Quantum and Classical Light-Matter Interactions in Nanophotonic Devices
This project develops chip-based nanophotonic devices to enhance light-matter interactions for quantum/classical information processing, sensing, and metrology.
This grant is no longer accepting proposals
NRC Research Associateship Programs has archived this opportunity.
Funder: NRC Research Associateship Programs
Due Dates: February 1, 2025 | May 1, 2025 | August 1, 2025
Funding Amounts: $82,764 stipend plus $3,000 travel allowance; typical appointment duration 2 years.
Summary: Postdoctoral fellowship at NIST to develop chip-based nanophotonic devices enhancing quantum and classical light-matter interactions for information processing, sensing, and metrology.
Key Information: Open to U.S. citizens holding a Ph.D. within the last 5 years; requires contacting the research adviser prior to application; NIST participates in February and August review cycles only.
Description
This NRC Research Associateship Program fellowship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) focuses on advancing chip-based nanophotonic devices that enhance light-matter interactions in both quantum and classical regimes. Utilizing nanofabrication technology, the research involves creating optical resonators that confine light to wavelength-scale dimensions for thousands of optical cycles, resulting in strong intracavity fields and long photon storage times.
Key research areas include:
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Quantum regime: Development of single quantum dot nanophotonic and nanomechanical devices enabling single-photon emission and nonlinearities; entangled photon pair sources via spontaneous four-wave mixing in nanophotonic resonators; on-chip manipulation of quantum light's spectro-temporal properties including quantum frequency conversion and temporal profile shaping.
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Classical regime: Development of microresonator frequency combs and optical parametric oscillators for applications in time and frequency metrology, optical frequency synthesizers, and atomic clocks. Efforts focus on demonstrating phase-coherent microwave-to-optical interfaces and flexible visible wavelength laser sources relevant to clocks and quantum sensors.
The fellowship includes design and electromagnetic simulations of novel photonic geometries, fabrication in the state-of-the-art NIST Gaithersburg NanoFab, and experimental measurements conducted at NIST Gaithersburg and the NIST/UMD Joint Quantum Institute. Collaboration opportunities exist with NIST scientists and engineers across multiple campuses and with university and industry partners.
Keywords
Nanophotonics, Quantum optics, Quantum information processing, Nonlinear optics, Optical metrology, Nanotechnology
