Welcome To Cardenas Lab
Cardenas Lab is a fun research group working to transform how people do science and technology using nanoscale optical devices.
We do optics on a chip by engineering structures at the nanoscale level using microfabrication techniques.
We work with any materials needed for our application ranging from recently discovered 2D materials all the way to glass.
Some examples of the questions we want to answer or problems we want to solve are:
- How do you package photonic devices for low cost and high volume applications?
- What tools can be conceived and built that will revolutionize other scientific fields such as neuroscience, cellular biology, or astronomy?
- What new platform will revolutionize nanophotonics?
In our lab you will design and fabricate nanophotonic devices to solve (or answer) some of today’s challenging problems (or questions).
Our Mission
To prepare students for their career goals in industry or academia.
To revolutionize science and technology in interdisciplinary fields using photonics.
To transform the field of photonics using novel materials, techniques, and devices.
Who We Are
Research
Our current research areas are in novel optical materials and devices and packaging
Latest Publications
Engineered Second-Order Nonlinearity in Silicon Nitride.
We overcome this drawback and demonstrate a successful induction of χ(2) in Si3N4 through electrical poling with an externally-applied field to align the Si-N bonds. This alignment breaks the centrosymmetry of Si3N4, and enables the bulk χ(2). The sample is heated to over 500°C to facilitate the poling. The comparison between the EO responses of poled and non-poled Si3N4, measured using a Si3N4 micro-ring modulator, shows an enhancement in the amplitude of the measured EO responses as well as a remarkable improvement in its speed from 3GHz to at least 15GHz (3dB bandwidth) after the poling, which confirms the χ(2) nature of the EO response induced by poling.
Adiabatic Frequency Conversion
Changing the frequency of light outside the laser cavity is essential for an integrated photonics platform, especially when the optical frequency of the on-chip light source is fixed or challenging to be tuned precisely. To achieve continuous on-chip optical frequency[...]
Automated System for the Detection of 2D Materials Using Digital Image Processing and Deep Learning
We develop an intelligent algorithm to detect monolayers of WSe2, MoS2 and h-BN autonomously using Digital Image Processing and Deep Learning with high accuracy rate, avoiding human interaction and any additional characterization tests.
On-Chip Weak Value Amplification
Weak value amplification is a technique that allows interferometric signal enhancement without amplifying technical noises. We implement weak value amplification on an integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometer by spatial and temporal phase engineering of the optical wave in waveguides. We achieve 7 dB signal-to-noise ratio improvement over standard integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometer (equal detected optical power) in a heat-induced phase shift measurement. Also, by adding ring resonator to the weak value interferometer as dispersive element, we detect an optical frequency shift down to 2 kHz.
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