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Physics Colloquium

Ayman F. Abouraddy
CREOL, The College of Optics & Photonics
University of Central Florida

ABSTRACT: Quantum optics provides opportunities for addressing fundamental questions regarding the foundations of physics and enables novel applications in quantum information processing. In this talk I will describe two thrusts of my work in quantum optics. First, a strategy for exploiting the joint Hilbert space of polarization and spatial modes to increase the information-carrying capacity of one-photon and two-photon states will be described. In the second half of my talk, I will present recent work on Anderson co-localization and anti-localization of photon pairs described by entangled Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen quantum states upon traversing disordered photonic lattices. I will end the talk with the recent prediction and subsequent observation of a photonic thermalization gap that emerges in certain disordered photonic lattices, which in turns leads to predictions of surprising topological effects in such lattices. 

Bio: Ayman F. Abouraddy received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt, in 1994 and 1997, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from Boston University, Boston, MA, in 2003, all in electrical engineering. In 2003 he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, as a postdoctoral fellow working with Prof. Yoel Fink (Materials Science & Engineering) and Prof. John D. Joannopoulos (Physics), and then became a Research Scientist at the Research Laboratory of Electronics in 2005. He joined CREOL, The College of Optics & Photonics, at the University of Central Florida in September 2008 where he is currently an associate professor. His research work spans a wide spectrum of activities ranging from investigating new classes of polymer and soft-glass fibers to quantum optics and quantum information processing. He is the coauthor of more than 70 journal publications, 140 conference presentations, and 55 invited talks; he holds seven patents, and has three patents pending.