Who we are
-
Tara Drake
Principal Investigator.
BS Physics, University of Delaware
PhD Physics, JILA, University of Colorado, Boulder
National Research Council Postdoctoral Researcher, NIST -
Lala Rukh
Graduate Research Assistant.
BS Electrical Engineering, Lahore Unviersity of Management Sciences -
Gabriel Colacion
Graduate Research Assistant.
BA Physics, Reed College -
Brandon Stone
Graduate Research Assistant.
BS Physics, Eastern Kentucky University -
Emilio Perez de Juan
Undergraduate Researcher.
BS Physics, University of New Mexico (est. 2024) -
Marie Angelli Ruiz
QUREACH 2022 Undergraduate Researcher
BS Chemical Engineering, New Mexico State University
Research
Professor Drake's research centers on nonlinear optics in microscopic photonic structures.
Our current focus is on "microcombs" -- optical frequency combs formed in dielectric microring resonators via cascaded four-wave mixing. Microcombs are key components in compact optical atomic clocks and optical synthesizers, on-chip spectrometers, and integrated quantum systems.
Besides developing microcombs for novel applications, we also study the rich array of nonlinear processes within our microresonators which lead to exotic phenomena such as self-organizing soliton crystals and laser cooling of light.
Dr. Drake's Awards and Honors
2020 Paul F. Forman Team Engineering Excellence Award/2-Photon Optical Clock Collaboration, The Optical Society
2020 Women in STEM Award, University of New Mexico
2016 NRC-NAS Postdoctoral Research Fellow, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO
Recent Publications
T. E. Drake, J.R. Stone, T. C. Briles, and S. B. Papp, "Thermal decoherence and laser cooling of a Kerr-microresonator soliton," Nature Photonics, 14, 480-485 (2020)
T. E. Drake, T. C. Briles, D. T. Spencer, J. R. Stone, D. R. Carlson, D. D. Hickstein, Q. Li, D. Westly, K. Srinivasan, S. A. Diddams, S. B. Papp, "Terahertz-rate Kerr-microresonator optical clockwork," Phys. Rev. X 9, 031023 (2019)
Z. L. Newman, V. Maurice, T. E. Drake, J. R. Stone, T. C. Briles, D. T. Spencer, C. Fredrick, Q. Li, D. Westly, B. R. Ilic, B. Shen, M. -G. Suh, K. Y. Yang, C. Johnson, D. M. S. Johnson, L. Hollberg, K. Vahala, K. Srinivasan, S. A. Diddams, J. Kitching, S. B. Papp, M. T. Hummon, "Architecture for the photonic integration of an optical atomic clock," Optica 6, 680-685 (2019)
D. T. Spencer, T. Drake, T. C. Briles, J. Stone, L. C. Sinclair, C. Fredrick, Q. Li, D. Westly, B. R. Ilic, A. Bluestone, N. Volet, T. Komljenovic, L. Chang, S. H. Lee, D. Y. Oh, M.-G. Suh, K. Y. Yang, M. H. P. Pfeiffer, T. J. Kippenberg, E. Norberg , L. Theogarajan, K. Vahala, N. R. Newbury , K. Srinivasan, J. E. Bowers, S. A. Diddams, and S. B. Papp, "An optical-frequency synthesizer using integrated photonics," Nature 557, 81-85 (2018)