MIT.nano Seminar Series: Prof. Vahid Sandoghdar

Vahid Sandoghdar, Alexander von Humboldt Professor in the Department of Physics at Friedrich Alexander University and the Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, gave the December MIT.nano Seminar "On single photons and single molecules: From nano-quantum optics to nanobiophotonics."

Light-matter interaction at the nanometer scale lies at the heart of elementary optical processes such as absorption, emission, or scattering. Over the past two decades, Sandoghdar, one of the pioneers of the field of nano-optics, has realized a series of experiments to investigate the interaction of single photons, single molecules, and single nanoparticles.

In this presentation, Sandoghdar reports on recent studies where unity efficiency is reached in the coupling of single photons to single molecules and describe efforts to exploit this for the realization of polaritonic states involving a controlled number of molecules and photons. Furthermore, Sandoghdar shows how the underlying mechanisms that play a central role in quantum optics, help image and track single biological nanoparticles such as viruses and small proteins with high spatial and temporal resolutions.

The MIT.nano Seminar Series takes place monthly during the academic year. It is organized by Farnaz Niroui, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS) at MIT.

See upcoming talks at mitnano.mit.edu/mitnano-seminar-series.