Abstract. I will review the configurations in which an optical system undergoes dynamical instabilities and how the resulting so-called dynamical complexity drives applications in e.g. secure optical communications, random number generation fro cryptography, brain-inspired optical computation, high-resolution imaging and sensing. Concepts such as deterministic chaos, entropy and fractal that originate from applied mathematics are of increasing interest in photonics. Harnessing these concepts has enabled significant improvement of laser properties including modulation bandwidth, multimode emission and beam quality. On the other hand the availability and easy of operation of lasers in a wide range of configuration make them a convenient test bed for exploring basic concepts of nonlinear dynamics. The cross-fertilization of disciplines allows for identifying analogies with phenomena such as extreme events well known in economy and hydrodynamics or neuronal computation and regulatory networks in biology. In addition, nonlinear light-matter interaction yields interesting spatio-temporal instabilities arising from either modulation instability (leading to optical patterns) or from soliton interactions. In this field the resurging interest in nonlinear propagation of exotic light beams such as accelerating waves and vortices has motivated analogies with dynamics in rotating or curved reference frames including gravitational effects.

Speaker(s): Prof. Marc Sciamanna, , Prof. Marc Sciamanna,

Location:
Room: MC603
Bldg: McConnell Engineering Building
McGill University
3480 University Street,
Montreal, Quebec