Alexander Khanikaev
University of Central Florida, FL·Physics
Detecting single particles of infrared light is very hard, especially at room temperature or above. Yet such detectors could improve chip-based sensors, imaging and communication.
- Fields
Physics
Engineering
Materials Science
- Topics
Floquet engineering
periodically driven systems
polaritons
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Sep 2028
What they work on
- Develop a basic understanding of how light interacts with matter in quantum Floquet systems, whose properties are set by rhythmic driving in time, and identify how these interactions can be used for sensing.
- Prepare multi-dimensional quantum Floquet cluster states, held away from equilibrium, built from polaritons, which are hybrid light-matter particles. These states will serve as the basis for new detection schemes.
- Demonstrate efficient single-photon detection and imaging in the near- and mid-infrared. The detector uses thermal photons interacting with optomechanical resonators, whose out-of-equilibrium driving amplifies the response.
- Build a scalable on-chip network of quantum-enhanced sensors, each probed by its own squeezed (low-noise) light source or by one frequency of a Floquet-engineered squeezed frequency comb.
More about the research
This project explores Floquet engineering as a route to such detectors. Floquet engineering means driving a material or device rhythmically in time, so it behaves in ways a static system cannot. The driving adds new controls over how light and matter interact. Floquet systems have been built before, but mostly to study basic physics. This cross-institutional collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) aims to turn the idea into practical quantum sensors on a chip.
Why it matters
Chip-scale detectors that count single infrared photons, and that work at higher temperatures, could help with sensing for civilian resource management and defense. Integrating different quantum and optical materials on one chip, with better tolerance for fabrication errors, could also improve devices used in communications, on-chip computing and the wider photonics industry.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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University of California-Irvine, CA·Physics·Early-career
Determine the fundamental properties of photonic-phononic metasurfaces that pair resonant dielectric nanostructures with phonon-polaritonic materials such as hBN and MoO3, using full-wave simulations, nanofabrication and near-field microscopy.
Amir Safavi-Naeini
Stanford University, CA·Engineering
Design and fabricate multilayer oxide-clad thin-film lithium niobate waveguides and resonators with low loss, high nonlinearity and low sensitivity to fabrication imperfections.
Avik Dutt
University of Maryland, MD·Engineering·Early-career
Design and fabricate passive synthetic-dimension platforms from the transverse spatial modes of multimode waveguides, using mode converters to engineer desired couplings and realize topological Hamiltonians on low-loss photonic integrated circuits.
The school
University of Central Florida: 15 labs on PI Pages, $285M a year on research, 290 research doctorates a year.
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