Faculty Directory

Dutt, Avik

Dutt, Avik

Assistant Professor
Fellow, National Quantum Lab
Mechanical Engineering
Institute for Physical Science and Technology
Electrical and Computer Engineering
2104B Glenn L. Martin Hall

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.