Nanostructured Fibers and Nonlinear Optics Prof. Siddharth Ramachandran, Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, Boston University

Light beams in free space travel at the "speed of light," and tend to diverge (diffract). Complex, nano-structured photonic devices can be used to slow light (confine photons in time) and counteract diffraction (by confining photons in space). Some confinement geometries lead to spatially complex beams that possess intriguing properties such as the ability of optical vortices to carry orbital angular momentum or the ability of Bessel beams to self-heal. Our group studies the myriad phenomena encountered by the manipulation of such fundamental effects of light, with the aim of developing next generation photonic devices.