On Wednesday, September 13 Quantbot had the pleasure of hosting the NYC Quantum Computing group in our office for their monthly meeting.

Vinod Menon, this month's presenter, gave a presentation on "Half-light half-matter quasiparticles (polaritons) as a platform for Hamiltonian simulators and quantum optical nonlinearity".

It was a great night of discussion with great minds. We look forward to hosting future events in our space as we continue to grow in our space.

Vinod Menon is a Professor of Physics at the City College of New York and doctoral faculty at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He is a fellow of the Optical Society of America (now Optica) and an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer in Photonics (2018-2020). More details about his group can be found at: https://lanmp.org/

And for those curious as to the content of the presentation:
Abstract: Strong light-matter interaction results in the formation of half-light half-matter quasiparticles called polaritons that take on the properties of both its constituents. In this talk I will first introduce the concept of polariton formation in low-dimensional semiconductors. Following this, I will discuss the formation of Bose Einstein like condensates at room temperature using polaritons formed in organic molecules. Approaches to create condensate lattices in such systems and their potential application as Hamiltonian simulators will also be presented. In the second part of the talk, I will present our recent work on polaritons in atomically thin (2D) materials and their potential to reach quantum nonlinearity. Finally, I will discuss our quantum education efforts at the City College of New York (CCNY) including the development of undergraduate level quantum optics lab and the potential for outreach efforts at the high school level using these systems.