Abstract: Nonlinear optics describes the behaviour of light in a nonlinear medium. It allows to, for example, change the colour of a light beam, change its shape or process light with light. Nonlinear optical phenomena enable a wide range of novel applications and are the basis of many devices used in optical communication and quantum systems, optical sensing, or material research. The need for the integration of such functionalities to the chip-scale is evident.

While many material platforms exhibit promising properties for integrated nonlinear optics, in this talk I will focus on the use of silicon nitride for converting and shaping light on-chip. Pushed by recent progress in nanofabrication, we now have easy access to very low-loss waveguides while maintaining large flexibility in terms of dispersion engineering, both essential for the design of efficient nonlinear systems. As such many nonlinear optical demonstrations, mainly based on 3rd order effects in the telecom band, have been performed. I will focus on how we can push the reach and efficiencies of 3rd order effects, and how we can induce effective 2nd-order nonlinearities, as to provide improved and new functionalities to silicon nitride. More specifically, I will discuss controlling supercontinuum generation, pushing parametric conversion and all-optical poling for reconfigurable quasi-phase matching of three-wave mixing processes.

Biography: Camille-Sophie Brès is an Associate Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, institute of Electrical and Micro Engineering, in Switzerland, where she leads the Photonic Systems Laboratory. She received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2007 from Princeton University and then held a postdoctoral researcher position in Electrical Engineering at UCSD until 2011.

Her research group specializes on the design and demonstration of optical waveguides and devices for enhancing and controlling nonlinear processes aimed at light generation, signal processing, or sensing. The group’s work exploits dispersion engineering offered by advanced nanofabrication of low-loss integrated photonic structures, material properties, and architectural features of systems to enable improved functionalities of nonlinear optical devices.

She was awarded the early career Women in Photonics Award from the European Optical Society in 2016, and two European Research Council grants to pursue her work on waveguided nonlinear optics. She regularly serves on the technical program committees for various international conferences and is an OPTICA fellow.