University of Calgary Student Chapter Annual Report

Transcription

1 University of Calgary Student Chapter Annual Report

2 Who We Are Our student chapter situated on the University of Calgary campus consists of 10 members. This past year, was the fifth year for our SPIE student chapter. We are a joint student chapter with the Optical Society of America (OSA) chapter which was founded in A majority of our members are graduate students in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Calgary. More specifically, we are members of the Institute for Quantum Science and Technology (IQST), and experimentalists working in one of two state-of-the-art quantum optics labs at the UofC.

3 Chapter Officers David Lake President Eugene Moiseev Vice President Marcelo Wu Secretary Hamidreza Kaviani Treasurer Arina Taschilina Webmaster Dr. Alexander Lvovsky Chapter Advisor

4 Current Student Chapter Members Name Expires Di Chang 17 May 2015 Christopher Healey 25 March 2015 Hamidreza Kaviani 16 December 2014 David Lake 18 December 2014 Adarsh Prasad 27 January 2015 Marcelo Wu 9 May 2015 Matthew Mitchell 9 June 2015 Eugene Moiseev 9 June 2015 Daniel Hogg ID: Aveek Chandra ID: Arina Taschilina Former Student Chapter Members Tian Wang Hon Wai Lau Behzad Khanaliloo Zhongzhong Qin Abhirup Goswami Travis Brannan Ben Lavoie Connor Kupchak Pantita Palittapongarnpim

5 Activities in Recruitment Recruitment Party October 25, 2013 Again this year, we hosted a recruitment party with drinks and nachos at the beginning of the school year, aimed at appealing to the graduate students on campus. The party was at the Last Defense Lounge on campus. We had 14 participants and recruited two new members.

6 2. Educational Activities Travelling Lecturer Marko Loncar (Harvard University) Feb 26, 2014 The Institute for Quantum Science and Technology (IQST) hosted a colloquium by Dr. Marko Loncar from Harvard University on February 26. Dr. Loncar is a leading expert in nanophotonics with specialties in photonic crystal devices and diamond fabrication. Title: Quantum nanophotonics and nanomechanics with diamond Abstract: Diamond possesses remarkable physical and chemical properties, and in many ways is the ultimate engineering material - the engineer s best friend! For example, it has high mechanical hardness and large Young s modulus, and is one of the best thermal conductors. Optically, diamond is transparent from the ultra-violet to infra-red, has a high refractive index (n = 2.4), strong optical nonlinearity and a wide variety of light-emitting defects. Finally, it is biocompatible and chemically inert, suitable for operation in harsh environment. These properties make diamond a highly desirable material for many applications, including highfrequency micro- and nano-electromechanical systems, nonlinear optics, magnetic and electric field sensing, biomedicine, and oil discovery. One particularly exciting application of diamond is in the field of quantum information science and technology, which promises realization of powerful quantum computers capable of tackling problems that cannot be solved using classical approaches, as well as realization of secure communication channels. At the heart of these applications are diamond s luminescent defects color centers and the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center in particular. This atomic system in the solid-state possesses all the essential elements for quantum technology, including storage, logic, and communication of quantum information. I will review recent advances in nanotechnology that have enabled fabrication of nanoscale optical devices and chip-scale systems in diamond that can generate, manipulate, and store optical signals at the singlephoton level. Examples include a room temperature source of single photons based on diamond nanowires1 (Figure A) and plasmonic appertures2, as well as single-photon generation and routing inside ring3 (Figure B) and photonic crystal resonators (Figure C) fabricated directly in diamond4. In addition to these quantum applications I will present our recent work on diamond based on-chip frequency combs, as well as diamond nanomechanical resonators (Figure D).

7 1. T.M. Babinec, B.M. Hausmann, M. Khan, Y. Zhang, J. Maze, P.R. Hemmer, M.Lončar, "A bright single photon source based on a diamond nanowire," Nature Nanotechnology, 5, 195 (2010) 2. J.T. Choy, B.M. Hausmann, T.M. Babinec, I. Bulu, and M. Lončar, "Enhanced Single Photon Emission by Diamond-Plasmon Nanostructures.," Nature Photonics, 5, 738 (2011) 3. B.J.M. Hausmann, et al, "Integrated Diamond Networks for Quantum Nanophotonics", Nano Letters, 12, 1578 (2012) 4. M.J. Burek, et al, Free-standing mechanical and photonic nanostructures in single-crystal diamond, Nano Letters, 12, 6084 (2012) Event: The colloquium was organized jointly by the OSA/SPIE Student Chapter at UofC and the Institute for Quantum Science and Technology (IQST). IQST hosted the event and prof. Paul Barclay was the host. The OSA/SPIE UofC student chapter along with the UofC nanogroup co-sponsored the event by providing financial resources. Upon arrival at the University of Calgary, the speaker was given a lab tour of the various research groups including the Nanophotonics (Prof. Paul Barclay), Quantum Optics and Information group (Prof. Alex Lvovsky), and the Quantum Cryptography group (Prof. Wolfgang Tittel). Following that the speaker had a lunch and interaction session with chapter members on campus at Bristo, Hotel Alma.

8 At the event, about 45 attendees were present, most of them from the Physics department. There was a small contingent of graduate students from Biology and one faculty from Mechanical Engineering. One of our members, Behzad, took pictures during the talk.

9 Optics and Photonics 2013 San Diego Our chapter participated in the annual meeting of Optics and Photonics in San Diego from August 23 August 29, The meeting was attended by Adarsh Shankar Prasad, who was last year s student chapter president. Adarsh also gave an invited talk on his research in the quantum communications and imaging conference (a part of Optics and Photonics conference) and attended many of the activities at the conference. While he was there, Adarsh represented our chapter in the leadership meeting. This year the theme was to promote optics and photonics among the peers through various chapter activities. The students at the leadership meeting did some discussion about their chapter initiatives and problems. The leadership conference ended with a discussion on how to be an effective leader. After returning back to Calgary, Adarsh discussed the content of the leadership meeting with the group and shared some of the insights he had learned. Through the ideas acquired from the leadership conference, our chapter was able to increase its membership by 50% for the last year as well as plan its activities in a much better way. Adarsh also felt that attending the exposition was very useful. He communicated with many of the people in the optics industry and saw some of what was available in terms of careers in this field. SPIE career center in particular had interesting figures regarding the life of physicists after research. He also attended several workshops including KHET - The laser game workshop. He also attended talks on entrepreneurship in Physics. Sharing his experience with the chapter was highly appreciated. As many of our chapter members work in the academic and research side of optics, it is very useful to know about the career opportunities beyond research. Adarsh also enjoyed the poster session and was able to network with professors and other students working in optics and photonics.

10 Upcoming Activities 1. Outreach Activities We currently do not have any educational outreach activities planned in the near future. We will discuss new ideas in our next chapter meeting. 2. Educational Activities Guest Speaker We still have the SPIE travelling lecturer grant available and are currently looking into inviting another speaker to Calgary this coming fall/winter. We have a special opportunity to partner with another campus group, the University of Calgary Nanotechnology Group, to organize seminars with university faculty and guest speakers. 3. Recruitment Activities Recruitment Party We will have a recruitment party at the beginning of the school semester either in September or October.

11 Financial Report All values are in CND dollars Date Income Expenses Bank Balance Notes Starting Balance Mar 2013 $ 1, OSA/SPIE lunch Mar 2013 $ Executive dues May-Aug 2013 $ Annual grant Aug 2013 $ Hiking trip Aug 2013 $ Recruitment party Oct 2013 $ Travelling lecturer lunch Feb 2014 $ Bank fees $ 3.30 Ending Balance Mar 2014 $ Balance as of March 1, 2014 $ Total Expenses $ Total Revenue $ * *An incoming cheque for $700 has not been cashed in yet.