Professor Coimbatore Balram's inaugural lecture discussed his (never-ending) quest to engineer increasingly exquisite control over propagating light and sound fields in chipscale platforms.
'Light and sound, separately underpin modern optical and wireless communications, but have largely evolved independently as fields of research. But given the well-known similarities in wave behaviour, it is natural to ask if one can build chipscale platforms to manipulate both fields simultaneously and engineer controlled interactions between them and other solid state systems. He will discuss applications ranging from future quantum networks to current smartphone front-ends that can benefit from such integrated acousto-optic platforms, point out some of the lessons learnt mainly on the limitations of engineering analogies, illustrate some of the outstanding problems, and sketch out potential solutions.'
Current and past staff and students joined Professor Coimbatore Balram for celebratory drinks following his talk, marking the momentous occasion. Congratulations to Krishna!