News

11/24/2023: The National Science Foundation has funded our proposal entitled, "RII Track-4: NSF: Fabrication of Inversely Designed Nanophotonic Structures for Quantum Emitters." The project’s goal is to develop an all-on-chip nanophotonic device containing a semiconductor quantum dot that produces on-demand, path-entangled photon pairs for the purpose of photonic quantum information processing. Dr. Flagg and a graduate student will spend six months over two years visiting NIST to learn fabrication techniques for semiconductor nanophotonics.

8/29/2023: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Measurement Science and Engineering program has funded our proposal, "Advancing fabrication of inversely designed quantum nanophotonic devices." The goal of the proposed work is to design and fabricate nanoscopic light-shaping structures containing emitters of quantum light that will be useful in optical quantum computation and communication. Graduate students will be trained in semiconductor fabrication techniques and quantum optical measurements at NIST by our collaborator, Dr. Marcelo Davanco.

8/22/2023: The National Science Foundation has funded a proposal with Dr. Flagg as Principal Investigator as part of the Quantum Sensing Challenges for Transformational Advances in Quantum Systems program (QuSeC-TAQS). Drs. Alan Bristow (Physics and Astronomy), Kevin Daly (Biology), and Charles Anderson (School of Medicine) are co-PIs. The project is titled, "Entanglement-enhanced multiphoton fluorescence imaging of in vivo neural function." The team will use entangled photons (quantum states of light) to explore new ways to see within neuron cells of living organisms, potentially yielding greater resolution and efficiency in imaging biological processes in the nervous system. Read the press release from NSF.

8/22/2023: Graduate student William Eshbaugh passed his oral candidacy exam! Congratulations, Will!

8/21/2023: Optics Letters published our article with work done by graduate student Will Eshbaugh and our collaborators Dr. Emerson G. Melo (University of São Paulo) and Dr. Marcelo Davanco (NIST, Gaithersburg). The article is, "Inverse Design of a Polarization Demultiplexer for On-chip Path-entangled Photon-pair Sources Based on Single Quantum Dots." doi:10.1364/OL.496129.

7/1/2023: The Office of Naval Research has funded our proposal, "SUPER-PICs: Swing-UP of quantum emittER single-photon sources in Photonic Integrated Circuits." The project will develop a source of single photons for quantum information applications using nanoscopic crystals called quantum dots embedded in a light-guiding microchip called a photonic integrated circuit.

6/23/2023: Graduate student Braden Warr passed his oral candidacy exam! Congratulations, Braden!

5/1/2023: Graduate student William Eshbaugh won the Outstanding TA award from the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Will is the long-time head TA for PHYS 111. Congratulations, Will!

4/11/2023: Congratulations to Dr. Raju KC for passing his dissertation defense! His dissertation is entitled, "Emission spectroscopy of an InGaAs Quantum Dot via High-resolution Fabry-Perot Interferometry."

12/4/2022: Graduate student Will Eshbaugh and undergraduate Parker Hewitt delivered oral presentations at the APS Mid-Atlantic Section meeting at Penn State.

9/19/2022: ACS Photonics published our article with work done by graduate student Will Eshbaugh with our collaborators Dr. Emerson G. Melo and Dr. Marcelo Davanco, at NIST, Gaithersburg. The article is, "Multiobjective Inverse Design of Solid-State Quantum Emitter Single-Photon Sources." doi:10.1021/acsphotonics.2c00929.

7/28/2022: Undergraduate student Parker Hewitt presented a poster at the WVU Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium. His poster was selected as a runner-up in the Physical Sciences category. Congratulations, Parker!

8/1/2022: Congratulations to Dr. Gary Lander for passing his dissertation defense! His dissertation is entitled, "Charge Dynamics of InAs Quantum Dots Under Resonant and Above-Band Excitation." Gary will be a post-doc at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, WV, and Pittsburgh, PA.

4/8/2022: Congratulations to Dr. Tristan Wilkinson for passing his dissertation defense! His dissertation is entitled, "Characterization and Coherent Spin Selective Manipulation of Quantum Dot Energy Levels." Tristan will be an Image Science Engineer at L3Harris in Rochester, NY.

3/5/2022: SPIE Proceedings published Raju KC's article, "A tunable Fabry-Perot cavity stabilized via a mechanically connected shearing interferometer." Congratulations to Raju and co-authors Gary Lander, Cainan Nichols, and Jaxon Lee! The article can be found at doi:10.1117/12.2609815.

3/5/2022: Graduate student Raju KC delivered a virtual poster presentation at SPIE Photonics West.

1/4/2022: Graduate student Gary Lander accepted a post-doctoral position at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Pittsburgh, PA. Congratulations, Gary!

12/13/2021: Graduate student Tristan Wilkinson accepted a job as an Image Science Engineer at L3Harris in Rochester, NY. Congratulations, Tristan!

11/16/2021: Undergraduate student Sadie Chafin was selected as a NASA Scholar by the NASA West Virginia Space Grant Consortium for her research project to characterize the influence of charge dynamics on spectral diffusion in quantum dots. Congratulations, Sadie!

9/7/2021: Review of Scientific Instruments published Tristan Wilkinson's article , "Complete Stokes vector analysis with a compact, portable rotating waveplate polarimeter ." Congratulations to Tristan and co-authors Cole Maurer, Dillion Cottrill, Collin Flood, Gary Lander, and Sadie Chafin! It can be found at doi: 10.1063/5.0052835

12/14/2020: Graduate student Tristan Wilkinson delivered a virtual poster presentation at QD2020, the International Conference on Quantum Dots.

12/8/2020: Graduate student Fenton Clawson passed his oral candidacy exam! Congratulations, Fenton!

2/28/2020: Graduate student Tristan Wilkinson has been awarded a research fellowship as the student member of a Quantum Information Science and Engineering Network (QISE-NET) triplet! This NSF-funded program supports a graduate student, their academic adviser, and an adviser from a leading technology company or national laboratory. Tristan and Prof. Flagg will be working with Dr. Marcelo Davanco of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

2/17/2020: Prof. Flagg went with other WVU faculty and students to the state capitol Charleston, WV, for WVU Climate Science and Education Day. Students gave lawmakers and their staff demonstrations of the causes and effects of climate change.

11/15/2019: Undergraduate student Dillion Cottrill gave a poster presentation at the 2019 Physics Congress organized by the Sigma Pi Sigma physics honor society. His poster was entitled, " Spin-selective AC Stark shifts in a charged quantum dot."

11/7//2019: Prof. Flagg delivered the Colloquium at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at SUNY Geneseo. The talk was entitled, "Artificial Atoms and Quantum Optics," and was an introduction to the topics at an undergraduate level.

10/3/2019: Prof. Flagg delivered the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute Seminar entitled, "Artificial atoms: quantum optics and spin physics of quantum dots."

9/18/2019: Prof. Flagg delivered the Colloquium at the Department of Physics at Boston College. The talk was entitled, "Artificial atoms: quantum optics and spin physics of quantum dots."

9/16/2019: Graduate student Tristan Wilkinson delivered an oral presentation at the OSA Frontiers in Optics & Laser Science conference in Washington, DC. A the conference, Tristan won the Emil Wolf Outstanding Student Paper Competition! Well done, Tristan!

9/10/2019: SPIE Proceedings published Tristan Wilkinson's article, " Dynamic nuclear polarization in a charged quantum dot induced by the AC Stark effect." Congratulations! It can be found at doi: 10.1117/12.2529455 .

8/13/2019: Graduate student Tristan Wilkinson delivered an oral presentation at the SPIE Optics + Photonics conference in San Francisco, CA. His talk was entitled, " AC Stark induced dynamic nuclear polarization in a charged quantum dot."

6/11/2019: SPIE Proceedings published Gary Lander's article, " Auger recombination-induced neutralization and stretched exponential recharging in an InAs quantum dot." Congratulations! It can be found at doi: 10.1117/12.2506555 .

5/7/2019: Graduate student Tristan Wilkinson delivered an oral presentation at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) in San Jose, CA. His talk was entitled, "Spin-Selective AC Stark Shifts in a Charged Quantum Dot."

4/13/2019: Undergraduate students Sadie Chafin, and Dillion Cottrill gave poster presentations at the WVU Spring Undergraduate Research Symposium. Sadie's poster was entitled, " Addressing the Deficit of Physics Learning Materials Available to Young Kids in 4-H Groups." Dillion's poster was entitled, "Spin-selective AC Stark shifts in a charged quantum dot."

4/10/2019: Several students in our lab were awarded scholarships from the Department! Dillion Cottrill received the Oleg D and Valentina P. Jefimenko Physics Scholarship. Cole Maurer received the Benjamin James Galford Research Scholarship. And Tristan Wilkinson received the Robert T. Bruhn Physics Research Award. Congratulations!

4/3/2019: Applied Physics Letters published Tristan Wilkinson's article, "Spin-selective AC Stark shifts in a charged quantum dot." The paper was selected as an Editor's Pick! Congratulations! It can be found at doi:10.1063/1.5084244.

3/28/2019: Undergraduate student Dillion Cottrill gave a poster presentation at the Mid-Atlantic Undergraduate Research Conference at Virginia Tech. His poster was entitled, "Spin-selective AC Stark shifts in a charged quantum dot."

3/20/2019: Prof. Flagg delivered an invited presentation of research progress to the Physical Behavior of Materials Program of the Department of Energy's Basic Energy Sciences directorate. The talk was entitled, "Spin-Selective Modification of Quantum Dot Energy Levels via the AC Stark Effect."

3/6/2019: Graduate students Raju KC and Tristan Wilkinson delivered oral presentations at the APS March Meeting in Boston, MA. Raju's presentation was entitled, "Precision Displacement Measurement Using a Shearing Interferometer." Tristan's presentation was entitled, "Spin-Selective AC Stark Shifts in a Charged Quantum Dot."

2/5/2019: Graduate student Gary Lander delivered an oral presentation at the SPIE Photonics West conference in San Francisco, CA. His presentation was entitled, " Auger recombination-induced neutralization and stretched exponential recharging in an InAs quantum dot."

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