Temporal Magnification, Compression, and Cloaking of Light

Monday, February 20 at 4:00pm

Rockefeller Hall, Schwartz Auditorium Central Campus

Physics Colloquium, Alex Gaeta, Cornell University. Refreshments at 3:30.

Abstract: Recent research has shown that the properties of a light beam can be manipulated to perform ultrafast all-optical signal processing in the time domain. I will describe our recent work that uses nonlinear optics to create time lenses that can magnify, compress, and Fourier transform optical waveforms in the temporal domain. Through use of more exotic lenses, temporal gaps in light beams can be opened and closed which can be used to cloak events over short periods of time.