Tutorial 1

Robust Nonlinear and Topological Quantum Photonics

Andrea Blanco-Redondo
Nokia Bell Labs

Abstract: In this Tutorial we will discuss how to engineer the dispersion relation of photonic platforms to provide robust propagation of classical and quantum states of light.
In the first part of this talk, we will unveil how to leverage the interaction of nonlinearity with higher orders of dispersion to create novel types of solitons, wave packets that propagate unperturbed for long distances. These objects have advantageous energy-width scaling laws with respect to conventional nonlinear Schrodinger solitons and show promise for applications in ultrafast lasers and integrated frequency combs. Subsequently, we will cover recent developments in topological quantum photonics. Topological photonics studies topological phases of light and leverages the appearance of robust topological edge states. We will emphasize our experimental demonstration of nonlinearly generated and topologically protected photon pairs and path-entangled biphoton states in silicon waveguide arrays. Further, we will detail our latest experiments demonstrating entanglement between topologically distinct modes, highlighting topology as an entanglement degree of freedom.

Biography: Andrea Blanco-Redondo is the Head of the Silicon Photonics department at Nokia Bell Labs in New Jersey, USA, where she develops new concepts and applications in nonlinear integrated optics and topological quantum photonics. Prior to this, from 2015 to early 2019, she was the Professor Harry Messel Research Fellow and a Senior Lecturer at the School of Physics of the University of Sydney, Australia, and from 2007 to 2015 she was a photonics researcher and a project manager with the Aerospace and Telecom departments of Tecnalia, Spain. She got her PhD in Electrical Engineering with a focus on integrated photonics at the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain, and her MSc in Electrical Engineering at the University of Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain. Andrea is an Optical Director at Large, the recipient of the 2016 Geoff Opat Award of the Australian Optical Society to the top Australian Early Career Researcher, and of one of the two 2014 Ada Byron Award to the top Women in Technology in Spain.