Auburn Photonic Systems Lab
We are pioneering next-generation photonic devices and systems tailored for imaging, communications, and computing.
Photons are the ultimate carriers of information, serving as our primary means of perceiving the world and transmitting information, both through our own eyes and via optical fibers, cameras, sensors, and machine vision. Emerging technologies, including wearable, implantable devices, and autonomous systems, pose stringent requirements on the optical modules in terms of size, weight, power, and performance. Traditional optical systems fall short of these rigorous demands.
To address this gap, our research targets three major areas of technological advancement:
- Innovative Optical Sources: Distributed, ultrafast, and reconfigurable laser arrays.
- Meta-Optics with information processing capabilities.
- Quantum-Enhanced Techniques beyond the classical limits of optical sensing and imaging.
By harnessing the synergy of heterogeneously integrated photonic and microelectronic chips, we explore devices and systems that are not only compact and robust but also scalable in terms of manufacturing.
News
| Jan 30, 2026 | Our PRL paper, “Supersymmetric Isophase Acoustic Potentials”, is now online. We demonstrate supersymmetric transformations in acoustics through reconfigurable acoustic metamaterials that preserve broadband scattering characteristics. |
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| Aug 18, 2025 | Our team with Prof. Pengyu Chen advanced to Stage 2 of the NIH/NCATS Quantum Sensing Technology Challenge for quantum-correlation-based exosome profiling. |
| Aug 7, 2025 | Zihe gave an invited talk, “Topological quadratic-node semimetals enabled by cross-pseudospin coupling in photonic microring arrays”, at SPIE Optics + Photonics 2025. |
| Feb 20, 2025 | Our PRX paper (by Penn) has been published. It is the first demonstration of high-dimensional quantum key distribution using spin-orbit microlasers (with its emission tunable in a 4-dimensional Hilbert space). Congrats to the team! |
| Jan 5, 2025 | Our Nature Photonics paper (by Penn) on non-Hermitian hybrid silicon photonic switching is now online. The non-Hermitian switching is enabled by modulating the gain/loss in the active layer (heterogeneously integrated on Si) and hence breaking or conserving the parity-time symmetry. 8x8 switches (and 4x4 with 1470-1510nm multiwavelength input) are demonstrated. The switching dynamics is fast (100 ps). |