Selected Topics in Photonics

This volume comprises chapters on the cutting-edge research in photonics undertaken at IIT Kanpur. Photonics requires scientists and engineers to work closely together in addressing challenges which are interdisciplinary in nature. At IIT Kanpur, research is being pursued in several key areas of photonics namely fiber-optics, nanophotonics, quantum optics, optical spectroscopy and imaging, biophotonics, and photonic devices. This volume brings together contributions from experts to obtain a contemporary perspective in photonics research. The reader will find articles about coherent optical communications, novel photonic nanostructures, nano-structured materials for light control, optical tweezers with nanoscale applications, quantum coherence and entanglement, photodiode arrays and quantum metrology. The volume also includes chapters  on cancer diagnostics with optical tomography, protein fluctuations at microsecond scale at single-molecule level, and visualization of motion in a droplet which are interdisciplinary in nature. The contents of this book will be of use to researchers, students, and professionals working across all domains of photonics. 

Prof. Asima Pradhan completed her M.Sc at Delhi University and her Ph.D. at City College, City University, New York with Prof. R. R. Alfano. She was involved in the pioneering autofluorescence spectroscopic studies of normal and cancerous tissues for diagnosis of cancer during her Ph.D.  She joined the Department of Physics, IIT Kanpur in December 1993. She is also associated with the Center for Lasers and Photonics at IIT Kanpur and is the current Head. Prof Pradhan and her research group have extensive experience in experimental biomedical optics especially with fluorescence spectroscopy, and, of late, with the ongoing building of a frequency domain fluorescence-tomographic system for cervical cancer detection. They are also currently involved in the testing of  fluorescence probe for in-vivo detection of cervical and oral pre-cancers.

Dr. K Pradeep Kumar is currently Assistant Professor in the department of Electrical Engineering and Centre for Lasers & Photonics, IIT Kanpur since 2009. He obtained his Ph.D. from the department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras working in the field of quantum key distribution. His current research interests are quantum cryptography, fiber-optic communications, quantum and nonlinear optics, and optical instrumentation. He has published more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed Journals and Conferences.