PHAS Colloquia

Topological Photonics and Polaritonics

by Alexander Khanikaev (The City College of the City University of New York)

Tuesday, 23 March 2021 from to (America/Chicago)
Description
Speaker: Dr. Alexander Khanikaev (The Grove School of Engineering, the City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York)

Title: Topological Photonics and Polaritonics

Abstract: The past decade has witnessed a dramatic shift in our understanding of quantum and classical wave phenomena triggered by the discovery of topological states of matter. Unprecedented new phenomena, such as dissipationless and reflectionless transport, enabled by topology have sparked a tremendous interest in this subject and research activity across different fields, from condensed matter to acoustics and photonics. In this talk, focusing primarily on the works of my group, I will give a brief introduction to topological photonics and a historical perspective on how this field evolved leading to the latest advances and new exotic states of light and matter.  Starting with analogies between classical wave systems and quantum condensed matter systems, I will show how topologically robust spin-polarized transport can be realized in photonic systems. Next, I will discuss the topic of higher-order photonic topological insulators and peculiarities specific to such systems that are not present in their condensed matter counterparts. Finally, I will show that by mixing topological photons with excitations and quasiparticles of solid-state systems one obtains a powerful platform for controlling light-matter interactions. In particular, an emergence of topological polaritons – half-light half-matter excitations – in Van der Waals materials, including valleys polarized topological exciton-polaritons in transition metal dichalcogenides and topological phonon-polaritons in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), will be discussed. 

About the speaker: Dr. Khanikaev has received PhD degree in Physics from Moscow State University in 2003. After graduation Dr. Khanikaev spent five years at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan, as a postdoctoral scholar and then as a senior researcher, where he worked on the topics of magnetic photonic crystals and plasmonic nanostructures. From 2009 Dr. Khanikaev held a position of a research scientist at the Department of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin and contributed to the fields of infrared photonics and plasmonic metamaterials, biosensing, and graphene photonics.  In 2012 he pioneered the concept of photonic topological insulators. In 2013 Dr. Khanikaev joined the City University of New York as the faculty member.  Dr. Khanikaev’s group research focus is on design and experimental studies of photonic and acoustic metamaterials. One of the major research directions is nonreciprocity and topological properties. Dr. Khanikaev presently is a Full Professor at the Grove School of Engineering, the City College and at the Graduate Center of CUNY. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and a recipient of the NSF Special Creativity Award (2021).

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Join Zoom Meeting by clicking the link in the material below or
https://zoom.us/j/9952917599?pwd=MHdiOFRIRG1kVFJ2a1JjVXczVEVnUT09

Meeting ID: 995 291 7599
Passcode: PHAS

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Please also visit Department Colloquia webpage. Please find the link below more information.

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Material
Organised by Myoung-Hwan Kim/ CMP