intermittent short-pulse trains whose peak powers are >100 W. Figure  2d shows an enlarged view of a single pulse in Fig.  2c , where a pulse width of ~30 ps obtained just by uniform constant current injection is confirmed. To visualize the mechanism of the short-pulse generation, Fig.  2e shows the calculated carrier-density distributions, band-edge frequency distributions, and photon density distributions inside the device at four different timings during the pulse generation in Fig.  2d . As shown in these figures, the resonant mode localizes at the edge of the current injection section at the initial stage of lasing owing to the pre-designed band-edge frequency gradation and it moves to the center of the device as the slope of the band-edge frequency gradation decreases owing to the carrier-induced refractive index change during the pulse amplification, which verifies the principle of self-evolution shown in Fig.  1 . As detailed in Supplementary Note  3 , the above operation is robustly obtained over a wide range of injection currents and gradient parameters ( α 1 , α 2 , β ) and even when the random fluctuations of the band-edge frequencies exist. It should be also noted that the thermally induced refractive-index change of the device, if any, can be considered as static because the time constant of the temperature change of the device (several microseconds) is 4–5 orders of magnitude slower than that of the self-evolving effect (several tens of picoseconds). Therefore, such thermal effect can be compensated by the adjustment of the pre-designed gradient parameters. In addition, by controlling the temperature distribution of the device via the control of the current injection distribution, it might be also possible to effectively realize a graded photonic crystal to achieve self-evolution even without the pre-designed lattice constant distribution.

figure 2

a Simulation model of a self-evolving photonic crystal with 1-mm-diameter current injection. b , c Transient response without and with band-edge frequency gradation. A constant injection current of 20 A is used in the simulation. d Enlarged view of a single pulse in c . e Carrier-density distributions, band-edge frequency distributions, and photon density distributions at four different timings (i)–(iv) in d . Dashed lines in panels (ii)–(iv) show the distributions at the initial stage of lasing (i).

Experimental demonstrations

We fabricated the designed 1-mm-diameter self-evolving photonic crystal to demonstrate high-peak-power short-pulse lasing based on self-evolution. The fabrication process is the same as that of conventional PCSELs, the details of which are explained in the Methods section. It should be emphasized that the proposed device requires no multi-section electrodes nor saturable absorbers, which are required for conventional Q -switched semiconductor lasers 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 . A scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of the fabricated double-lattice photonic crystal is shown in Fig.  3a . The average lattice constant of the fabricated photonic crystal is 274 nm, which corresponds to a lasing wavelength of 936 nm. In the experiment, we fabricated two devices, one with monoaxial gradation ( α 1  = 0.22 nm, α 2  = 0 nm, β  = 0.11 nm) and the other with biaxial gradation ( α 1  =  α 2  = 0.22 nm, β  = 0.11 nm). Since the magnitude of the designed lattice constant change (Δ a ) is <0.5 nm, it is impossible to directly observe the lattice-constant change even using the SEM. However, as shown in the following equation, the positional shift of each lattice point from its original position [Δ x ( m , n ), Δ y ( m , n ), where m and n are positive integers that denote the x and y coordinates of the point] becomes several tens to hundreds of nanometers after the summation of Δ a over many periods, which enables the fabrication of the designed sub-nanometer lattice-constant gradation.

figure 3

a Scanning electron microscope image of a fabricated double-lattice photonic crystal. b Streak camera image of the fabricated device at an injection current of 20.9 A. c Temporal change of the output power of the device at an injection current of 20.6 A. d Peak power and average power of the device as a function of injection current. Orange and gray lines are drawn for visual guidance. e Pulse width as a function of injection current. f Pulse repetition frequency as a function of injection current. g Measured far-field beam pattern at an injection current of 20.6 A. \({\theta }_{1/{e}^{2}}\) is the average value of the divergence angles evaluated at 1/ e 2 of the maximum in the x and y directions.

For the characterization of the fabricated device, we coupled the laser beam emitted from the device into a slit of a streak camera, and we measured the spatial-temporal evolution of the laser beam. The slit of the streak camera is parallel to the u -axis of the graded photonic crystal shown in Fig.  2a . The other details of the characterization are provided in the Methods section. The measured streak camera image of the fabricated graded device with biaxial gradation ( α 1  =  α 2  = 0.22 nm, β  = 0.11 nm) at an injection current of 20.9 A is shown in Fig.  3b , where periodic pulse trains are observed. The camera image for the device with monoaxial gradation ( α 2  = 0 nm) is shown in Supplementary Note  4 . In each pulse, lasing starts from one edge and then propagates in the + u direction, in agreement with the simulated results shown in Fig.  2e . The measured streak camera images for other injection currents are provided in Supplementary Note  5 , where stable pulsation is obtained over a wide range of injection currents (8 A ~ 20 A). The temporal change of the output power at 20.6 A after spatial integration is shown in Fig.  3c , where self-pulsation with a pulse width of as short as <30 ps is successfully obtained. Figure  3d–f show the injection current dependence of the output power (peak and average), pulse width, and repetition frequency, respectively. As shown in Fig.  3d , we obtained a maximum peak power of >80 W, which is four times larger than the highest peak power ever obtained among all Q -switched semiconductor lasers without amplifiers 22 , 23 . The experimental peak power was smaller than the simulated peak power plotted in Fig.  2 , which was likely due to differences between the radiation constant and injection current uniformity of the fabricated device and those assumed in the calculations, resulting in different slope efficiencies between the fabricated and simulated devices. As shown in Fig.  3e, f , the pulse width decreases and the repetition frequency increases as the injection current increases. These results are ascribed to the faster carrier accumulation and the faster band-edge frequency change inside the self-evolving photonic crystal at higher injection currents; these experimental results agree well with the simulated results shown in Supplementary Figure  S2 . The possibility of the external control of the repetition frequency via the superimposition of a radio frequency signal is discussed in Supplementary Note  6 . The measured far-field pattern at 20.6 A is shown in Fig.  3g , where a narrow divergence angle of \({\theta }_{1/{e}^{2}}\)  ~ 0.2° was observed. The measured beam pattern is slightly elongated along the v -axis, which indicates incomplete compensation of the carrier-induced refractive-index distribution along the v -axis in the fabricated device (details are explained in Supplementary Note  4 ). These results confirm that high-peak-power short-pulse lasing based on the self-evolving photonic crystal was successfully realized.

Finally, we discuss the possibility of the generation of shorter-width pulses with higher-peak power via pulse compression in our self-evolving photonic crystal. As shown in Fig.  1 , the lasing frequency (wavelength) of our device dynamically decreases (increases) during each pulsation owing to the self-evolution of the band-edge frequency gradation. By harnessing such a large wavelength chirp with simple dispersion compensation, we can achieve the generation of shorter-width and higher-power pulses. Figure  4a shows the calculated instantaneous wavelength change during each pulsation in two devices with different gradient parameters ( α 1  =  α 2  = 0.11 nm and 0.22 nm). Here, the wavelength of the lasing mode almost linearly increases during pulsation in both devices, and a larger wavelength chirp is obtained for the device with a larger frequency gradation. Figure  4b, c shows the calculated pulse width and peak power of the self-pulsation after employing second-order dispersion compensation as a function of the magnitude of dispersion (the simulation method is detailed in Supplementary Note  7 ). By optimizing the magnitude of dispersion compensation, we can realize a pulse width of 6.4 ps with a peak power of 588 W in the device with a larger gradation ( α 1  =  α 2  = 0.22 nm); this pulse width is only slightly larger than the Fourier-limited pulse width (Δ t  = 3.4 ps) calculated by assuming a Gaussian pulse with a wavelength chirp of Δλ  = 0.38 nm. The 6.4-ps pulse width might be further reducible by optimizing the band-edge frequency gradation to suppress the effects of third- and higher-order dispersions. In addition, by increasing the diameter of the photonic crystal and the gradient parameters ( α 1 , α 2 ), we can realize an even higher-peak power (>1 kW) following dispersion compensation (see details in Supplementary Note  8 ).

figure 4

a Calculated instantaneous wavelength change during each pulsation in two self-evolving photonic crystals with different gradient parameters ( α 1  =  α 2  = 0.11 nm and α 1  =  α 2  = 0.22 nm). The value of β is fixed to 0.11 nm in both devices, and an injection current of 20 A is used throughout. b , c Calculated pulse width and peak power of the self-pulsation for the devices shown in a as a function of the magnitude of second-order dispersion compensation.

In conclusion, we have proposed and demonstrated the concept of the self-evolving photonic crystal, where the spontaneous transition from a high-loss state to a low-loss state is induced by dynamic evolution of the band-edge frequency distributions inside the device. Our proposed concept brings deeper insights into carrier-photon dynamics inside wavelength-scale photonic nanostructures, and it will inspire various areas of fundamental research on nanophotonic materials, condensed-matter physics, laser materials, and non-linear optics. Based on this concept, we have experimentally realized 80-W-class, 30-ps-width self-pulsation in a 1-mm-diameter self-evolving photonic crystal, and we have also numerically predicted even higher-peak-power, shorter-width pulse generation via simple dispersion compensation. Such one-chip high-peak-power semiconductor lasers will benefit a number of state-of-the-art laser applications such as laser remote sensing 24 , 25 , material processing 26 , 27 , and non-linear laser imaging 28 , 29 .

Device fabrication

First, we prepared an n-GaAs substrate and grew an n-AlGaAs cladding layer, an active layer (InGaAs/AlGaAs triple quantum wells), an AlGaAs carrier blocking layer and an undoped GaAs layer. Next, we deposited a SiN x hard mask for plasma etching onto the GaAs layer, and then we transferred the graded double-lattice photonic crystal pattern onto this mask by EB lithography and SF 6 inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching. Afterward, we transferred the photonic crystal pattern onto the GaAs layer by etching air holes via BCl 3 /Cl 2 /Ar ICP etching. Then, we removed the SiN x mask by using BHF and the surface oxide by soaking the sample in HCl. After these surface treatments, we grew a p-AlGaAs cladding layer, a p-type distributed Bragg reflector (DBR), and a p + -GaAs contact layer by MOVPE regrowth to embed the photonic crystal pattern inside the device. Finally, we deposited a circular p-electrode onto the p + -GaAs contact layer and a ring-window n-electrode onto the n-GaAs substrate.

Device characterization

We measured the spatial-temporal evolution of our device using a single-shot streak camera with a temporal resolution of 4 ps (C5680-04, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K.). To avoid any thermal effect, we excited the devices with an electric pulse current with a duration of 150 ns, which is sufficiently longer than the expected period (<1 ns) of the optical pulse trains and can be regarded as direct current. By using two lenses, we transferred the near-field emission pattern of the devices onto the slit of the streak camera, which is parallel to the u -axis of the graded photonic crystal. The pulse width and repetition frequency shown in Fig.  3 were obtained by averaging the results of >10 measurements. The average power during current injection was measured by an optical power meter, and the peak power was obtained from the measured temporal waveforms and the measured average power.

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the  Nature Research Reporting Summary linked to this article.

Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available within this article and its  Supplementary Information file, and are also available from the corresponding author upon request.

Code availability

The mathematical formulae of time-domain 3D-CWT simulations are available within the  Supplementary Information file, and their associated codes are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research [20H02655 (T.I.), 22H04915 (S.N.)] from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), and was also carried out under the project of Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI), Cross ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP), “Photonics and Quantum Technology for Society 5.0” (S.N.) and under the CREST program (JP MJCR17N3) commissioned by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (S.N.). The authors thank John Gelleta for fruitful discussions.

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These authors contributed equally: Takuya Inoue, Ryohei Morita.

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Photonics and Electronics Science and Engineering Center, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

Takuya Inoue, Kazuki Nigo, Menaka De Zoysa, Kenji Ishizaki & Susumu Noda

Department of Electronic Science and Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto, 615-8510, Japan

Ryohei Morita & Masahiro Yoshida

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S.N. supervised the entire project with T.I. T.I. designed the devices with K.N. R.M. fabricated the samples with K.N., M.Y., M.D.Z. and K.I. R.M. and K.N. performed the experiments and analysed the data with T.I. T.I and S.N discussed the results with K.N., R.M., M.Y., and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Takuya Inoue or Susumu Noda .

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Inoue, T., Morita, R., Nigo, K. et al. Self-evolving photonic crystals for ultrafast photonics. Nat Commun 14 , 50 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35599-2

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35599-2

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Our work focuses on materials, devices, and systems for optical and photonic applications, with applications in communications and sensing, femtosecond optics, laser technologies, photonic bandgap fibers and devices, laser medicine and medical imaging, and millimeter-wave and terahertz devices.

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Latest news in optics + photonics

Department of eecs announces 2024 promotions.

The Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) is proud to announce multiple promotions.

Device could jumpstart work toward quantum internet

Solves paradox associated with transmission of quantum information

EECS Alliance Roundup: 2023

Founded in 2019, The EECS Alliance program connects industry leading companies with EECS students for internships, post graduate employment, networking, and collaborations.  In 2023, it has grown to include over 30 organizations that have either joined the Alliance or participate in its flagship program, 6A.

2023-24 EECS Faculty Award Roundup

This ongoing listing of awards and recognitions won by our faculty is added to all year, beginning in September.

Machine-learning system based on light could yield more powerful, efficient large language models

MIT system demonstrates greater than 100-fold improvement in energy efficiency and a 25-fold improvement in compute density compared with current systems.

Upcoming events

Doctoral thesis: chemical sensing as a utility using swept-source raman spectroscopy, anqi zhang – minimally invasive neuroelectronics, rachit nigam – modular abstractions for hardware design, doctoral thesis: neuro-symbolic learning for bilevel robot planning, paul krogmeier – learning symbolic concepts and domain-specific languages, managing timelines, deadlines, & exploding offers panel.

MIT

Quantum Photonics & AI Group

Prof. Dirk Englund • Dr. Ryan Hamerly • Dr. Matthew Trusheim • Dr Avinash Kumar • Dr Charles Hsu • Dr Franco Wong

  • Publications
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MEng UROP and SuperUROP VISITING/ASSOCIATED

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Dirk Englund

PhD Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

englund -at- mit -dot- edu

Google Scholar

Dirk Englund received his BS in Physics from Caltech in 2002. Following a Fulbright year at TU Eindhoven, he earned an MS in electrical engineering and a PhD in Applied Physics in 2008, both from Stanford University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University until 2010, when he started his group as Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and of Applied Physics at Columbia University. In 2013, he joined the faculty of MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Dirk's research focuses on quantum technologies based on semiconductor and optical systems. Outside the office, Dirk enjoys doing sports, music, and spending time with family and friends.

PhD (Appl. Physics), Stanford (2008) MS (Electrical Engineering), Stanford BS (Physics), Caltech

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Matthew E. Trusheim

PhD Research Scientist

mtrush -at- mit -dot- edu

PhD (EECS) MIT, MS (Appl. Phys.) Columbia, BS (Appl. Phys.) Yale

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Ryan Hamerly

rhamerly -at- mit -dot- edu

R.H. was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1988. He graduated from Boulder High School in 2006 and received a B.S. degree from Caltech in 2010, working with Prof. Yanbei Chen on black hole mergers. In 2016 he received a Ph.D. degree in applied physics from Stanford, for work with Prof. Hideo Mabuchi on quantum control, nanophotonics, and nonlinear optics. In 2017 he was at the National Institute of Informatics (Tokyo), working with Prof. Yoshihisa Yamamoto on quantum annealing and optical computing concepts. He is currently an IC postdoctoral fellow at MIT with Prof. Dirk Englund.

PhD (Applied Physics) Stanford (2016). BS (Physics) Caltech (2010)

Administrator

erikyost -at- mit -dot- edu

Avinash Kumar

avinashk -at- mit -dot- edu

Franco Wong

ncw -at- mit -dot- edu

PhD (Stanford), MS (Stanford), BA, BS (Rochester)

Janice Balzer

balzer -at- mit -dot- edu

Adyant Kamdar

Software Engineer

k_adyant -at- mit -dot- edu

BA (Physics, minor EECS), UC Berkeley

Anders Khaykin

Research Engineer

akhaykin -at- mit -dot- edu

BSc (Materials Science & Engineering & Economics) MIT 2021

Hyeongrak Choi

PhD Postdoctoral

choihr -at- mit -dot- edu

M.S. (Electrical Engineering), MIT (2017); B.S. (Electrical engineering), Seoul National University (2014)

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Adrian Menssen

amenssen -at- mit -dot- edu

Adrian Menssen's research focuses on programming atomic systems for quantum computing and simulation using large-scale photonic circuits.

BS (Physics) Goethe Univ., Ger 2011, M.Sc (Physics) Goethe Univ., Ger 2014, DPhil (Physics) Univ. of Oxford, UK 2019

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Sivan Trajtenberg-Mills

sivantra -at- mit -dot- edu

Sivan Trajtenberg Mills recieved her BsC in Physics and Computer science from Tel Aviv Univeristy (TAU). She holds a PhD in Physics from TAU in the field of nonlinear optics, supervised by prof. Ady Arie. She was an officer in the Israeli defence forces in the field of cyber-security, and continued instructing high-school students in cyber related academic programs throughout her PhD. She has been active in promoting women in STEM. Outside the lab, she was a second-league vollyball player and referee, as well as part of a semi-proffesional classical Choir.

B.Sc. (Physics and computer science), Tel Aviv University, Israel Ph.D (Physics) Tel Aviv University, Israel

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Bevin Huang

huangbev -at- mit -dot- edu

Ph.D. (Physics) University of Washington (2020)

Jawaher Almutlaq

jawaher -at- mit -dot- edu

Jawaher received her B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University in 2015. Her thesis was on the additive manufacturing of metals for the next generation of spaceships as the recipient of The NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium scholarship. In 2015, she joined King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) where she worked under the supervision of Prof. Osman Bakr. Her research focused on investigating the synthesis, structural and optical properties of perovskites. For her work, she was awarded a PhD degree in 2020. During her PhD, she was a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge, where she worked on yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) superconductors. She Received the Ibn Khaldun Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2021, and the Ibn Rushd Postdoctoral Fellowship award in 2022. In Quantum Photonics Group, she works on quantum materials, focusing on the 2D materials for quantum technoloy. Outside of work, she is an avid tea drinker and she enjoys stargazing and practicing archery.

Ph.D (Materials Science & Engineering), KAUST, 2020

Sri Krishna Vadlamani

srikv -at- mit -dot- edu

Sri received a B.Tech. (with honors) in Electrical Engineering, with a minor in Physics, from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), India, in 2016. In 2021, he obtained a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, under the supervision of Prof. Eli Yablonovitch, from the University of California, Berkeley. His Ph.D. work explored spectroscopic lineshape theory for tunnel transistors, and physics-based combinatorial optimization solvers.

B.Tech. (Electrical Engineering) IIT Bombay, India, 2016. Ph.D. (EECS) UC Berkeley, 2021.

Valeria Saggio

vsaggio -at- mit -dot- edu

Valeria Saggio received her Ph.D. at the University of Vienna (Austria) in 2021, where she worked on entanglement detection in photonic cluster states as well as on applications of quantum mechanics to reinforcement learning. She carried out her Master thesis at the University of Florence (Italy) and did an internship at the Queen's University Belfast (UK) during her studies at the University of Catania (Italy), where she obtained her B.A. and M.S. in Physics. She is currently a Postdoctoral Associate at the Quantum Photonics Laboratory, MIT.

Ph.D. (Physics), University of Vienna, Austria (2021)

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Ethan Arnault

earnault -at- mit -dot- edu

Ethan received his BA in Physics from Cornell University in 2016. Afterwards, he attended a PhD in experimental condensed matter physics under Prof. Gleb Finkelstein at Duke University. While there, he studied nanoelectronic devices looking at the interplay of superconductivity with graphene heterostructures. In particular, studying multiterminal Josephson junctions and superconducting effects in the quantum Hall regime. For this work, he was awarded a PhD and concurrent MS in ECE in May 2022. His current work is on utilizing 2D materials for quantum sensors.

PhD Physics, MS ECE, Duke University (2022), BA Physics Cornell University (2016)

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

yonghu -at- mit -dot- edu

Yong Hu received his B.S. in Material Physics from Hefei University of Technology in 2014 and his M.S. in Condensed Matter Physics from Nanjing University in 2017. He earned a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from University at Buffalo in 2022. He is a recipient of the 2022 MMM-INTERMAG Best Student Presentation Finalist; 2021 Materials Research Society (MRS) Graduate Student Awards; 2021 MRS Science as Art Competition Award, and 2020 Dean’s Graduate Achievement Award. His current research focuses on low-dimensional quantum material devices, including quantum emitters in 2D materials and graphene plasmonics for nonlinear frequency conversion and photodetection.

B.S. (Material Physics) Hefei University of Technology 2014, M.S. (Condensed Matter Physics) Nanjing University 2017, Ph.D. (Mechanical Engineering) 2022.

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

lichao -at- mit -dot- edu

Chao Li earned his BS with the highest honor from Jilin University in 2016. He continued his education at Georgia Institute of Technology, where he received his Ph.D. in 2022. His doctoral research focused on developing chip-scale atomic beam technologies and devices for timekeeping and sensing applications. This work earned him the 2023 APS Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Beam Physics Award. Currently, he is a postdoc at MIT RLE, where he is exploring the use of large-scale photonic integrated circuits for fast and coherent qubit control.

B.S. (Physics), Jilin University 2016; Ph.D. (Physics), Georgia Institute of Technology 2022

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Camille Papon

cpapon -at- mit -dot- edu

Camille obtained her Ph.D. degree from the Niels Bohr Institute in 2023 (NBI, Denmark) . She has an extensive experience in the nanofabrication of photonic devices and their use for quantum information applications. Under the guidance of Assoc. Prof. Leonardo Midolo and Prof. Peter Lodahl she implemented various quantum hardware, including nanomechanical single-photon routers and photonic circuits with multiple emitters, for the scalable operation of deterministic single-photon sources. In the Quantum Photonics Group at MIT, she works on interfacing atom-like defects in silicon with nanophotonic structures toward their use in quantum technologies.

B.S. (Physics), University of Copenhagen M.S. (Quantum Physics), University of Copenhagen Ph.D. (Quantum Photonics), University of Copenhagen

Gu received his BA, M.Sci from the University of Cambridge. He later joined Mete Atature's group working on optically addressable spin defects in diamond and hBN for quantum sensing and communication. At MIT he works on identifying color centers in silicon.

BA and M.Sci, University of Cambridge, 2017 PhD, University of Cambridge, 2022

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

bohanwu -at- mit -dot- edu

Bo-Han Wu received his BS degree in National Chiao Tung University (Electrophysics), MS degree in National Tsing Hua University (Physics), and PhD degree in the University of Arizona, majoring in Physics and minoring in Optical science. During his PhD study, he designed, fabricated and tested the photonic chip to generate the continuous-variable (CV) entangled photons; further, he proposed a theoretical protocol of CV quantum repeater to distribute long-distance entanglement and a theoretical quantum radar scheme to interrogate the direction of an distant unknown object. In MIT, he will theoretically develope the quantum sensing protocol empowered by machine learning tasks and will participate the experiments of large-scale photonic chip for atomic system.

B.S. (Electrophysics) National Chiao Tung University; M.S. (Physics) National Tsing Hua University; Ph. D. (Physics/Optical Science) The University of Arizona

chaoluan -at- mit -dot- edu

B.S. (Physics), University of Jinan (2014) M.S. (Optical Engineering), Shandong University (2017) Ph.D. (Silicon Photonics), Technical University of Denmark (2022)

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Ian Berkman

iberkman -at- mit -dot- edu

B.S. (Physics), Leiden University, 2015. M.S. (Applied Physics), Delft University of Technology, 2018. Ph.D. (Quantum computing/communication), University of New South Wales, 2023.

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Saumil Bandyopadhyay

PhD Visiting

saumilb -at- mit -dot- edu

Saumil received his S.B., M.Eng., and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from MIT. His research centers on developing energy-efficient chip-scale photonics for communication and computing, and his doctoral thesis focused on the design and experimental demonstration of end-to-end, monolithically integrated silicon photonic processors for deep neural networks. Prior to his doctoral work, Saumil worked with multiple optical communications teams across the industry, including internships with the Facebook Connectivity Lab and Network Hardware Engineering Teams (the latter in collaboration with the Telecom Infra Project), and most recently as a Senior Photonics Engineer on the Photonic Design Team at Elenion Technologies. His work has previously been recognized with a Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. Saumil recently joined the Physics and Informatics Laboratories at NTT Research and concurrently holds a joint appointment as a visiting scientist with the Quantum Photonics & AI Group at MIT.

PhD, Electrical Engineering, MIT (2023) | MEng, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT (2018) | SB, Electrical Science and Engineering, MIT (2017)

Mahdi Mazaheri

Kfir Sulimany

kfir -at- mit -dot- edu

Ph.D. ,Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Lingling Fan

linglingfan -at- csail -dot- mit -dot- edu

Dr. Lingling Fan received a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University in 2023. Prior to Stanford, she did her undergraduate research at Yale University, Applied Physics. She was a research intern at Google LLC in 2022 summer. She has published over 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference venues, including Nature Portfolio, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Physical Society, Optical Society of America, and American Chemical Society. Her research has translated to two U.S. patents and influenced emerging industry products in Google. She is a recipient of an Engineering Fellowship from Stanford University (2018), a CLEO presenter award (2020), a DARE fellowship finalist (2021), an EECS Rising Star award (2022), and a travel grant from ACM SIGCOMM (2023).

Ph.D. (Electrical Engineering), Stanford University

dingq30 -at- mit -dot- edu

Ph.D. (EE), ETH Zurich

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Kenaish Alqubaisi

kenaish -at- mit -dot- edu

Kenaish Al Qubaisi received a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Boston University in 2023 for his work with Prof. Miloš Popović on the design and demonstration of novel passive and active photonic devices and circuits in monolithic electronics-photonics CMOS platforms. In 2015, he obtained a Master's in Microsystems Engineering from the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. Under Prof. Anatol Khilo’s guidance, Kenaish explored modeling of nonlinear effects in silicon microring resonators and the design of high-order integrated optical filters resilient against wavelength-dependent variations. He was invited to join Prof. Erich Ippen’s lab at MIT in 2014 as a visiting researcher to experimentally characterize integrated ultra‑fast pulse shapers. Kenaish received a B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 2013, where he undertook a year-long senior design project as the lead telecommunication system engineer for a miniature satellite (cubesat) named PurdueSAT.

Ph.D. (EECS), Boston University

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Ian Christen

Graduate student

ichr -at- mit -dot- edu

Ian received his BS in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Washington. There, he worked with Professor Kai-Mei Fu on nitrogen-vacancy center quantum computation. Ian will continue similar work in the Quantum Photonics Lab. Ian runs kinda fast.

B.S. (Math, Physics) University of Washington (2017)

Isaac B. Harris

ibwharri -at- mit -dot- edu

B.A.Sc. (Nanotechnology Engineering) University of Waterloo, Canada (2018)

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Liane Bernstein

lbern -at- mit -dot- edu

Liane received her B. Eng. in Engineering Physics from Polytechnique Montreal in 2016, specializing in Photonics. In 2018, she was awarded an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT for “Ultrahigh-Resolution, Deep-Penetration Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography” in Prof. Andy Yun’s group. For her PhD work in the Quantum Photonics and AI Group at MIT, Liane transitioned to optical computing, where she developed optical hardware to improve the speed and energy efficiency of deep learning. Outside the lab, Liane loves to rock climb and play the flute. Liane is a recipient of the Order of the White Rose scholarship (2016), FRQNT Doctoral Fellowship (2016-2018), and NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship (2018-2021). BEng (Engineering Physics), Polytechnique Montreal (2016) MS (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), MIT (2018)

BEng (Engineering Physics), Polytechnique Montreal (2016) MS (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), MIT (2018)

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Ronald Davis

radavis4 -at- mit -dot- edu

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Hugo Larocque

hlarocqu -at- mit -dot- edu

Hugo completed his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in physics at the University of Ottawa where he worked with Ebrahim Karimi and Robert Boyd on generating and characterizing topologically structured waves. The methods that he developed there involve applications in several fields including quantum cryptography, electron microscopy, materials science, nonlinear optics, and fundamental physics. Hugo joined the Quantum Photonics Lab as a Graduate student in 2018. His research focuses on developing large-scale photonic integrated circuits with devices designed to host nonlinear interactions, multimode interference processes, andheterogeneously integrated quantum emitters. He is a recipient of the 2019 NSERC PGSD and 2020 NSF QISE-NET awards.

B.Sc. (Physics) University of Ottawa, Canada (2016). M.Sc. (Physics) University of Ottawa, Canada (2018).

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

linsenli -at- mit -dot- edu

Linsen Li received his BS in Microelectronics from Tsinghua University in 2019. He was a gold medal winner in the 16th Asian Physics Olympiad in 2015. As an undergraduate, he was awarded the Tsinghua Presidential Award, the highest honor in Tsinghua University. He has pursued the advanced curriculum and undertaken several research projects during his undergraduate period at Tsinghua University, MIT, and Stanford University. Linsen Li is a recipient of the Analog Devices Fellowship in MIT EECS. His research interests include Advanced modeling and computing, Nanotechnology and Quantum Technology. Outside of work, he enjoys swimming, skiing, and golf.

BS (Microelectronics) Tsinghua University, China 2019

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Yuqin Duan (Sophia)

sophiayd -at- mit -dot- edu

Sophia received a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University in 2019, where she worked on 2D ferroelectric material and p-bits simulation with Prof. Peide Ye and Supryio Datta. Later on, she spent a year exploring micro-robotics at Prof. Robert Wood lab, where she worked on designing robust and power-autonomous micro-bee. Inspired by the beauty of nature, Sophia joined the Quantum Photonics Lab at MIT to work on vertical cavity with artificial atom array. She is a recipient of Edwin Webster Fellowship. Outside of the lab, Sophia is a traditional/contemporary dance choreographer at MIT ADT, a classic musician, and renaissance art and Assyriology enthusiast.

B.S. (EE) Purdue University, 2019. S.M. (EECS) MIT, 2021

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

mgd -at- mit -dot- edu

Marc received his B.A. in Physics and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, where he worked in Prof. Irfan Siddiqi's lab on quantum gate synthesis and circuit optimization techniques for NISQ quantum circuits. Now Marc works on quantum circuit optimization techniques for a variety of different scenarios, such as fault-tolerant quantum computing and distributed quantum circuits.

B.A. (CS and Physics) UC Berkeley 2020, S.M (EECS) MIT 2023

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Hamza Raniwala

raniwala -at- mit -dot- edu

Hamza received his BS in Applied Physics from Caltech in 2020. There, he worked in the lab of Dr. Hyuck Choo on a nanophotonic sensor implant for monitoring intraocular pressure, and later in the lab of Professor Oskar Painter on coherent, piezoelectric-based microwave-to-optical transduction. For his senior thesis, Hamza continued working with Professor Painter on vertical nanogap capacitors for low TLS density superconducting transmon qubits. Hamza joined the Quantum Photonics Laboratory in 2020 and is currently researching spin-phonon interfaces for quantum computing and networking applications. Hamza is a recipient of a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and will be an NDSEG fellow in the fall.

B.S. (Applied Physics) California Institute of Technology 2020

Hanfeng Wang

hanfengw -at- mit -dot- edu

B.S. (Applied Physics), USTC, 2020

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Thomas Propson

tpropson -at- mit -dot- edu

Thomas received a BA in Physics from the University of Chicago in 2021. There, under the guidance of Fred Chong, he developed techniques for improving the performance of quantum algorithms on NISQ devices. He completed his senior thesis in the lab of David Schuster, where he developed a numerical optimization protocol for making quantum gates robust to control imperfections and applied it to fluxonium-type superconducting circuits. For his undergraduate work, Thomas was awarded the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and a full-tuition scholarship for his senior year from the UChicago Physics Department. Following graduation, he joined the Quantum Photonics Group at MIT as a Ph.D. student with the support of the NSFGRFP and the MIT Jacobs Presidential Fellowship. At MIT, Thomas is excited to develop photonic technologies for controlling quantum devices.

B.A. (Physics) University of Chicago, 2021

Reggie Wilcox

rwilcox -at- mit -dot- edu

Cole Brabec

cbrabec -at- mit -dot- edu

B.S. (Electrical Engineering), Caltech, 2021

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Alessandro Buzzi

MSc Graduate student

abuzzi -at- mit -dot- edu

Alessandro Buzzi received his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Politecnico di Torino in 2022, as part of a joint degree between Politecnico di Torino, Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG Phelma), and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) focused on micro and nanotechnologies for integrated systems. He conducted research in a variety of fields ranging from computational electromagnetics (in Politecnico di Torino) and nanomagnetism (in Politecnico di Milano). In 2022, he joined the Quantum Nanostructures and Nanofabrication group at MIT for his Master’s thesis on the development of superconducting electronics. From January 2023, he joined the Quantum Photonics Laboratory, focusing on color centers in silicon and heterogenous integration for photonic integrated circuits.

MSc (Electrical Engineering) Politecnico di Torino, Italy (2022)

Yin Min Goh

gohymin -at- mit -dot- edu

B.S. (Physics), University of Michigan (2022)

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Maxim Sirotin

sirotin -at- mit -dot- edu

Maxim Sirotin received his MSc and BSc in physics from Lomonosov Moscow State University, where, under the guidance of Prof. Andrey Fedyanin, he was developing laser interferometric imaging methods for biomechanics and nanophotonics. As his master's thesis, he created a method of ultrafast optical coherence microscopy. While working in the group of Prof. Peter Hommelhoff (FAU and MPL, Germany) Maxim was developing the theoretical foundations of free-electron quantum optics under the influence of quantum recoil effect. Maxim joined the Quantum Photonics Group at MIT as a PhD student in September 2023 to work on quantum networks with tin-vacancy centers in diamond.

MSc and BSc (Physics), Lomonosov Moscow State University (2022)

Prahlad Iyengar

prahbi90 -at- mit -dot- edu

BSc (Electrical Engineering)

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Marc Bacvanski

marcbac -at- mit -dot- edu

B.S. (Computer Science), Northeastern University (2023)

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Louis Follet

louisf13 -at- mit -dot- edu

B.S. and M.S. (Physics) Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay (2021 & 2023) B.S. and M.S. (Engineering) Institut d'Optique (2021 & 2023)

Sofia Patomaki

Postdoctoral

patomaki -at- mit -dot- edu

Ph.D. (physics) University College London

VISITING/ASSOCIATED

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Odiel Hooybergs

odiel -at- mit -dot- edu

Odiel is an ETH Quantum Engineering student, passionate about quantum information processing. During his Semester Project and Master Thesis he got introduced to the field of microwave-optical quantum transduction, which will play an import role in the future quantum internet and the upscaling of quantum computers based on superconducting circuits. Currently he is expanding his experience in experimental quantum physics during a research internship on color centers in silicon. During the first six months he built the measurement setup in Carlos Errando Herranz’s new group at TU Delft in collaboration with the group of Ronald Hanson. Now he is using a similar setup for the investigation of G-centers in photonic integrated circuits in the group of Dirk Englund at MIT. He is also working on a theoretical project about driven quantum matter based on group IV color centers in diamond with strain control.

B.S. Engineering Physics (Ghent University), M.S. Quantum Engineering (ETH Zurich)

shuang_wu -at- honda-ri -dot- com

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

markdong -at- mit -dot- edu

Mark earned his B.S. from Cornell University and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in EECS. His research, both theoretical and experimental, covers a broad range of topics including nonlinear optics in fibers, semiconductor laser physics, device fabrication, and optical frequency comb metrology. He has received several Rackham research awards from UM, a Graduate Student Instructor of the Year award, and was a finalist for the Carl E. Anderson Dissertation Award. Currently, he is working in a collaboration between MITRE and MIT on quantum information processing in photonic integrated circuits.

B.S. (Applied Physics & EE) Cornell University 2012, M.S. (EECS) University of Michigan 2013, Ph.D. (EECS) University of Michigan 2018

clarkg -at- mit -dot- edu

Pratyush Anand

anand43 -at- mit -dot- edu

MSc (Physics); BTech (Engineering Physics)

yhgao -at- mit -dot- edu

Dashiell Vitullo

PhD (Physics), University of Oregon (2016), BA (Physics) Reed College (2007)

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Mustafa Yucel

yucelm -at- mit -dot- edu

Mustafa Yucel received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from INPG-Phelma in 2020 and his MSc in Electrical Engineering from INPG Phelma, Grenoble France, the Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy, and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland in 2022. In 2021 he worked during his 3 months internship on the guided interactions with rare-earth (Tm:GaN) luminescent centers for quantum information processing at the CNRS, Néel Institute, Grenoble. He joined QPG-MIT for his Master thesis to work on Large Scale Photonics Integrated Circuits for Quantum Information Processing with Artificial Atoms. Currently he is working on CMOS-Integrated Large-Scale Optical Neural Transceivers as research assistant.

BSc (Mathematics, Physics and Electronics) INPG-Phelma and MSc (EECS) INPG-Phelma, Politecnico di Torino & EPFL

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Stefan Krastanov

PhD Professor

stefankr -at- mit -dot- edu

Stefan's research interests center on the control and calibration of near term quantum hardware, with the occasional use of machine learning techniques towards that goal. He obtained his doctorate in physics in Liang Jiang's group at the Yale Quantum Institute and his undergraduate degree at ENS, Lyon, France. He spends much of his free time on hobby electronics and STEM outreach, frequently mixing the two by helping middleschoolers build pretty light-emitting gadgets and learn about the physics behind the contraption.

M (Physics) ENS Lyon, PhD (Physics) Yale

Andrew Greenspon

agreensp -at- mit -dot- edu

PhD (Applied Physics) Harvard University 2021

Research Scientist

PhD (Phyiscs) University of Maryland 2021, BA (Physics) Cornell University 2016

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Etienne Corminboeuf

etiennec -at- mit -dot- edu

Etienne Corminboeuf holds a BSc in Physics from ETH Zurich, where he is also pursuing his MSc degree. He is currently working on his MSc thesis in the group of Prof. Dirk Englund at MIT. Previously, he was a Research Assistant at Polariton Technologies - a spinoff out of the group of Prof. Leuthold at ETH Zurich - focusing on automated measurements for electro-optic devices. He also worked as an Atmospheric Scientist for Orbio Earth on the detection and quantification of anomalous methane emissions using satellite imagery.

BSc (Physics), ETH Zurich

photonic crystal phd thesis mit

Zhizhen Zhong

zhizhenz -at- mit -dot- edu

Zhizhen Zhong is a postdoctoral researcher at MIT CSAIL. His research work focuses on the intersection of networked systems and photonics/optoelectronics to build the next-generation reconfigurable computer networks and high-performance networked computing infrastructures. Before joining MIT, he was a visiting researcher at Meta (Facebook). He received his Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University in July 2019. His Ph.D. thesis is on "Traffic-Driven Self-Adaptive Optical Networking" that designs reconfigurable optical networks to adapt to spatiotemporal traffic demand dynamics for high throughput and low latency. He was a visiting Ph.D student at the University of California Davis. He received his Bachelor's Degree of Engineering and secondary Bachelor's Degree of Economics from Tsinghua University in 2014 and 2016, respectively.

PhD (Electronic Engineering), Tsinghua; BEng (Electronic Engineering), Tsinghua

Helaman Flores

Undergraduate

floresh2 -at- mit -dot- edu

Helaman Flores is an undergraduate researcher from Brigham Young University. His research focuses on coupling to resonant cavities in diamond and strain tuning of diamond structures, with experience in FDTD and FEM simulation software.

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BS (Engineering: Electronics and Information Technology) Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium (2012); European MS (Photonics) Ghent University, Belgium, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, University of St Andrews, UK (2014); PhD (Photonics Engineering) Ghent University, Belgium (2019).

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LL.B. Alexandria Law School (2007), Masters (Law & political economy) Alexandria Law School (2009), B.A. (physics and economics) Illinois Wesleyan University (2012), Ph.D. (physics) (2017).

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MIT Photonic and Electronic MicroSystems Group (Professor Jelena Notaros)

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Research Overview

By enabling the integration of millions of micro-scale optical components on compact millimeter-scale computer chips, the field of silicon photonics is positioned to enable next-generation optical technologies that facilitate revolutionary advances for numerous fields spanning science and engineering. In the MIT Photonics and Electronics Research Group (PERG), we are developing novel silicon-photonics-based platforms, devices, and systems that enable innovative solutions to high-impact problems in areas including augmented-reality displays, LiDAR sensing for autonomous vehicles, free-space optical communications, quantum engineering, and biophotonics. See Research and Publications for details.

Recent Highlights

  • Mar 2024: Our paper on a chip-based 3D printer is published in Nature Light Science & Applications . See Publications for details.
  • Mar 2024: Our paper on integrated polarization devices for atomic quantum systems is published in Optics Letters . See Publications for details.
  • Feb 2024: Our paper on integrated liquid-crystal-based amplitude modulators is published in Optics Letters . See Publications for details.
  • Nov 2023: Andres presents our work on packaging of integrated liquid-crystal-based modulators at 2023 IPC. See Publications for details.
  • Nov 2023: Sabrina presents our work on a optical tweezing of cells using optical phased arrays at 2023 IPC. See Publications for details.
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  • Nov 2023: Our paper on a photonics education chipset led by the RIT Preble Group is published in Applied Optics . See Publications for details.
  • Oct 2023: Our paper on polarization-diverse gratings for trapped ions is selected as a 2023 FiO Postdeadline Talk . See Awards for details.
  • Oct 2023: Sabrina presents our work on polarization-diverse gratings for trapped ions at 2023 FiO. See Publications for details.
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  • Aug 2023: Milica successfully defends and submits her doctoral dissertation. See Publications for details.
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  • May 2023: Prof. Notaros receives the 2023 MIT Louis D. Smullin (1939) Award for Teaching Excellence . See Awards for details.
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  • Oct 2022: Our presentation on a chip-based 3D printer is awarded a 2022 GW6 Best Presentation Award . See Awards for details.
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  • Oct 2022: Milica presents our work on a flexible wafer-scale silicon-photonics platform at 2022 FiO. See Publications for details.
  • Oct 2022: Our paper on integrated photonics for trapped ions is selected as a 2022 FiO Paper Competition Finalist . See Awards for details.
  • Oct 2022: Ashton presents our work on integrated photonics for advanced cooling of trapped ions at 2022 FiO. See Publications for details.
  • Oct 2022: Tal presents our work on integrated visible-light polarization rotators at 2022 FiO. See Publications for details.
  • July 2022: Our paper on a chip-based 3D printer is awarded a 2022 APC Best Paper Award . See Awards for details.
  • July 2022: Sabrina presents our work on a chip-based 3D printer at 2022 APC. See Publications for details.
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  • Apr 2022: Our paper on integrated visible-light liquid-crystal-based modulators is published in Optics Express . See Publications for details.
  • Jan 2022: Our paper on an chip-based augmented-reality display is awarded a 2022 MIT MARC Best Paper Award . See Awards for details.
  • Nov 2021: Prof. Notaros appointed to the MIT Robert J. Shillman (1974) Career Development Chair . See Awards for details.
  • Jan 2021: Prof. Notaros named to the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 List in the Science category. See Awards for details.
  • June 2020: Prof. Notaros receives the 2020 MIT RLE Early Career Development Award . See Awards for details.

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We are looking for new postdoctoral scholars, graduate students, and undergraduate students to join our team. If you are interested, please contact Prof. Notaros at [email protected] with your CV.

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New method for analyzing crystal structure

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This image shows theoretical (right) and experimental (left) iso-frequency contours of a photonic crystal slabs superimposed on each other.

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A new technique developed by MIT researchers reveals the inner details of photonic crystals, synthetic materials whose exotic optical properties are the subject of widespread research.

Photonic crystals are generally made by drilling millions of closely spaced, minuscule holes in a slab of transparent material, using variations of microchip-fabrication methods. Depending on the exact orientation, size, and spacing of these holes, these materials can exhibit a variety of peculiar optical properties, including “superlensing,” which allows for magnification that pushes beyond the normal theoretical limits, and “negative refraction,” in which light is bent in a direction opposite to its path through normal transparent materials.

But to understand exactly how light of various colors and from various directions moves through photonic crystals requires extremely complex calculations. Researchers often use highly simplified approaches; for example they may only calculate the behavior of light along a single direction or for a single color.

Instead, the new technique makes the full range of information directly visible. Researchers can use a straightforward laboratory setup to display the information — a pattern of so-called “iso-frequency contours” — in a graphical form that can be simply photographed and examined, in many cases eliminating the need for calculations. The method is described this week in the journal Science Advances , in a paper by MIT postdoc Bo Zhen, recent Wellesley College graduate and MIT affiliate Emma Regan, MIT professors of physics Marin Soljačić and John Joannopoulos, and four others.

The discovery of this new technique, Zhen explains, came about by looking closely at a phenomenon that the researchers had noticed and even made use of for years, but whose origins they hadn’t previously understood. Patterns of scattered light seemed to fan out from samples of photonic materials when the samples were illuminated by laser light. The scattering was surprising, since the underlying crystalline structure was fabricated to be almost perfect in these materials.

“When we would try to do a lasing measurement, we would always see this pattern,” Zhen says. “We saw this shape, but we didn’t know what was happening.” But it did help them to get their experimental setup properly aligned, because the scattered light pattern would appear as soon as the laser beam was properly lined up with the crystal. Upon careful analysis, they realized the scattering patterns were generated by tiny defects in the crystal — holes that were not perfectly round in shape or that were slightly tapered from one end to the other.

“There is fabrication disorder even in the best samples that can be made,” Regan says. “People think that the scattering would be very weak, because the sample is nearly perfect,” but it turns out that at certain angles and frequencies, the light scatters very strongly; as much as 50 percent of the incoming light can be scattered. By illuminating the sample in turn with a sequence of different colors, it is possible to build up a full display of the relative paths light beams take, all across the visible spectrum. The scattered light produces a direct view of the iso-frequency contours — a sort of topographic map of the way light beams of different colors bend as they pass through the photonic crystal.

“This is a very beautiful, very direct way to observe the iso-frequency contours,” Soljačić says. “You just shine light at the sample, with the right direction and frequency,” and what comes out is a direct image of the needed information, he says.

The finding could potentially be useful for a number of different applications, the team says. For example, it could lead to a way of making large, transparent display screens, where most light would pass straight through as if through a window, but light of specific frequencies would be scattered to produce a clear image on the screen. Or, the method could be used to make private displays that would only be visible to the person directly in front of the screen.

Because it relies on imperfections in the fabrication of the crystal, this method could also be used as a quality-control measure for manufacturing of such materials; the images provide an indication of not only the total amount of imperfections, but also their specific nature — that is, whether the dominant disorder in the sample comes from noncircular holes or etches that aren’t straight — so that the process can be tuned and improved.

“Using a clever trick, the Soljačić group turned what is ordinarily a nuisance (i.e., unavoidable disorder in nanofabrication) to their advantage,” says Mikael Rechtsman, an assistant professor of physics at Pennsylvania State University who was not involved in this work. “The random scattering caused by the disorder allowed them to directly image the iso-frequency contours of the photonic crystal slab structure. Since any nanofabricated structure always has some degree of disorder, and since disorder is invariably difficult to model a priori in simulations, their method provides an extremely convenient characterization tool for photonic crystal resonant mode band structures.”

Rechtsman adds, “This could become an essential tool in the hunt for high-power single-mode semiconductor lasers (in particular, photonic crystal surface emitting lasers), with wide-ranging applications including telecommunications and manufacturing.”

The team also included researchers at MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, including Yuichi Igarashi (now at NEC Corporation in Japan), Ido Kaminer, Chia Wei Hsu (now at Yale University), and Yichen Shen. The work was supported by the Army Research Office through the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT, and by the U.S. Department of Energy through S3TEC, an Energy Frontier Center.

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  • Paper: "Direct imaging of isofrequency contours in photonic structures"
  • Marin Soljačić
  • John Joannopoulos
  • Photonics and Modern Electro-Magnetics Group
  • Department of Physics

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IMAGES

  1. Schematic of the studied 1D-photonic crystal structure and transmission

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  2. (a) Schematic of a 2D photonic crystal with an L3 cavity. The geometric

    photonic crystal phd thesis mit

  3. (a) Diagrammatic representation of the photonic crystal (PhC) sensor

    photonic crystal phd thesis mit

  4. Higher-order quantum spin Hall effect in a photonic crystal. a The

    photonic crystal phd thesis mit

  5. Photonic crystal nanobeam cavities with lateral fins

    photonic crystal phd thesis mit

  6. Photonic Crystals

    photonic crystal phd thesis mit

VIDEO

  1. Photonic Science Laue crystal orientation system

  2. Photonic Crystals: Working principle

  3. Photonic Crystals Basic

  4. Photonic Crystals

  5. Lecture 14 (EM21) -- Photonic crystals (band gap materials)

  6. Design a simple Photonic Crystal Fiber( 5 layer hexagonal Structure)

COMMENTS

  1. Photonic crystals : from theory to practice

    Abstract. In this thesis, we explore the design, computation, and analysis of photonic crystals, with a special emphasis on structures and devices that make a connection with practically realizable systems. First, we analyze the properties of photonic-crystal slabs: 2d periodic dielectric structures that have a band gap for propagation in a ...

  2. Large-scale integrated quantum photonics with artificial atoms

    This hybrid quantum chip architecture enables the combination of coherent qubits in diamond with low-loss active photonics in aluminum nitride or silicon nitride. This modularity also circumvents the low device yields associated with monolithic chips, enabling here a 128-channel, qubit-integrated photonic chip with frequency tunability and high ...

  3. Thesis: Integrated Photonic Devices and Materials Group

    PhD: Engineering Using Large Area Photonic Crystal Devices: Xiaofeng Tang: MS: The Fabrication of 3-D Photonic Band Gap Structures: Emily Warlick: MEng: The Effect of Nucleation on the Quality of MBE-ZnSe/III-V Heterostructures: Sean Warnick: PhD: Piloting epitaxy with ellipsometry as an in-situ sensor technology: Mike Walsh: PhD

  4. PDF Reconfigurable Photonics based on Broadband Low-loss Optical Phase

    Yu Zhang's PhD thesis on the design and synthesis of novel metal-organic frameworks for gas storage and separation applications. The thesis presents the experimental and computational methods, results and discussions of the author's research at MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

  5. A practical high temperature photonic crystal for high performance

    The photonic crystal enables high eciency by enhancing the radiation from the heat source in the wavelength range that can be converted by the photovoltaic cell and suppressing the radiation outside of that range. Our photonic crystal, composed of a square array of cylindrical cavities etched into a metallic substrate, enables unprecedented ...

  6. Defects, thermal phenomena and design in photonic crystal systems

    Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2006. (cont.) We demonstrate that emissivity and absorptivity are equal, and thereby numerically verify Kirchhoff's law, by showing that such photonic crystal systems emit as much radiation as they absorb, for every frequency, up to statistical fluctuations.

  7. Theoretical design of photonic crystal devices for integrated optical

    Abstract. In this thesis we investigate novel photonic crystal devices that can be used as building blocks of all-optical circuits. We contrast the behavior of light in photonic crystal systems and in their traditional counterparts. We exhibit that bends in photonic crystals are able to transmit light with over 90% efficiency for large ...

  8. Tailoring light with photonic crystal slabs : from directional emission

    In this thesis, we consider ways to control the emission of light from photonic crystal slab structures, specifically focusing on directional, asymmetric emission, and on emitting light with interesting topological features. First, we develop a general coupled-mode theory formalism to derive bounds on the asymmetric decay rates to top and ...

  9. Theoretical design of photonic crystal devices for integrated optical

    Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2000. Show simple item record. Theoretical design of photonic crystal devices for integrated optical circuits

  10. Photonic crystal enhanced LED for electroluminescence cooling

    In this thesis, we design and fabricate a photonic crystal (PhC) enhanced unencapsulated LED for direct observation of ELC. The PhC pattern and the structure of the device are optimized to achieve approximately 76% extraction efficiency and 300 [mu]W/cm2 net cooling power.

  11. Photonic Crystals: Molding the Flow of Light

    Published in 2008 by Princeton University Press, this is the second edition of our undergraduate-level textbook on photonic crystals : electromagnetism in periodic (or partially periodic) geometries on the scale of the wavelength of light. The table of contents and back-cover description for the second edition can be found on the publisher's ...

  12. Atom-light interactions in photonic crystals

    The use of photonic crystals to trap atoms on a chip offers unique possibilities for atom-light interactions. Advancing towards this goal, the authors realize photonic crystal waveguides where ...

  13. Photonic Crystals Tutorial

    Here are provided the materials from subsequent lectures and tutorials on photonic crystals by SGJ. Many of these slides are taken or adapted from the tutorial seminar above. Tutorial for a Photonic Crystal Workshop sponsored by the IEEE Laser and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS) in March-April 2005. PDF (32MB) and PowerPoint (35MB) slides.

  14. PDF Ph.D. Project Abstracts AMM&NS Programme Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer

    dimensional photonic crystal linear wave-guide, a linear defect is introduced into the crystal creating a localized band that falls within and governed by the photonic band gap. Phontics band gap properties can be tailored by changing -Lattice parameter of the crystal, Radius of pillars or holes, and Material of dielectrics. This makes PBG material

  15. Self-evolving photonic crystals for ultrafast photonics

    We fabricated the designed 1-mm-diameter self-evolving photonic crystal to demonstrate high-peak-power short-pulse lasing based on self-evolution. The fabrication process is the same as that of ...

  16. PDF Modeling Compact Non-volatile Photonic Switching Based on Optical Phase

    MODELING COMPACT NON-VOLATILE PHOTONIC SWITCHING BASED ON OPTICAL PHASE CHANGE MATERIAL AND GRAPHENE HEATER by ... In this thesis, we proposed the design of a compact on-volatile photonic 2 × 2 switch ... W. Zhang, and E. Ma, "Reducing the stochasticity of crystal nucleation to enable subnanosecond memory writing," Science (1979) 358(6369 ...

  17. PDF Photonic Crystals With Dirac Cone Degeneracy

    Our study focuses on photonic crystals with Dirac cone degeneracy at different high symmetry points - Γ point and K point. The Photonic crystal with Γ point Dirac cone can also be seen as zero -refractive index material, where light waves propagate wi th infinite phase velocity. This thesis especially investigated the low -loss

  18. Optics + Photonics

    Optics + Photonics. Our work focuses on materials, devices, and systems for optical and photonic applications, with applications in communications and sensing, femtosecond optics, laser technologies, photonic bandgap fibers and devices, laser medicine and medical imaging, and millimeter-wave and terahertz devices.

  19. Quantum Photonics Laboratory

    In 2022, he joined the Quantum Nanostructures and Nanofabrication group at MIT for his Master's thesis on the development of superconducting electronics. From January 2023, he joined the Quantum Photonics Laboratory, focusing on color centers in silicon and heterogenous integration for photonic integrated circuits.

  20. MIT Photonics and Electronics Research Group

    By enabling the integration of millions of micro-scale optical components on compact millimeter-scale computer chips, the field of silicon photonics is positioned to enable next-generation optical technologies that facilitate revolutionary advances for numerous fields spanning science and engineering. In the MIT Photonics and Electronics ...

  21. PDF Silicon-based components: 2D photonic crystal components and

    The components have been fabricated using e-beam lithography and inductively coupled plasma etching to define the photonic crystal struc- ture into the ∼320 nm top silicon layer of aSOIwafer. The photonic crys- tal structure has a lattice constant ofa≈400 nm in a triangular configura- tion of air holes of radiusr=130 nm.

  22. New method for analyzing crystal structure

    Credits. Courtesy of the researchers. A new technique developed by MIT researchers reveals the inner details of photonic crystals, synthetic materials whose exotic optical properties are the subject of widespread research. Photonic crystals are generally made by drilling millions of closely spaced, minuscule holes in a slab of transparent ...

  23. PDF Emission and Transport of Light in Photonic Crystals

    The work described in this thesis is part of the research program of the "Stichting Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM)", which is financially supported by the ... caused a stir as natural photonic crystal fibers [31, 32]. The Bragg reflection efficiency can reach 100% for sufficiently ordered photonic

  24. PDF PhD Thesis

    PhD Thesis ExperimentsonGlide-SymmetricPhotonic-CrystalWaveguides CHIRAG MURENDRANATH PATIL Advisor : ALBERT SCHLIESSER Niels Bohr Institute UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN ... A one-dimensional photonic crystal has a periodic mod-ulation of refractive index in one dimension, while the medium is uniform in the ...