Speaker
Description
Structured light allows us to move far beyond the simple plane waves that underpin most of optics, introducing twist, structure, and topology into the electromagnetic field. This added complexity is not just aesthetic – it opens new ways of controlling how light interacts with matter.
In this talk, I will give a broad overview of what structured light brings to the table, and then focus on its role in nonlinear spectroscopy. I will highlight how structured fields can modify, relax, or even bypass familiar selection rules, enabling optical responses that are weak or inaccessible under conventional illumination.
The aim is to show how thinking of light itself as a design tool – rather than just a probe – can create new opportunities for nonlinear spectroscopy, and chiral light–matter interactions.
References:
K. A. Forbes “Vortex Light at the Nanoscale: Twists, Spins, and Surprises" Reports on Progress in Physics 89, 016401 (2026): https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/ae3971
K. A. Forbes “Twisted Light and Twisted Matter: The Photonic Frontier of Chirality" Photonics Research 14, 1, B193-B208 (2026): https://doi.org/10.1364/PRJ.574843