Periodic Reporting for period 4 - PHOSPhOR (Photonics of Spin–Orbit Optical Phenomena)
Período documentado: 2020-12-01 hasta 2021-11-30
PHOSPhOR vision is to promote the development of a full-fledged spin-orbit photonic science and technology, in which the vector states of structured light beams, optical pulses and even quantum states of individual photons can be precisely tailored and manipulated in all their aspects and used, in combination with suitable material systems, to obtain new classical- or quantum-optical functionalities; or they can be exploited as scientific tools to investigate new physical phenomena.
Let us now briefly mention some of our most important specific results.
We introduced a new fundamental principle for light lateral confinement and guiding, entirely based on spin-orbit interactions. This new concept, which we proposed and demonstrated experimentally, relies on using polarization manipulations to introduce the optical phases needed to achieve waveguiding.
We ideated and developed a new photonic platform for quantum simulations based on a suitable sequence of optical elements that exploit spin-orbit interactions to control the internal spatial structure of a single optical beam. The evolution of the light beam in such system can be proved to be equivalent to that of a particle performing a “quantum walk” in a suitable lattice. This concept can be applied in various directions. We focused our quantum-simulation work on investigating topological physics and demonstrated new methods for measuring the underlying topological invariants by observing the time evolution of the particle in the system bulk. Our platform was initially limited to one-dimensional (1D) lattices, then we upgraded it to two-dimensional (2D) systems which are associated with a much richer physics. We are applying this platform both to classical light simulations and few-photon ones. The latter may be suitable for future applications in quantum computing.
We demonstrated several very promising applications of structured light. Among them, perhaps the most interesting one for possible commercial exploitation is a new non-contact optical method for measuring nanometric displacements of a mechanical stage.
All our scientific results were widely disseminated in the scientific community via peer-review publications and communications in conferences. Over 30 articles in prestigious international journals were published based on the project ideas and results, including several in very high-ranked journals such as Nature Photonics, Nature Communications, Physical Review Letters, Optica, etc. Several other publications are expected to appear in the next months, as the more recent work we completed becomes finalized. In addition, some of the results were presented to the general public in various ways (e.g. on the project website and in non-technical publications and presentations). A patent and a patent application were also generated from work carried out in the project and we will explore their possible commercial exploitation in the future.