Research
I work on the quantum optical properties of light produced or shaped by strongly driven and strongly interacting systems. My doctoral work was on high-harmonic generation in semiconductors, and I now work with Rydberg atoms at the Collège de France.
Current
01
Rydberg-assisted quantum engineering of light
Optical photons are easy to manipulate individually, but they do not interact with each other, which makes it difficult to assemble anything out of them. We create that interaction indirectly, by converting photons into atomic excitation waves in a small laser-cooled gas, using highly excited Rydberg states where atoms interact very strongly. Placing the atoms in a cavity turns this into a controlled phase shift, which can be used to create non-classical light and to realise two-photon quantum gates.
Within this programme I currently work on quantum gates.
Previous
02
Ultrafast and strong-field quantum optics
High-harmonic generation is a frequency up-conversion process occurring in a strong laser field, producing coherent bursts of broadband, extremely short radiation. My doctoral work reported experimental evidence that this emission is non-classical in several semiconductors, measuring two-mode squeezing in the harmonic radiation and certifying non-classical correlations between the harmonic modes. A later Schmidt decomposition of a tripartite harmonic set showed an almost single-mode structure for each harmonic, in a source that operates at room temperature with standard semiconductors and a commercial fibre laser.