All day
Place: ICFO Auditorium
Said Rodriguez (AMOLF)
BIO:
Said Rahimzadeh-Kalaleh Rodriguez leads the Interacting Photons group at NWO-Institute AMOLF (Amsterdam), where he is tenured since 2022. The group investigates novel mechanisms through which nonlinearities, noise, memory, and dissipation, can synergistically enhance the transport of energy and information in light. Prior to starting his group, Said got a PhD in Physics at AMOLF and TU/Eindhoven. He worked on strong light-matter interactions in various nanophotonic systems, and pioneered studies of condensation in plasmonic systems. Said graduated Cum Laude (top 3-5%), received the 2015 FOM thesis prize (best physics thesis in the Netherlands) and the Christiaan Huygens prize honourable mention (2nd best physics thesis in 2009-2014 in the Netherlands). Then, Said obtained a Marie Curie individual fellowship to investigate quantum and nonlinear optics of semiconductor cavities in France. There, he introduced methods for probing dissipative phase transitions of laser-driven systems. In 2017, Said received a NWO Veni grant to investigate noise-assisted optical functionalities, and started his group at AMOLF. With his group, he has opened several new frontiers of physics, including: i) scaling and universality in systems with memory , ii) optical sensors that benefit from noise or short measurements times, iii) broadband noise-assisted signal amplification, iv) cavity photon superfluidity, and v) stochastic thermodynamics of laser-driven resonators. In 2019, Said received an ERC Starting grant to investigate optoelectronic properties of polaritons, and in 2020 he received an Early Career Award from the Dutch Royal Academy.
TALK: "There’s plenty of energy in noise"
In 1959 Richard Feynman gave an inspiring talk titled “There’s plenty of room at the bottom”, which led us into a new era of nanotechnology. By now, that room has been exhausted. I argue that the 21st century challenge is not just in shrinking technology, but mainly in making it energy efficient, fast, and precise. Understanding and harnessing the energy in noise is the way to achieve that. Even entirely new functionalities can be created with noise. In this spirit, I will present some results from my group on the physics of noise in optical systems. I will show how noise can be harnessed to amplify optical signals, improve optical sensing, and create novel functionalities based on spontaneously broken symmetries. I will also briefly discuss our recent discovery of arcsine laws of light, which apply to a wide class of noisy systems used in photonics. The laws further imply a weak ergodicity breaking, which can be harnessed to improve sensing precision without expanding the energy budget and measurement time.
TUTORIAL: "Nanoscale quantum light-matter interactions"
With Hugues de Riedmatten (ICFO)
What is quantum? Is it an intrinsic or an emergent property of a system? And what opportunities does quantum offer for fundamental nanoscience and nanotechnology? In this tutorial we will answer these questions in the context of optical systems. We will also discuss how the interaction between single photons and single emitters can be enhanced using nanoscale photonic resonators. Finally, we will discuss recent trends in nanophotonics that do not involve purely quantum phenomena per se, but rather involve quantum-inspired phenomena relevant to light-based energy and information technologies.
All day
Place: ICFO Auditorium
Said Rodriguez (AMOLF)
BIO:
Said Rahimzadeh-Kalaleh Rodriguez leads the Interacting Photons group at NWO-Institute AMOLF (Amsterdam), where he is tenured since 2022. The group investigates novel mechanisms through which nonlinearities, noise, memory, and dissipation, can synergistically enhance the transport of energy and information in light. Prior to starting his group, Said got a PhD in Physics at AMOLF and TU/Eindhoven. He worked on strong light-matter interactions in various nanophotonic systems, and pioneered studies of condensation in plasmonic systems. Said graduated Cum Laude (top 3-5%), received the 2015 FOM thesis prize (best physics thesis in the Netherlands) and the Christiaan Huygens prize honourable mention (2nd best physics thesis in 2009-2014 in the Netherlands). Then, Said obtained a Marie Curie individual fellowship to investigate quantum and nonlinear optics of semiconductor cavities in France. There, he introduced methods for probing dissipative phase transitions of laser-driven systems. In 2017, Said received a NWO Veni grant to investigate noise-assisted optical functionalities, and started his group at AMOLF. With his group, he has opened several new frontiers of physics, including: i) scaling and universality in systems with memory , ii) optical sensors that benefit from noise or short measurements times, iii) broadband noise-assisted signal amplification, iv) cavity photon superfluidity, and v) stochastic thermodynamics of laser-driven resonators. In 2019, Said received an ERC Starting grant to investigate optoelectronic properties of polaritons, and in 2020 he received an Early Career Award from the Dutch Royal Academy.
TALK: "There’s plenty of energy in noise"
In 1959 Richard Feynman gave an inspiring talk titled “There’s plenty of room at the bottom”, which led us into a new era of nanotechnology. By now, that room has been exhausted. I argue that the 21st century challenge is not just in shrinking technology, but mainly in making it energy efficient, fast, and precise. Understanding and harnessing the energy in noise is the way to achieve that. Even entirely new functionalities can be created with noise. In this spirit, I will present some results from my group on the physics of noise in optical systems. I will show how noise can be harnessed to amplify optical signals, improve optical sensing, and create novel functionalities based on spontaneously broken symmetries. I will also briefly discuss our recent discovery of arcsine laws of light, which apply to a wide class of noisy systems used in photonics. The laws further imply a weak ergodicity breaking, which can be harnessed to improve sensing precision without expanding the energy budget and measurement time.
TUTORIAL: "Nanoscale quantum light-matter interactions"
With Hugues de Riedmatten (ICFO)
What is quantum? Is it an intrinsic or an emergent property of a system? And what opportunities does quantum offer for fundamental nanoscience and nanotechnology? In this tutorial we will answer these questions in the context of optical systems. We will also discuss how the interaction between single photons and single emitters can be enhanced using nanoscale photonic resonators. Finally, we will discuss recent trends in nanophotonics that do not involve purely quantum phenomena per se, but rather involve quantum-inspired phenomena relevant to light-based energy and information technologies.