Professor Walther obtained his Master degree from Stony Brook University on a Fulbright exchange under the supervision of Prof. Ken Dill in the field of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. He then continued on a PhD with Prof. Thomas Pohl at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems (Dresden, Germany) and at Aarhus University (Denmark) with a focus on Rydberg interactions of semiconductor excitons (summa cum laude). In 2019, was an ITAMP postdoctoral fellow working at the interface of atomic, optical and condensed matter physics. In January 2023, joined the faculty at the Department of Physics at Purdue University.

Professor Walther research goal is to describe the physics and chemistry of Rydberg excitations. These highly-excited states feature enormous wave function sizes, huge dipole moments and, most importantly, very strong interactions. His group develops methods and schemes to observe and characterize the effects of strong correlations and investigate how they could be used in quantum information science. His group has a dual interests in atomic systems and semiconductors. In atomic platforms, the group works on new ideas for some of the highest precision quantum devices, such as arrays of neutral Rydberg atoms (which are a main competitor as a useful quantum computer) and novel types of Rydberg molecules (so-called macrodimers) with bond lengths in the micron range. In semiconductors, Rydberg excitations (of electron-hole bound pairs called excitons) are more of a newcomer after their first observation in 2014. Here, the goal is to develop a theoretical description of the Rydberg states, their interactions and how they affect the (quantum) optical properties of the semiconductor.

Toyota Research Institute of North America, Purdue College of Science, Purdue College of Engineering, Purdue Department of Chemistry, Purdue Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Valentin Walther (2023), "Introduction to Quantum Optics," https://nanohub.org/resources/38176.

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