DR. Olga Sergaeva, a researcher at the University of Brescia, provided two seminars on Monday 22 April 2024 & Monday 29 April 2024 entitled « Fourier Modal Method (FMM) » & « Edge detection in space in time with nonlinear generation ».

Abstracts.

« Fourier Modal Method (FMM) »
The Fourier Modal Method (FMM) or the Rigorous Coupled-Wave Analysis (RCWA) is a well-known tool for the analysis of the linear interaction of electromagnetic waves with diffraction gratings and other periodic structures. It is based on the Floquet-Fourier series plane wave decomposition of the electromagnetic fields in the media with periodically varying permittivity followed by solving the resulting Maxwell equations as a matrix eigenvalue problem. FMM has gained popularity due to its relative simplicity and versatility for a wide range of problems including the simulation of metal and dielectric gratings, photonic crystals and metamaterials, as well as solar cells.

« Edge detection in space in time with nonlinear generation »
Recently, optical computing and analog image processing, including spatial and temporal edge detection, have garnered considerable interest. Exploring this topic we will discuss the theoretical approach to edge detection based on nonlinear processes of second harmonic generation (SHG) and difference-frequency generation (DFG) relying on the specific properties of the χ(2)-tensor. Possible applications include computer vision, high-resolution microscopy, and implementation of nonlinear functions for analog deep learning.

Biography. Olga Sergaeva is a researcher at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Brescia (Italy) (since 2022). She received her BS (2008), MS (2010), and PhD (2013) at ITMO University (St. Petersburg, Russia). She completed a postdoctoral fellowship (2016-2018) at the University of Missouri (Columbia, MO, USA) and worked as a Research Fellow and an Assistant Professor (2019-2023) at ITMO University (St. Petersburg, Russia). Her research interests include nanophotonics, nonlinear optics, ultrafast light-matter interaction, and reconfigurable metasurfaces.