Title: Atom-Nanophotonics at Low Dimensions

Join Zoom: https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/93857631004

Abstract: Combining photonic structures with thermal atomic vapors on a chip provides an efficient atom-light coupling well beyond the diffraction limit on a scalable and miniaturized platform. In this seminar, I talk about some of our results on an integrated silicon photonic chip immersed in a micro-cell with rubidium vapor and discuss the effect of transient atom-light coupling on modifying the scattering properties of the photonic devices. Moreover, I present some of our recent spectroscopy measurements of a dense atomic media coupled to the tightly confined and deep sub-wavelength mode of a photonic waveguide. Our results indicate the appearance of some collective behaviors at this pseudo-1D geometry, mediated via the single waveguide mode strongly coupled to all atoms. The talk will be concluded with some of our ideas and perspectives for using this platform for cavity QED studies and devising new schemes for investigating atom-atom interactions in more sophisticated light fields.

Bio: Hadiseh Alaeian got her PhD from Stanford in 2015, studying active and non-Hermitian photonic systems, under the supervision of Jennifer Dionne and Jelena Vuckovic. After her graduation, she moved to Germany first, as a Humboldt postdoc fellow and later as a junior group leader in the group of Tilman Pfau. During that time, her research has been focused on quantum dynamics of photonic systems including their Bose-Einstein condensation, and their interaction with atoms in sub-wavelength structures. In August 2020, Hadiseh joined Purdue as an assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Physics and Astronomy where she will be extending her studies to the strongly interacting photon fluids using Rydberg excitons.