Talk given by

Dr. Ivan Fernandez-Corbaton

Institute of Nanotechnology

KIT

Abstract:

In my talk, I will first go over my research following its guiding thread: Symmetries and 
conservation laws in light-matter interactions. I will explain how symmetry considerations 
allow to qualitatively understand observations, and how they also provide requirements 
to design material structures for achieving particular effects in the interaction with the 
electromagnetic field. I will also address the question of "How much broken is a symmetry?", 
and show that measures of symmetry breaking solve previous problems in quantifying 
properties of material systems, and that a particular definition of symmetry breaking has
a general character and a direct link with experimental measurements. After this, I will 
explain why I think that the systematic exploration and exploitation of symmetry 
breaking measures can be a very productive research direction.