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2007-2008 Seminar Series in Electrical Engineering
Spring 2008 (Physical and Wave Electronics Area)

Cavity-Optomechanics in Nanophotonic Structures

Oskar Painter
Caltech
Monday, May 12, 2008 at 1:00PM

54-134 Engineering IV Building
Refreshments Served

Abstract: Optical forces have recently been proposed as a means to construct novel optomechanical components such as tunable filters, couplers, and lasers. Other theoretical studies of the nonlinear dynamics of these systems have shown them to be useful for performing optical wavelength conversion and efficient optical- to-mechanical energy conversion. In the field of quantum physics, there has also been recent interest in using radiation pressure forces within micro-optomechanical resonators to help cool macroscopic mechanical oscillators to their quantum-mechanical ground state. In this talk I will discuss work at Caltech to develop optical structures to study these optical forces at the nanoscale. The extremely small mass (picograms) and high frequency (0.1-1 GHz) of these nano-optomechancial structures make them particularly interesting both for photonic applications as well as for more fundamental studies of their quantum behavior.

Biography: Oskar Painter received his B.S.E.E. from the University of British Columbia in 1994, his Masters Degree of Science from the California Institute of Technology in 1995, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2001. In 2000 he helped found Xponent Photonics, an optical startup company developing surface-mount photonics for telecom and data networking applications. In 2002 he returned to the California Institute of Technology as an Assistant Professor in Applied Physics. Dr. Painter’s general research interests lie in studying new and interesting ways in which light behaves within micro- and nano-scale dielectric and metallic structures. Currently, specific areas of research include semiconductor cavity QED, integrated microphotonic and microwire “atom-chips”, cavity-optomechanics, surface-plasmon physics and devices, and silicon optoelectronics.