FreQomb: Optical Frequency Combs Workshop 2023

Prof Kerry Vahala. Caltech, USA.
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Kerry Vahala has pioneered nonlinear optics in high-Q optical micro resonators. His research group has launched many of the areas of study in this field and invented optical resonators that hold the record for highest optical Q on a semiconductor chip. Vahala has applied these devices to a wide range of nonlinear phenomena and applications. This includes the first demonstration of parametric oscillation and cascaded four-wave mixing in a micro cavity – the central regeneration mechanisms for frequency micro combs; electro-optical frequency division – used in the most stable commercial K-band oscillators; and the first observation of dynamic back action in cavity optomechanical systems. His micro-resonator devices are used at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in chip-based optical clocks and frequency synthesizers. They have also been used at the Keck II observatory in Hawaii as miniature astrocombs in the search for exoplanets. Vahala’s current research is focused on the application of high-Q optical micro resonators to miniature precision metrology systems as well as monolithic optical gyroscopes. Professor Vahala was also involved in the early effort to develop quantum-well lasers for optical communications. That work formed the basis for nearly all of today’s high-speed semiconductor laser design for lightwave high-speed telecommunications, particularly in the metropolitan and local-area arena.

Dr Jonathan Silver. NPL, UK
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Jonathan Silver is a Senior Research Scientist at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, where he heads a team researching microresonator-based frequency combs, or microcombs. He is currently funded by the UK Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Timing to develop integrated self-referenced microcombs for portable optical clocks and radar, in collaboration with the Universities of Glasgow and Southampton. Jonathan joined NPL in 2015 to work with Pascal Del’Haye on optical microresonators and microcombs after completing a PhD in ultracold atoms at the universities of Cambridge and Bonn, Germany. From 2018 to 2020, he held a Royal Academy of Engineering UK Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship hosted by City, University of London, during which time he continued to work at NPL as a Visiting Researcher. He took over the leadership of the team when Pascal moved to Germany in 2019. He grew up in London and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

Prof Marco Piccardo. Instituto Superior Tecnico Lisbon, Portugal
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Marco Piccardo is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Physics Department of Técnico Lisboa, a Principal Investigator at INESC Microsystems and Nanotechnologies, and an Associate Researcher at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in Harvard University. He received his BSc. in Physics from Università degli Studi di Torino, and a MSc. in Physics from Ecole Normale Superieure and Ecole Polytechnique. He obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from Ecole Polytechnique in 2016 working on the fundamental electronic processes responsible for the efficiency drop of blue light-emitting diodes at high-current operation, such as Anderson localization and Auger recombination. His postdoctoral research in the group of Federico Capasso at Harvard University focused on integrated laser frequency combs, while his subsequent activity as Researcher and Team Leader at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia studied metasurface-enhanced active and passive photonic cavities.

He is the recipient of the Young Physicist Award “G. F. Bassani” of the Italian Physical Society, and laureate of the PhD Award “Innovative Materials and Applications” of the Université Paris-Saclay. He holds around 40 publications, in journals including Nature, Science, Nature Photonics, PNAS, Nature Communications and Physical Review Letters, and holds 5 patent applications in photonics.

Prof Harald Schwefel. University of Otago, New Zealand
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Harald Schwefel began his physics training in Germany at the Brandenburg Technical University in Cottbus. In 1998 he began graduate study at Yale University, USA where he received the PhD in theoretical physics in 2004 on the topic of chaotic dielectric resonators. Following a short stay in Japan, Harald Schwefel established himself as an experimental physicist and later group leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Germany. In September 2015 he joined the Department of Physics at the University of Otago and have reestablished his laboratory there.

Dr Nicolas Englebert. Caltech, USA
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Nicolas comes from Brussels, where he received a master’s degree in Physics Engineering from the ULB in 2018. Four years later, with the support of an individual fellowship from the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research, Nicolas defended his thesis entitled “Temporal solitons in coherently driven fiber resonators”, carried out in the OPERA-Photonic group under the supervision of Professors Simon-Pierre Gorza and François Leo. His doctoral research has been rewarded with several prizes, notably the Nokia Bell Labs Scientific Award 2022. After a year of postdoctoral research in Brussels, Nicolas joined the Nonlinear Photonics Laboratory led by Prof. Alireza Maradi at Caltech as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Research Fellow and a BAEF individual fellow. His research focus on cavity soliton and frequency comb formation in integrated quadratic resonators. Beyond physics, Nicolas is passionate about hiking, cycling and baking!

Prof Arnan Mitchell. RMIT University, Australia
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Professor Arnan Mitchell is Director of RMIT’s Micro Nano Research Facility (MNRF) and the Integrated Photonics and Applications Centre (InPAC). Prof Mitchell has built RMIT’s capability in photonics (the science of using and manipulating light) over his 20-year career through national and international collaboration.

He is Director of the $60M Micro Nano Research Facility (MNRF) including comprehensive infrastructure for photonic chip research and development and has spent much of his career building this capability. He founded and leads the Integrated Photonics and Applications Centre (InPAC) – a team of more than 40 researchers exploring how breakthrough innovations can be translated to real world impact through engagement with industry in Australia and around the world. InPAC includes integrated photonic design, photonic chip fabrication, packaging and interfacing and applications in high-speed internet, photonic sensing systems for defence and photonic biosensors for more rapid disease diagnosis.

Prof Mitchell is often the platform technology expert in a highly multi-disciplinary team and has used this approach to achieve major impacts spanning nonlinear physics, precision measurement for navigation and defence applications, record breaking data communications technology and even lab-on-a-chip devices for biomedical research. His publications appear in the highest quality outlets including Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, PNAS, Optica, Light Science and Applications and Advanced Materials, among many others.

Professor Mitchell is a thought leader and photonics pioneer with a mission to building a deep technology manufacturing base in Australia sustaining both academia and industry.

Prof Dmitry Skryabin. University of Bath, UK
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Dmitry Skryabin is fascinated by how light interacts with matter and enjoy the beauty and power of physics. His research focuses on the physics of ultrashort pulses, multi-mode complexity and frequency conversion in nonlinear photonic devices, e.g., in microresonators, waveguides, optical fibres, and semiconductors. Solitons in optics have always been a particular topic of his interest.

Prof Tobias J. Kippenberg. EPFL, Switzerland
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Tobias J. Kippenberg is Full Professor of Physics at EPFL and leads the Laboratory of Photonics and Quantum Measurement. He obtained his BA at the RWTH Aachen, and MA and PhD at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech in Pasadena, USA). From 2005- 2009 he lead an Independent Research Group at the MPI of Quantum Optics, and is at EPFL since. His research interest are the Science and Applications of ultra high Q microcavities; in particular with his research group he discovered chip-scale Kerr frequency comb generation (Nature 2007, Science 2011) and observed radiation pressure backaction effects in microresonators that now developed into the field of cavity optomechanics (Science 2008). Tobias Kippenberg is alumni of the “Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes”. For his invention of “chip-scale frequency combs” he received he Helmholtz Price for Metrology (2009) and the EFTF Young Investigator Award (2010). For his research on cavity optomechanics, he received the EPS Fresnel Prize (2009). In addition he is recipient of the ICO Prize in Optics (2014), the Swiss National Latsis award (2015), the German Wilhelm Klung Award (2015) and ZEISS Research Award (2018). He is fellow of the APS and OSA, and listed since 2014 in the Thomas Reuters highlycited.com in the domain of Physics.

Prof Radan Slavik. Southampton, UK
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Prof Radan Slavik, Fellow of OPTICA, is Head of the Coherent Optica Signal research group in the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton, UK. He has a 25-year track record of research in the field of fibre optics and its applications in sensing and telecommunications, including last 10 years in researching practical aspects, characterization, and applications of hollow core optical fibres.

Dr Maria Chernysheva. Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, Germany
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Maria Chernysheva obtained her PhD degree in Laser Physics from the Fiber Optics Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2014. She moved to the United Kingdom shortly after where she worked at Aston University as Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Research Fellow (Horizon2020) and Engineering for Development Research Fellow, funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Global Challenges Research Fund. From the beginning of 2019, Maria Chernysheva has been a leader of the Junior Research Group “Ultrafast fiber lasers” at Leibniz-IPHT (Jena). Her main research interests are focused on laser physics, exploration and engineering novel ultrafast fiber laser configurations and amplification systems.

Prof Zhixin Liu. UCL, UK
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Zhixin Liu received his PhD degree in Information Engineering from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and joined the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton in 2013. In 2016, he joined the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering at UCL as a lecturer and was promoted to associate professor in 2021.
His research interests include optical signal processing and its applications in communication systems and scientific instruments. He has pioneered frequency comb assisted data conversion and low-latency data communications that have led to several world’s first demonstrations. Dr Liu has co-authored more than 100 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and conferences with several high-profile papers and invited papers in top journals. He holds three patents, with two licenced to industrial companies. Dr Liu has been PI on over 10 grants from Industry and Research Councils. He is Co-I on the £6.1m EPSRC Programme grant TRANSNET.

Prof Scott Diddams, NIST, University of Colorado, USA
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Scott Diddams holds the Robert H. Davis Endowed Chair at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he is also Professor of Electrical Engineering and Physics. He carries out experimental research in the fields of precision spectroscopy and quantum metrology, nonlinear optics, microwave photonics and ultrafast lasers. Diddams received the Ph.D. degree from the University of New Mexico in 1996. From 1996 through 2000, he did postdoctoral work at JILA, NIST and the University of Colorado. Subsequently, Diddams was a Research Physicist, Group Leader, and Fellow at NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology). In 2022 he transitioned to his present position where he also assumed the role of Faculty Director of the Quantum Engineering Initiative in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. As a postdoc Diddams built the first optical frequency combs in the lab of Nobel laureate John Hall, and throughout his career, he has pioneered the use of these powerful tools for optical clocks, tests of fundamental physics, novel spectroscopy, and astronomy. His research has been documented in more than 750 peer-reviewed publications, conference papers, and invited talks. The work of Dr. Diddams and his research group has been recognized by multiple awards. These include the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award, the Department of Commerce Gold and Silver Medals for “revolutionizing the way frequency is measured”, as well as the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE), the C.E.K. Mees Medal from OPTICA (formerly OSA), the IEEE Photonics Society Laser Instrumentation Award, and the IEEE Rabi award. He is a Fellow of OPTICA and the American Physical Society, and a Senior Member of IEEE.

Prof Alessia Pasquazi, Loughborough University, UK

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Professor Alessia Pasquazi (PhD 2009 in Electronic Engineering University ‘Roma Tre’) is an expert in nonlinear optics, she is fascinated by how light interacts with light, mimicking often living systems.
Her focus is on applying such a physics to practical ultrafast photonic technologies and she is a relevant expert in the field of microcombs. She has been MELS fellow (Quebec, Canada) from 2010-2011 and EU Marie-Curie Fellow from 2013-2015, Ernest Rutherford Fellow (2018-2023), ERC Starting Grant Laureate (2020-2024). She joined Loughborough in 2022 from the University of Sussex where she was Co-Director of the Emergent Photonics laboratory.

Prof Benedikt Schwarz, TU Wien, Austria

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Benedikt Schwarz comes from Tyrol. He studied electrical engineering at the TU Wien and received his doctorate there in 2015 with a dissertation on the topic “Monolithic integration of mid-infrared photonics, opens an external URL in a new window” with Prof. Strasser. His previous scientific achievements have already been recognized with numerous prizes, including the BMWF honorary award, the Photonics21 Student Innovation Award, the INiTS Award and the FACSS Innovation Award. In 2020 he was also able to successfully submit an ERC Starting Grant, opens an external URL in a new window. This enabled him to successfully take up the career position “Modeling and realization of monolithic frequency combs”, which he has now completed with the qualification to associate professor. In 2020 he also obtained his Venia Docendi for the subject “Nanoelectronics and Photonics” with a habilitation thesis on the topic “Towards chip integrated mid-infrared spectrometers, opens an external URL in a new window”.

The scientific home of Benedikt Schwarz is the Research Unit of Optoelectronic Materials, opens an external URL in a new window (E362-01) at the Institute of Solid State Electronics. Here he researches, among other things, compact, portable and energy-saving laser sensors with which environmental pollutants and also diagnosable diseases can be detected.

Dr Benjamin Sprenger, Menlo Systems, Germany

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Benjamin Sprenger is a project manager at Menlo Systems and has been with the company for over eight years. He studied Physics and specialized in Optics and Photonics during his undergraduate studies at Imperial College London, followed by a PhD in laser physics focusing on stabilization of lasers using whispering gallery mode resonators at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Germany. After a Postdoc in experimental quantum optics he joined Menlo Systems in 2015 with an emphasis on ultrastable lasers and optical frequency combs. After several years as a sales engineer he moved on to project management and as a specialist for quantum technology and metrology.

Prof Marko Loncar, Harvard, USA

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Marko Lončar is Tiantsai Lin Professor of Electrical Engineering at Harvard’s John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), as well as Harvard College Professor. Lončar received his Diploma from University of Belgrade (R. Serbia) in 1997, and his PhD from Caltech in 2003 (with Axel Scherer), both in Electrical Engineering. After completing his postdoctoral studies at Harvard (with Federico Capasso), he joined SEAS faculty in 2006. Lončar is expert in nanophotonics and nanofabrication, and his current research interests include quantum and nonlinear nanophotonics, quantum optomchanics, high-power optics, and nanofabrication. He has received NSF CAREER Award in 2009 and Sloan Fellowship in 2010. In recognition of his teaching activities, Lončar has been awarded Levenson Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2012), and has been named Harvard College Professor in 2017. Lončar is fellow of Optical Society of America, and Senior Member of IEEE and SPIE.

Prof Misha Sumetsky, Aston University, UK

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Misha Sumetsky graduated from the Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia, and has Ph.D. (1979) and D.Sc.(1989) degrees from the same University. He worked at the Physics Department of Saint-Petersburg University of Telecommunications (Russia) from 1979 till 1995 when he joined Bell Laboratories (USA). In 2001, Dr Sumetsky continued his research at OFS Labs after transition of the Optical Fiber Research Department of Bell Labs into the OFS Labs. In 2013, he joined the Aston Institute of Photonics Technologies as a Professor of Photonics. Prof Sumetsky is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the recipient of Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. He has more than 200 publications and more than 20 patents in optics and quantum mechanics. His present research interests are in optics of microresonators and nanophotonics.

Dr Auro Perego, Aston University, UK

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Dr Perego’s main research interests are at the interface of applied physics and photonic engineering.
These include the investigation of novel techniques for optical frequency combs generation in optical resonators and the physics of mode-locking in semiconductor and fibre lasers.
Other research interests include parametric amplification in nonlinear waveguides, optical sensing and the study of instabilities and solitons in photonic systems.
He is currently a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow – with a project on optical frequency combs – at the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies – AIPT (https://www.aston.ac.uk/research/eps/aipt) where he is building his independent research group.
Dr Perego received a BSc and a MSc in Physics from Università dell’Insubria (Como, Italy) and a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Aston University in 2018.