Enrique Galvez
Colgate University, NY·Physics
A laser pointer makes a simple spot of light, but light beams can be shaped into far richer forms. By controlling a beam's phase (the timing of its waves) and intensity, researchers can make light focus along curved lines or rotate its pattern as it travels.
- Fields
Physics
- Topics
structured light
complex light
optical vortices
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Create novel three-dimensional light patterns containing caustics and vortex singularities by shaping light's polarization and spatial mode, using table-top optics inspired by gravitational lensing and nonlinear oscillators.
- Investigate optical communication that encodes information in the rotation of patterned light beams, and develop new types of beams with low divergence.
- Explore parallels between photon entanglement and classical optical metrology to develop new forms of non-local measurement.
More about the research
They can also create points where the light's oscillations share a patterned orientation. This project explores new ways to create such three-dimensional light patterns. It draws inspiration from other physical systems governed by similar mathematics, from gravity bending light around stars and galaxies to a quantum-mechanical pendulum.
Why it matters
Shaped three-dimensional light beams could find uses in biomedical imaging and in optical communications that carry information in rotating beam patterns. Parallels between entanglement and classical measurement may lead to new measurement techniques. The instructional quantum optics labs help train undergraduates for the emerging quantum information workforce.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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.
Rosario Porras-Aguilar
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, NC·Engineering·Early-career
Build a mathematical framework for wavefront shaping, the control of light's phase front, that selectively enhances the spatial frequencies carrying information about a feature's size, shape, and orientation while suppressing background from small-angle scatter.
David McGee
College of New Jersey, NJ·Physics
Optimize the spatial resolution of a maskless printing system that writes surface microstructures by exploiting the photomechanical response of azopolymer films, in which light-responsive molecules in a flexible polymer deform the surface under polarized light.
The school
Colgate University: 1 labs on PI Pages, $5M a year on research.
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