Colloquia & Guest Speakers
Blue-detuned Cavity Optomechanics
Professor Alejandro Martínez, PhD, Nanophotonics Technology Center Universitat Politècnica de València
Monday, January 26, 2026
3:30 p.m.
Presented in Goergen 101 on Zoom Only
Abstract
Optomechanical cavities enable the localization of light and mechanical waves in tiny regions. Such co-localization also leads to optomechanical interaction of either surface of volumetric character, which can give rise to many interesting effects. In this talk, I will discuss the effects arising in optomechanical cavities that are driven in the blue-detuned regime, in particular, the emergence of self-sustained oscillations, phonon lasing, and optomechanical combs. I will discuss the possibility to implement photonic microwave oscillators on silicon chips via optomechanical cavities and their possible applications in all-optical processing of RF signals in telecommunications networks.
Biography
Alejandro Martínez received the Telecommunications Engineer BsC and PhD degrees from the Universitat Politècnica de Valencia (UPV), Spain, in 2000 and 2004, respectively. Since 2004, he has been engaged to this university in different positions, becoming a full Professor in December 2017. He is leading the “Plasmonics, optomechanics and chiral photonics” group at the Nanophotonics Technology Center (https://ntc.webs.upv.es/), a research institute at the same university. The main interest of his group is to develop new nanophotonic concepts and devices to be integrated into photonic integrated circuits for applications in telecom systems and biosensing. He has co-authored over 150 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and holds 8 patents. He has also given invited talks (> 10) at international conferences. He has supervised 9 doctoral theses and more than 30 master’s theses. He has been the principal investigator of several European (TAILPHOX, GAIA, THOR, SIOMO, SAPHER, MUSICIAN, and CHIRALFORCE) and national projects.