In the PROBE Lab, we are always interested in pushing the limits of what can be done with light.

Rank Communication

Many crucial technological facets of our daily lives including the internet and high-speed communication depend on lightwave systems to carry information around the world, most ubiquitously through fiber optics. Decades before the contemporary high-speed optical technologies that connect the globe, Claude Shannon, the father of information theory stated the fundamental problem of communication “…is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point”. Of course we often take for granted the intricate networks that have enabled reliable solutions to this simple problem. In the PROBE Lab, we have introduced new understandings of the physics that governs the light which carries data around the world. For example, we have published a novel framework for characterizing partially coherent optical fields that may offer improved methods for solving the fundamental problem of communication.

Space Time and Vector Beam Propagation

We explore light propagation through scattering media using classically entangled 1D space-time light sheets. This 1D ST light sheet is characterized by classical entanglement, a correlation between at least two non-separable intrinsic degrees-of-freedom. Recently, we conducted extensive research on this beam by introducing the ST vector light sheet, and demonstrating that this beam is resistant to speckle, and exhibits significantly higher phase stability interferometric compared to the regular 2D Gaussian beam. Our results offer an easy approach for enhancing optical interferometry stability for uses in enhanced sensing, quantum optical experiments, high-precision length measurements, bioimaging.