Robert Boyd | |
---|---|
Born | Robert William Boyd March 8, 1948 [1] |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater |
|
Awards |
|
Scientific career | |
Fields | |
Institutions | |
Thesis | An Infrared Upconverter for Astronomical Imaging (1977) |
Doctoral advisor | Charles H. Townes [3] [4] |
Website |
Robert William Boyd (born 8 March 1948) is an American physicist noted for his work in optical physics and especially in nonlinear optics. He is currently the Canada Excellence Research Chair Laureate in Quantum Nonlinear Optics based at the University of Ottawa, professor of physics cross-appointed to the school of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Ottawa, and professor of optics and professor of physics at the University of Rochester. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Boyd was born in Buffalo, New York. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. His doctoral thesis was supervised by Charles Townes [3] [4] [10] and involves the use of nonlinear optical techniques in infrared detection for astronomy. Boyd joined the faculty of the University of Rochester in 1977, and in 2001 became the M. Parker Givens Professor of Optics and professor of physics. In 2010 he became professor of physics and Canada Excellence Research Chair in quantum nonlinear optics at the University of Ottawa. His research interests include studies of “slow” and “fast” light propagation, quantum imaging techniques, nonlinear optical interactions, studies of the nonlinear optical properties of materials, and the development of photonic devices including photonic biosensors. Boyd has written two books, co-edited two anthologies, published over 500 research papers, and been awarded five patents. He is the 2009 recipient of the Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics and the 2016 recipient of the Charles H Townes Award. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), the Optical Society of America (OSA), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and SPIE. He has chaired the Division of Laser Science of APS and has been a director of OSA. Boyd has served as a member of the board of editors of Physical Review Letters and of the board of reviewing editors of Science magazine. He has an h-index of 111 (according to Google Scholar [2] ).
Boyd's research interests are in nonlinear optics, photonics, optical physics, nanophotonics, and quantum optics. [2]
Boyd has made significant contributions to the research field known colloquially as slow and fast light. Shortly after the development of great interest in this field in 2000, he realized that it is possible to produce slow and fast-light effects in room-temperature solids. [11] [12] [13] Until that time, most workers had made use of systems of free atoms such as atomic vapors and Bose-Einstein condensates to control the group velocity of light. The realization that slow light effects can be obtained in room temperature solids has allowed the development of many applications of these effects in the field of photonics. In particular, with his students he pioneered the use of coherent population oscillations as a mechanism for producing slow and fast light in room temperature solids. [11] [12] [13] His work has led to an appreciation of the wide variety of exotic effects that can occur in the propagation of light through such structures, including the observation of “backwards” light propagation. [14] Boyd has also been instrumental in developing other slow light methods such as stimulated Brillouin scattering. [15] More recently, he has moved on to the investigation of applications of slow light for buffering [16] and signal regeneration. [17] He also came to the realization that slow light methods can be used to obtain enormous enhancements in the resolution of interferometric spectrometers, [18] [19] and he is currently working on the development of spectrometers based on this principle. As just one indication of the impact of Robert's work on slow and fast light, his Science paper [12] has been cited 523 times.
Boyd has been instrumental in the creation and development of the field of quantum imaging. This field utilizes quantum features of light, such as squeezing and entanglement, to perform image formation with higher resolution or sensitivity than can be achieved through use of classical light sources. His research contributions in this area have included studies of the nature of position and momentum entanglement, [20] the ability to impress many bits of information onto a single photon, [21] and studies to identify the quantum or classical nature of coincidence imaging. [22] [23] This latter work has led the community to realize that classical correlations can at times be used to mimic effects that appear to be of a quantum origin, but using much simpler laboratory implementations.
Boyd has performed fundamental studies of the nature of local field effects in optical materials including dense atomic vapors. A key result of this work was the first measurement [24] of the Lorentz red shift, a shift of the atomic absorption line as a consequence of local field effects. This red shift had been predicted by Lorentz in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but had never previously been observed experimentally. In addition to confirming this century-old prediction, this work is significant in confirming the validity of the Lorentz local-field formalism even under conditions associated with the resonance response of atomic vapors.
Boyd has taken a leading role in exploiting local field effects to tailor the nonlinear optical response of composite optical materials and structures. Along with John Sipe, he predicted that composite materials could possess a nonlinear response exceeding those of their constituents [25] and demonstrated this enhanced nonlinear optical response in materials including nonlinear optical materials, [26] electrooptic materials, [27] and photonic bandgap structures. [28] Similar types of enhancement can occur for fiber and nanofabricated ring-resonator systems, [29] with important applications in photonic switching [30] and sensing of biological pathogens. [31]
Boyd has also made contributions to the overall growth of the field of nonlinear optics. [32] Perhaps his single largest contribution has been in terms of his textbook Nonlinear Optics. [33] The book has been commended for its pedagogical clarity. It has become the standard reference work in this area, and thus far has sold over 12,000 copies. Moreover, in the 1980s he performed laboratory and theoretical studies of the role of Rabi oscillations in determining the nature of four-wave mixing processing in strongly driven atomic vapors. [34] [35] This work has had lasting impact on the field with one particular paper having been cited 293 times. [34]
Boyd's work has been widely published in books and peer-reviewed scientific journals, including Science , [12] [13] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] Nature , [46] [47] and Physical Review Letters . [15]
Spontaneous parametric down-conversion is a nonlinear instant optical process that converts one photon of higher energy, into a pair of photons of lower energy, in accordance with the law of conservation of energy and law of conservation of momentum. It is an important process in quantum optics, for the generation of entangled photon pairs, and of single photons.
Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is a coherent optical nonlinearity which renders a medium transparent within a narrow spectral range around an absorption line. Extreme dispersion is also created within this transparency "window" which leads to "slow light", described below. It is in essence a quantum interference effect that permits the propagation of light through an otherwise opaque atomic medium.
Lene Vestergaard Hau is a Danish physicist and educator. She is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics at Harvard University.
An optical parametric oscillator (OPO) is a parametric oscillator that oscillates at optical frequencies. It converts an input laser wave with frequency into two output waves of lower frequency by means of second-order nonlinear optical interaction. The sum of the output waves' frequencies is equal to the input wave frequency: . For historical reasons, the two output waves are called "signal" and "idler", where the output wave with higher frequency is the "signal". A special case is the degenerate OPO, when the output frequency is one-half the pump frequency, , which can result in half-harmonic generation when signal and idler have the same polarization.
Atom optics "refers to techniques to manipulate the trajectories and exploit the wave properties of neutral atoms". Typical experiments employ beams of cold, slowly moving neutral atoms, as a special case of a particle beam. Like an optical beam, the atomic beam may exhibit diffraction and interference, and can be focused with a Fresnel zone plate or a concave atomic mirror.
Within quantum technology, a quantum sensor utilizes properties of quantum mechanics, such as quantum entanglement, quantum interference, and quantum state squeezing, which have optimized precision and beat current limits in sensor technology. The field of quantum sensing deals with the design and engineering of quantum sources and quantum measurements that are able to beat the performance of any classical strategy in a number of technological applications. This can be done with photonic systems or solid state systems.
A subwavelength-diameter optical fibre is an optical fibre whose diameter is less than the wavelength of the light being propagated through it. An SDF usually consists of long thick parts at both ends, transition regions (tapers) where the fibre diameter gradually decreases down to the subwavelength value, and a subwavelength-diameter waist, which is the main acting part. Due to such a strong geometrical confinement, the guided electromagnetic field in an SDF is restricted to a single mode called fundamental.
A photonic metamaterial (PM), also known as an optical metamaterial, is a type of electromagnetic metamaterial, that interacts with light, covering terahertz (THz), infrared (IR) or visible wavelengths. The materials employ a periodic, cellular structure.
An optical transistor, also known as an optical switch or a light valve, is a device that switches or amplifies optical signals. Light occurring on an optical transistor's input changes the intensity of light emitted from the transistor's output while output power is supplied by an additional optical source. Since the input signal intensity may be weaker than that of the source, an optical transistor amplifies the optical signal. The device is the optical analog of the electronic transistor that forms the basis of modern electronic devices. Optical transistors provide a means to control light using only light and has applications in optical computing and fiber-optic communication networks. Such technology has the potential to exceed the speed of electronics, while conserving more power. The fastest demonstrated all-optical switching signal is 900 attoseconds, which paves the way to develop ultrafast optical transistors.
Photonic molecules are a form of matter in which photons bind together to form "molecules". They were first predicted in 2007. Photonic molecules are formed when individual (massless) photons "interact with each other so strongly that they act as though they have mass". In an alternative definition, photons confined to two or more coupled optical cavities also reproduce the physics of interacting atomic energy levels, and have been termed as photonic molecules.
Ortwin Hess is a German-born theoretical physicist at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) and Imperial College London (UK), working in condensed matter optics. Bridging condensed matter theory and quantum optics he specialises in quantum nanophotonics, plasmonics, metamaterials and semiconductor laser dynamics. Since the late 1980s he has been an author and coauthor of over 300 peer-reviewed articles, the most popular of which, called "'Trapped rainbow' storage of light in metamaterials", was cited more than 400 times. He pioneered active nanoplasmonics and metamaterials with quantum gain and in 2014 he introduced the "stopped-light lasing" principle as a novel route to cavity-free (nano-) lasing and localisation of amplified surface plasmon polaritons, giving him an h-index of 33.
Roberto Morandotti is a physicist and full Professor, working in the Energy Materials Telecommunications Department of the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique. The work of his team includes the areas of integrated and quantum photonics, nonlinear and singular optics, as well as terahertz photonics.
Luigi Lugiato is an Italian physicist and professor emeritus at University of Insubria (Varese/Como). He is best known for his work in theoretical nonlinear and quantum optics, and especially for the Lugiato–Lefever equation (LLE,). He has authored more than 340 scientific articles, and the textbook Nonlinear Dynamical Systems. His work has been theoretical but has stimulated a large number of important experiments in the world. It is also characterized by the fact of combining the classical and quantum aspects of optical systems.
Integrated quantum photonics, uses photonic integrated circuits to control photonic quantum states for applications in quantum technologies. As such, integrated quantum photonics provides a promising approach to the miniaturisation and scaling up of optical quantum circuits. The major application of integrated quantum photonics is Quantum technology:, for example quantum computing, quantum communication, quantum simulation, quantum walks and quantum metrology.
Continuous-variable (CV) quantum information is the area of quantum information science that makes use of physical observables, like the strength of an electromagnetic field, whose numerical values belong to continuous intervals. One primary application is quantum computing. In a sense, continuous-variable quantum computation is "analog", while quantum computation using qubits is "digital." In more technical terms, the former makes use of Hilbert spaces that are infinite-dimensional, while the Hilbert spaces for systems comprising collections of qubits are finite-dimensional. One motivation for studying continuous-variable quantum computation is to understand what resources are necessary to make quantum computers more powerful than classical ones.
Crispin William Gardiner is a New Zealand physicist, who has worked in the fields of quantum optics, ultracold atoms and stochastic processes. He has written about 120 journal articles and several books in the fields of quantum optics, stochastic processes and ultracold atoms.
Carlos Ray Stroud, Jr. is an American physicist and educator. Working in the field of quantum optics, Stroud has carried out theoretical and experimental studies in most areas of the field from its beginnings in the late 1960s, studying the fundamentals of the quantum mechanics of atoms and light and their interaction. He has authored over 140 peer-reviewed papers and edited seven books. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America, as well as a Distinguished Traveling Lecturer of the Division of Laser Science of the American Physical Society. In this latter position he travels to smaller colleges giving colloquia and public lectures.
Mark Stockman was a Soviet-born American physicist. He was a professor of physics and astronomy at Georgia State University. Best known for his contributions to plasmonics, Stockman has co-theorized plasmonic lasers, also known as spasers, in 2003.
Alexander Luis Gaeta is an American physicist and the David M. Rickey Professor of Applied Physics at Columbia University. He is known for his work on quantum and nonlinear photonics. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, Optica, and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Baruch Fischer is an Israeli optical physicist and Professor Emeritus in the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the Technion, where he was the Max Knoll Chair in Electro-Optics and Electronics.