Faculty Directory

EDUCATION

• Postdoc, Stanford University (2018 – 2021)
• Ph.D., Cornell University, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2017
• M.S., Cornell University, Electrical & Computer Engineering, 2015
• B. Tech., Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, 2011

HONORS AND AWARDS

• NSF CAREER award, 2024
• Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) Early Career Scientist Award, 2024
• Early Technology Adopter, by Intermodulation Products, 2022
• Rising Star of Light, awarded at the International Conference on Innovation (iCan-X) 2020
• Outstanding Reviewer, Nature group journal Light: Science & Applications, 2020
• Zurich Instruments thesis award for Ph.D. dissertation (2017)

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

• Optica (formerly Optical Society of America)
• SPIE (International Society for Optics and Photonics

Dr. Avik Dutt joined the University of Maryland, College Park as an Assistant Professor in 2022. He is currently building the FloQuET lab to pursue interdisciplinary research on FearLess Optics, Quantum Engineering & Technology, by innovating on ideas from nanophotonics, quantum science and nonlinear optics, across the whole spectrum from fundamental science to applied technologies. The FloQuET lab will be particularly interested in studying phenomena that are difficult or impossible to implement in conventional platforms, such as models going beyond the usual 3 dimensions of space. This would lead to disruptive scalable solutions to challenges faced by these platforms for several applications of quantum/photonics research, be it in the areas of quantum networks, quantum simulation, sensing or computing.

Prior to joining UMD, Avik was a postdoctoral scholar in the Ginzton Lab at Stanford University, working with Prof. Shanhui Fan. His postdoc work focused on topological phenomena such as the quantum Hall effect in time-modulated photonic structures.

Avik received a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University, working in Prof. Michal Lipson’s Nanophotonics Group (currently at Columbia University). His graduate-school research was in the field of on-chip quantum and nonlinear nanophotonics, where he was fortunate to collaborate closely with (and be mentored by) Prof. Paulo Nussenzveig and Prof. Alexander L. Gaeta. Specifically,  he harnessed ultralow-loss silicon nitride microresonators to demonstrate the first nanophotonic source of quantum states such as squeezed light. Additionally, he generated frequency combs at high repetition rates and demonstrated ultrafast dual-comb spectroscopy, beating conventional spectroscopy speeds by 3-4 orders of magnitude. Before joining Cornell, Avik received a Bachelor in Technology (with Honors) from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, where he numerically investigated quantum tunneling through double barrier potentials with Prof. Sayan Kar, and also designed large-mode-area capillary optical fibers with Prof. Shailendra K. Varshney.

In his postdoctoral work, motivated by ideas from topological photonics, he started exploring a novel concept termed "synthetic dimensions". Synthetic dimensions are formed by coupling states spanned by an internal photonic degree of freedom (e.g. frequency, polarization), or by engineering additional spatiotemporal mode structure on the electromagnetic field (e.g. transverse modes, orbital angular momentum, ultrashort temporal pulses). While initial theory and experiments (especially in ultracold atoms) in synthetic dimensions focused on nontrivial topological physics, future work holds promise for emerging quantum technologies and photonic machine learning hardware.

• Quantum Engineering
• Photonics
• Quantum Science and Technology
• Nonlinear Optics
• Analog and Digital Quantum Simulation
• Topological physics

• ENME 434/692: Engineering Quantum Systems & Sensors (Fall 2024)
• ENME 351: Electronics and Instrumentation II (Spring 2022, 2023, 2024)
• ENME 202: Computing Fundamentals for Engineers (Fall 2022, 2023)

Full publication list: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-eVcAC8AAAAJ&hl=en

Selected publications 

[* = equal contribution]

Synthetic dimensions and quantum/topological physics

1. B. Bartlett, A. Dutt, and S. Fan, “Deterministic photonic quantum computation in a synthetic time dimension,” Optica 8, 1515 (2021).

2. K. Wang*, A. Dutt*, K. Y. Yang, C. C. Wojcik, J. Vuckovic, S. Fan, "Generating arbitrary topological windings of a non-Hermitian band," Science 371, 1240 (2021).

3. K. Wang, A. Dutt, C. Wojcik, S. Fan, "Topological complex-energy braiding of non-Hermitian bands," Nature 598, 59 (2021).

4. A. Dutt, Q. Lin, L. Yuan, M. Minkov, M. Xiao, S. Fan, "A single photonic cavity with two independent physical synthetic dimensions,"  Science 367, 59 (2020).

5. S. Buddhiraju, A. Dutt, M. Minkov, I.A.D. Williamson, S. Fan, "Arbitrary linear transformations for photons in the frequency synthetic dimension,"  Nature Communications 12, 2401 (2021) [for quantum computing and neural networks].

6. A. Dutt, M. Minkov, I.A.D. Williamson, S. Fan, "Higher-order topological insulators in synthetic dimensions," Light: Science & Applications 9, 131 (2020). [Invited paper]

7. G. Li*, Y. Zheng*, A. Dutt*, D. Yu, Q. Shan, S. Liu, L. Yuan, S. Fan, X. Chen, "Dynamic band structure measurement in the synthetic space," Science Advances 7, eabe4335 (2020).

8. A. Y. Song, X.-Q. Sun, A. Dutt, M. Minkov, C. Wojcik, H. Wang, I. A. D. Williamson, M. Orenstein, S. Fan, "PT-symmetric topological edge-gain effect," Physical Review Letters 125, 033603 (2020).

9. A. Dutt, M. Minkov, Q. Lin, L. Yuan, D.A.B. Miller, S. Fan, "Experimental band structure spectroscopy along a synthetic dimension,"  Nature Communications 10, 3122 (2019).

Quantum and nonlinear nanophotonics

1. A. Dutt, K. Luke, S. Manipatruni, A. L. Gaeta, P. Nussenzveig, M. Lipson, "On-chip Optical Squeezing," Phys. Rev. Applied 3, 044005 (2015). 

2. C. Joshi, A. Farsi, A. Dutt, B.Y. Kim, X. Ji, Y. Zhao, A. Bishop, M. Lipson, A.L. Gaeta, "Frequency-domain quantum interference with entangled photons from an integrated microresonator," Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 143601 (2020).

3. A. Dutt, C. Joshi, X. Ji, J. Cardenas, Y. Okawachi, K. Luke, A. L. Gaeta, M. Lipson, "On-chip dual-comb source for spectroscopy," Science Advances 4, e1701858 (2018). 

4. A. Mohanty, M. Zhang, A. Dutt, S. Ramelow, P. Nussenzveig, M. Lipson, "Quantum Interference between Transverse Spatial Waveguide Modes," Nature Communications 8, 14010 (2017).

5. A. Dutt, S. Miller, K. Luke, J. Cardenas, A. L. Gaeta, P. Nussenzveig, M. Lipson, "Tunable squeezing using coupled ring resonators on a silicon nitride chip," Optics Letters 41, 223 (2016).

6. X. Ji, F. A. Barbosa, S. P. Roberts, A. Dutt, J. Cardenas, Y. Okawachi, A. Bryant, A. L. Gaeta, M. Lipson, "Ultra-low-loss on-chip resonators with sub-milliwatt parametric oscillation threshold," Optica 4, 619 (2017).

7. K. Y. Yang*, J. Skarda*, M. Cotrufo*, A. Dutt, G.H. Ahn, M. Sawaby, D. Vercruysse, A. Arbabian, S. Fan, A. Alu, J. Vuckovic, "Inverse-designed non-reciprocal pulse router for chip-based LiDAR," Nature Photonics 14, 369 (2020).