Boston Chapter of the IEEE Photonics Society

Abstract:  Interferometric sensing today is a broad area of modern photonics and ubiquitous technology that could be found in all brunches of science and technology. Major interferometric approaches are based on the use of such physical parameters as phase, group velocity, and polarization. They serve as a base to multiple interferometric devices including free-space and fiber-optic sensors. Quantum optics concentrates on the use of non-classical states to access new physical properties unseen in the classical behavior of light. Starting originally with a quantum curiosity and Bell’s inequality violation, the utilization of quantum optical entanglement progressively evolved into creation of interferometric sensors that are superior in resolution and sensitivity when compared with classical counterparts. We will discuss the role of interference effects in quantum optics, generation, manipulation and detection of optical entanglement. Quantum effects of dispersion cancellation and decoherence-free subspaces become new tools for designing quantum optical sensors. Several interferometric sensing approaches based on the use of entanglement in frequency, polarization, and in the number of photons will be considered.

Biography:  Professor Alexander V. Sergienko (e-mail: alexserg@bu.edu; URL: http://people.bu.edu/alexserg) received his Ph.D. degree in physics from Moscow State University in 1987. He spent 1990-1996 at the University of Maryland and at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Professor Sergienko holds joint appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, in the Photonics center, and in the Department of Physics at Boston University. His research interests include quantum information processing including quantum cryptography, communication and computing, quantum networking, quantum imaging, the development of novel ultra-precise optical-measurement and characterization techniques (quantum metrology) that are based on the use of non-classical states of light. He pioneered the experimental development of practical quantum-measurement techniques using entangled-photon states. Professor Sergienko has published more than 400 research and conference papers and holds 6 patents in the fields of experimental quantum optics and entanglement manipulation. He is the editor of "Quantum Communications and Cryptography" (CRC/Taylor & Francis, 2006) and co-author of “Quantum Metrology, Imaging, and Communication" (Springer, 2017). He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, a member of the APS and IEEE.