Biography
Dr. Yannick Salamin joined the College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL) in 2024 as an Assistant Professor. Prior to this, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), working with Prof. Marin Soljačić’s group. His research focuses on the exploration of quantum properties of light and the complex dynamics of nonlinear optical systems.
Dr. Salamin received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland in 2010 and his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in 2014. He earned his Dr.Sc. degree from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, in 2019, where he conducted research under the supervision of Prof. Juerg Leuthold, developing integrated plasmonic platforms for efficient nonlinear and optoelectronic devices
Awards & Honors
- 2021 ABB Research Prize
- 2020 ETH Medal Award
- 2019 Early Post-Doc Mobility Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
- 2019 Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE International Topical Meeting on Microwave Photonics
- 2018 Best Student Paper Award at the OPTICA Advanced Photonics Congress
- 2015 Emil Wolf Outstanding Student Paper Finalist at the OPTICA Frontiers in Optics conference
Research Group
We develop innovative systems to generate and characterize light with quantum properties, driving advancements in computing and metrology. Our research centers on nonlinear driven dissipative systems that exhibit intriguing features like multistability and macroscopic quantum phenomena. By exploring how initial conditions and external perturbations influence these systems, we aim to unlock new capabilities in quantum technology. A notable example of our work is with optical parametric oscillators (OPOs), which have been instrumental in creating quantum states of light and generating macroscopic probability distribution from the quantum vacuum.
Publications
Sahil Pontula, Yannick Salamin, Charles Roques-Carmes, Marin Soljacic "Shaping Quantum Noise through Cascaded Nonlinear Processes in a Dissipation-Engineered Multimode Cavity" PRX Quantum 5, 040345 (2024)
Seou Choi, Yannick Salamin, Charles Roques-Carmes, Rumen Dangovski, Di Luo, Zhuo Chen, Michael Horodynki, Jamison Sloan, Shiekh Zia Uddin, Marin Soljacic "Photonic probabilistic machine learning using quantum vacuum noise" Nature Communications 15, 7760 (2024)
Charles Roques-Carmes, Yannick Salamin, Jamison Sloan, Seou Choi, Gustavo Velez, Ethan Koskas, Nicholas Rivera, Steven E Kooi, John D. Joannopoulos, Marin Soljacic "Biasing the quantum vacuum to control macroscopic probability distribution" Science, vol. 381, no. 6654, p. 205-209 (2023)
Nicholas Rivera, Jamison Sloan, Yannick Salamin, John D. Joannopoulos, Marin Soljacic "Creating large Fock states and massively squeezed states in optics using systems with nonlinear bound states in the continuum" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 120 (9), e2219208120 (2023)