“Time reversal symmetry in optics―a powerful tool”

Gerd Leuchs, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and Max-Planck-Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen, Germany

Северная физическая аудитория (СФА), Физический факультет МГУ, 15:30

In the regime of low energy physics closed systems show time reversal symmetry. This includes optics. This symmetry can be used to design an optical system to have maximum efficiency. Several examples will be discussed. One particularly intriguing example is the interaction between a weak light field and a single atom in free space, and the question of how efficiently a single photon can be absorbed by a single atom. The interest in this topic is twofold: (1) the single photon – single atom interaction in free space is probably the most fundamental process in quantum optics, which has not been extensively studied so far in the high efficiency limit because of the technological challenges involved, and (2) efficient single atom - single photon coupling is one route to nonlinear optics at the single photon level, which is the prerequisite for quantum gates in quantum information technology.

Biography. Gerd Leuchs holds the chair of optics at the physics department of the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg since 1994. In January 2009 he was appointed director at the newly founded Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. After 15 years in academic research at the Universities of Cologne, Munich and at JILA, Boulder, Colorado, he worked at a Swiss optics company for 5 years. His scientific work includes quantum beats, photo-electron angular distributions in multi photon ionization, quantum noise reduced and entangled light beams and solitons in optical fibers, quantum communication protocols, focusing light beams and nanophotonics. Other areas of research in modern optics conducted at his chair include remote optical distance sensing and 3D-reverse engineering as well as interferometric inspection and optical interconnects using diffractive optical elements. Gerd Leuchs has been Visiting Fellow of JILA, Feodor-Lynen fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Heisenberg fellow of the German Science Foundation, Visiting Professor at the Australian National University, at the University of Adelaide and at the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel of the Ecole Normale Supérieure. He is member of the German Physical Society, the German Society for Applied Optics, the European Physical Society and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, as well as Fellow of the Institute of Physics, of the European Optical Society and of the Optical Society of America. In 2005 he received the Quantum Electronics Prize of the EPS.

Лекция организована МГУ им. М.В.Ломоносова совместно с Московским Гумбольдтовским Клубом при поддержке Фонда Александра фон Гумбольдта (Германия) и Немецкого дома науки и инноваций (DWIH) в Москве