Photonics in Low-Index Time-Varying Systems
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Photonics in Low-Index Time-Varying Systems
Wed, 29/10/2025 - 14:00 to 15:00
Location:
Speaker:
Dr. Wallace Jaffray
Affiliation:
HWU
Synopsis:
Over the past decade, transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) have gained significant attention for their remarkable electro-optical behaviour. When operated near their cross-over wavelength, they constitute the most strongly nonlinear solid-state platform currently available for all-optical integrated technologies. In this regime, TCOs closely approximate ideal time-varying photonic systems, opening pathways to advanced applications, including those in the quantum domain. The seminar will provide a general overview of this emerging field, while focusing primarily on the research advances achieved within the Advanced Structured Nanophotonics Lab at Heriot-Watt University.
Biography:
Wallace Jaffray received his Master’s degree in Physics with first-class honours from Heriot-Watt University in 2020, where he was awarded the Neil Forbes/Scottish Enterprise Prize for his work on soliton dynamics in hollow-core fibres. In 2021, he began his doctoral studies within the Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences at Heriot-Watt University, joining the Advanced Structured Nanophotonics (ASN) Lab led by Prof. Marcello Ferrera. His research has centred on novel nonlinear photonic applications based on low-index materials. Also in 2021, he was awarded the AFOSR International Student Exchange grant by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, enabling a six-month research placement at Purdue University. There, he developed advanced material models for electromagnetic FDTD simulations, with particular emphasis on zero-index nonlinearities. In 2022, he received the Julian Jones Prize while concurrently completing a certified Machine Learning programme at MIT. He recently completed his PhD, receiving the Best Thesis Prize from Heriot-Watt University, and since April 2024 has been a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in the same research group. Within his first year of post-doctoral activity, he has already produced several highly cited publications in leading international journals. His most recent work, on optical spatio-spectral fission, has been published in Nature Photonics (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-025-01640-1).