• Starts: 11:00 am on Thursday, November 21, 2024
  • Ends: 12:30 pm on Thursday, November 21, 2024

ECE Distinguished Lecture 2024: Sahin Ozdemir

Title: Non-Hermiticity as a Resource for Photonics

Abstract: Recent years have seen tremendous progress in the experimental implementations of concepts rooted in non-Hermitian physics. This progress has led to a host of new intriguing results in optics with promising potential applications. One of the most notable properties of non-Hermitian systems is the emergence of spectral degeneracies known as exceptional points (EPs) where complex eigenvalues and the corresponding eigenstates of the system coalesce. The presence of an EP affects the system significantly, leading to nontrivial physics with interesting features. In this talk, I will present the progress in our experimental and theoretical studies towards a better understanding of non-Hermitian processes in photonics, including sensing, topology, and light-matter interactions. I will end the talk with a discussion of some of the opportunities and challenges in photonics research within the framework of non-Hermitian optics.

Bio: Dr. Ozdemir is a professor and the chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Saint Louis University and also an affiliated professor at Penn State University. He received his BSc (1992) and MSc (1995) from the Middle East Technical University, Turkey, and PhD (2000) from Shizuoka University, Japan, all in electrical and electronics engineering. Dr Ozdemir has authored over 170 peer-reviewed papers on topics ranging from quantum information science and engineering, parity-time symmetric optics, and optical sensing to plasmonics, microcavities, and optomechanics. He is a fellow of Optica and Institute of Physics (IoP) and a senior member of IEEE. He is listed as highly cited researcher by Clarivate / Web of Science since 2019.

Location:
PHO 339
Hosting Professor
Luca Dal Negro