.Atomic, Molecular, & Optical Events
Spring 2023
AMO/IQSE seminar: Quantum optics with ultra-narrow nuclear resonances and x-ray photons
Speaker: Olga Kocharovskaya (IQSE, Texas A&M University)
Long-lived nuclear isomer transitions hold a promise for revolutionizing the quantum metrology: realization of nuclear clocks, chronometric geodesy and gravimetry, compact long-lived nuclear memory, high-resolution coherent forward nuclear spectroscopy, search for time variation of the fundamental constants and dark matter. The major advantage of nuclear transitions as compared to atomic [...]
AMO/IQSE seminar: Brain-inspired quantum machine learning
Speaker: Susanne Yelin (Harvard University)
Quantum neuromorphic computing (QNC) is a subfield of quantum machine learning (QML) that capitalizes on inherent system dynamics. As a result, QNC can run on contem- porary, noisy quantum hardware and is poised to realize challenging algorithms in the near term. We show that a present-day programmable quantum simulator has [...]
AMO/IQSE seminar: Metasurface polarization optics
Speaker: Noah A. Rubin (Harvard University)
Metasurfaces are an emergent class of subwavelength diffractive optics. The individual elements comprising a metasurface may be designed with polarization sensitivity [1, 2] – in this way, metasurfaces can enable optical elements whose far-fields exhibit custom polarization-dependence. Using relatively simple design heuristics based on the Jones calculus, a variety of [...]
AMO/IQSE seminar: Opportunities in Laser-plasma Interaction Experiments with High Power Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Speaker: Zhenhuan Yi (Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University)
Generating high peak power laser pulses has been a hot pursuit for decades, as highlighted by the 2018 Nobel prize in physics and recent news from the National Ignition Facility. Tera-Watt and Peta-Watt pulses have been achieved with Chirped Pulse Amplification techniques. Amplification by stimulated Raman scattering may be a [...]
AMO/IQSE seminar: Customizing laser speckle statistics
Speaker: Hui Cao (Yale University)
Laser speckles commonly demonstrate Rayleigh intensity statistics and only possess short-range correlations. Recently we develop a method of customizing the intensity statistics of speckle patterns and introducing long-range spatial correlations among the speckle grains. The tailored speckle patterns exhibit radically different topologies and varying degrees of spatial order. The various [...]
AMO/IQSE seminar: Controlling Thermal and Nonlinear Optical Instabilities in Fiber Amplifiers
Speaker: Hui Cao (Yale University)
We suppress transverse mode instability and stimulated Brillouin scattering in a multimode fiber by coherent excitation of many modes. High spatial coherence is maintained for a narrow-band seed, and the output beam profile can be shaped by modulating the input wavefront.
February 28, 2023
11:30 am (CDT)
AMO/IQSE Seminar: Holography, Wormholes, and ER=EPR
Speaker: Arash Azizi (IQSE, Texas A&M University)Host: IQSE, AMO
Maldacena proposed a bold suggestion in 1997: Gravity (e.g., Anti-de Sitter spacetime) can be realized as a gauge theory (e.g., Conformal Field Theory) in one dimension less. In other words, gravity is a holographic dual of quantum field theory without gravity. There has been an enormous number of tests for [...]
AMO/IQSE seminar: Quantifying quantum chaos from microcanonical fluctuations of entanglement
Speaker: Joaquin Rodriguez-Nieva (Texas A&M University)
The emergence of statistical mechanics in isolated quantum many-body systems has been a topic of foundational interest since the birth of quantum mechanics. Unlike classical systems, notions of chaos and ergodicity in many-body quantum systems still remain ill-defined. For this reason, designing quantitative measures of quantum chaos are of fundamental [...]
AMO/IQSE seminar: Coherent states of photonic dimers
Speaker: Jung-Tsung Shen (Washington University in St. Louis)
In recent years, the bound states of light quanta were theoretically proposed in engineered nonlinear optical media, and have since been experimentally confirmed in ultra-cold atom systems. The simplest realization of the photonic bound states is a two-photon dimer. Inspired by the remarkable optical properties of lasers and the penetrating [...]
AMO/IQSE seminar: Coupled electron and nuclear dynamics in molecules revealed by femtosecond x ray and electron pulses and by twisted light
Speaker: Shaul Mukamel (University of California, Irvine)
Novel sources of soft and hard X ray pulses open up new windows into electron and nuclear dynamics in molecules with a remarkable combination of temporal, spectral and spatial resolutions. Twisted light adds additional remarkable probes of chirality. These new techniques and their simulation protocols will be surveyed and analyzed [...]
AMO/IQSE seminar: Ultraviolet superradiance from mega-networks of tryptophan in biological architectures
Speaker: Philip Kurian (Howard University)
Networks of tryptophan – an aromatic amino acid with strong fluorescent response – are ubiquitous in biological systems, forming diverse architectures in transmembrane proteins, cytoskeletal filaments, sub-neuronal elements, photoreceptor complexes, virion capsids, and other cellular structures. We analyze the cooperative effects induced by ultraviolet (UV) excitation of several biologically relevant [...]
AMO/IQSE seminar: Biological Photonic Crystal Sensors: Materials, Applications, and Fusion with Machine Learning
Speaker: Alan Wang (Baylor University)
Diatoms are microalgae with unique photonic crystal structures, which can be found in every habitat where water is present. Their abundance and wide distribution make them ideal materials for a wide range of applications as living organisms. We have developed hybrid diatom photonic crystals with plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) as ultra-sensitive, [...]
AMO/IQSE seminar: Solutions for 3D Bioimaging with Applications in Host Pathogen Science and Bio-energy
Speaker: Ted A. Laurence (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
Dynamic 3D Imaging is an enduring need for understanding biological systems and interactions. For host pathogen science, such imaging is necessary to understand the sequence and timing of events in pathogen invasion of host cells. The interaction of bacteria and fungi with plant roots (the rhizosphere) and bacteria and algae [...]