Research area:
My research area is optics – in particular optical measurements, nonlinear optics and quantum optics. In optical measurements I have worked in particular with measurements of flow velocity, vibration and particle sizing with laser light. Nonlinear optics includes phenomena where one beam of light can influence another beam of light during passage of an optically nonlinear material. In this way it becomes possible to modulate, deflect or encode one laser beam with another or to change the wavelength of laser light by splitting or uniting some of the smallest particles of light (the photons). By means of small changes of the nonlinear material, eg. by heating or angular adjustment relative to the incident laser beam, one can fine-tune the wavelength, which can have applications in atom physics and spectroscopy. Nonlinear optics also allows one to change the fundamental quantum properties of light. This opens the possibility of generating light with special properties, eg. light with ultra-low noise, which can be important in sensitive optical measurements and in biomedical applications or within optical communication. Recently our research team has focused attention on the phenomenon of “quantum entanglement” where two or more photons are connected over great distances by nonclassical correlations. These phenomena are considered a promising resource for future optical communication and computation.