PhotonicsAI Lab · Research
Research
We explore how light and responsive matter can compute, shape information, and support new experimental methods. Our research connects optical physics, materials, microfabrication, and artificial intelligence.
Light, materials and intelligent experiments
Explore our seven research directions, from optical computing and structured light to soft biophotonic platforms and AI-driven science.
Optical Computing and Hybrid Intelligence
We investigate how light and responsive materials can perform computation and learning. Our work combines optical matrix operations, liquid crystal nonlinearities, oscillatory dynamics, and physical neural networks to explore new ways of processing information in optical hardware.
We are also exploring joint training of large language models and optical systems, with intelligence distributed across digital models and analogue physical dynamics. In this hybrid digital–analogue and electro-optical approach, AI and optical hardware learn and operate in synergy.
Optical Microfabrication and Integrated Photonics
We develop optical methods for fabricating and structuring materials at the microscale. Our research includes one-photon and two-photon processes, two-photon polymerization, and laser ablation of glass, quartz, polymers, and other substrates.
We use these approaches to create three-dimensional microstructures, micro-optical elements, and components for integrated photonics and lab-on-a-chip systems. We investigate the relationship between optical design, material response, and fabrication conditions to improve precision, throughput, and structural quality.
Liquid Crystals and Responsive Photonic Materials
We study how liquid crystals and other responsive materials organize and respond to light, electric fields, and confinement. By combining self-assembly with optical microfabrication, we investigate hierarchical soft materials and structures with tunable optical behaviour.
Our work includes nematic and chiral liquid crystals, light-induced reconfiguration, and ferroelectric nematic composites. We aim to translate these material responses into nonlinear, reconfigurable, and multifunctional photonic devices.
Broadband Wavefront Control and Structured Light
We investigate methods for controlling the phase, amplitude, and polarization of light across multiple wavelengths. Our work includes liquid crystal geometric-phase optics, reconfigurable Bragg-Berry mirrors, and twisted nematic liquid crystal architectures.
We develop photoalignment methods to control liquid crystal orientation with light, enabling reconfigurable spatial light modulation for structured light and adaptive wavefront control.
Biophotonics and Soft Lab-on-a-Chip Platforms
We synthesize and study lyotropic liquid crystals and investigate their photoalignment and control with light. Our goal is to build biocompatible, light-controllable soft platforms that bring responsive materials and biological systems into a shared experimental environment.
This direction connects materials research with lab-on-a-chip fabrication and optical control. We are developing it toward the study of collective behaviour in soft biophotonic systems and, in the longer term, biophotonic computing.
Computational Imaging and Reprogrammable Optics
This emerging direction brings optical hardware and computational methods into a common design process. Building on earlier work with time-gated cameras, we are developing models of diffraction, phase modulation, image formation, and uncertainty to guide the design of reprogrammable optical systems.
Our five-year research programme combines derivative-free hardware-in-the-loop optimization with model-based AI. It aims to realize reprogrammable optical elements and adaptive modules, and demonstrate their use in intensity imaging, phase imaging, and application-driven optical processing.
AI Architectures for Scientific and Experimental Research
We investigate how AI can become an effective scientific collaborator: turning broad questions into experimental plans, interpreting observations, and helping researchers decide what to investigate next. This requires an architecture that connects general-purpose digital AI with specialized AI scientists and experimentalists, models adapted to particular hardware and setups, and reliable instrument-control layers.
A central research question is how to distribute a task across this entire hierarchy. Which decisions need general reasoning, which benefit from specialized knowledge, and which should become fast local “reflexes”? We study how these layers can coordinate and learn from feedback, from scientific reasoning down to deterministic setup APIs, hardware SDKs, and control routines.
Publications
Selected journal articles, preprints, and conference contributions from PhotonicsAI researchers. For complete publication records, browse the PI profiles on Google Scholar: Mushegh Rafayelyan, Tetiana Orlova, Sergey Shvetsov, and Tatevik Sarukhanyan.
2026
- Sergey A. Shvetsov and Hiap L. Ong. “A review of light-induced bistability in liquid crystals.” Liquid Crystals, published online, 25 September 2026. DOI: 10.1080/02678292.2026.2737211. Read publication.
- I. A. Budagovsky, A. S. Zolot’ko, M. P. Smayev, S. A. Shvetsov, N. I. Boiko, and M. A. Bugakov. “Light-Induced Reorientation of the Director of Nematic Liquid Crystal Polymers.” Polymer Science, Series A, 68(4), 336–355 (2026). DOI: 10.7868/S2412984426040039. Read publication.
- Neshteh Kourian, Koen Vanmol, Mushegh Rafayelyan, Tatevik Sarukhanyan, and Tigran Baghdasaryan. “Low-Loss Ultrashort Segmented Tapers Enabled by Inverse Design for 3D Polymer Nanofabrication on Fiber Tips.” IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, early access, 6 August 2026. DOI: 10.1109/JSTQE.2026.3721324. Read publication.
- Elena V. Aksenova, Igor S. Lobanov, Tetiana Orlova, Valery M. Uzdin, and Alexei D. Kiselev. “Umbilic surfaces as a robust topological probe of 3D solitons in cholesteric liquid crystals.” Nanosystems: Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, 17(1), 46–58 (2026). DOI: 10.17586/2220-8054-2026-17-1-46-58. Read publication.
- Tetiana Orlova, Amaranta Membrillo Solis, Hayley R. O. Sohn, Tristan Madeleine, Giampaolo D’Alessandro, Ivan I. Smalyukh, Malgosia Kaczmarek, and Jacek Brodzki. “Multiscale geometrical and topological learning in the analysis of soft matter collective dynamics.” Physical Review Materials, 10(1), 015602 (2026). DOI: 10.1103/dht2-w1gz. Read publication.
2025
- T. V. Reztsov, A. V. Chernykh, A. S. Ezerskii, Tangkun Han, V. R. Gresko, E. G. Tsiplakova, Jianyi Li, M. M. Sergeev, Baoku Wang, T. Orlova, Li Li, S. Makarov, Hao Tian, and N. V. Petrov. “Polarization Holographic Monitoring for Laser Treatment Diffractive Optical Elements and Metasurfaces Fabrication in Functional Materials Photonics.” Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences: Physics, 89(Suppl. 4), S523–S533 (2025 issue; published online 19 February 2026). DOI: 10.1134/S1062873825714898. Read publication.
- Darina Darmoroz, Anastasiia Piven, and Tetiana Orlova. “Large Supramolecular Patterns in Photoactive Chiral Liquid Crystals for Light-Controllable Soft Micromechanical Systems.” Small Structures, 6(12), e202500506 (2025). DOI: 10.1002/sstr.202500506. Read publication.
- Mehdi Feizpour, Halewijn Van den Bosche, Lilit Melikyan, Thomas Demuyser, Piet Cools, Hugo Thienpont, Tatevik Sarukhanyan, and Heidi Ottevaere. “Bacterial identification in SERS-integrated microfluidics using CNN-driven 2D classification of 1D spectra.” Talanta, 295, 128325 (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2025.128325. Read publication.
- Dmitrii Shcherbinin, Denis A. Glukharev, Semyon Rudyi, Anastasiia Piven, Tetiana Orlova, Izabela Śliwa, and Alex Zakharov. “Light-Induced Heating of Microsized Nematic Volumes.” Crystals, 15(9), 822 (2025). DOI: 10.3390/cryst15090822. Read publication.
- A. N. Shalev, A. A. Misura, A. O. Georgieva, A. V. Chernykh, N. V. Petrov, T. Orlova, I. S. Lobanov, E. V. Aksenova, V. M. Uzdin, and A. D. Kiselev. “Polarization-controlled orbital angular momentum of light passing through a cholesteric spherulite.” Optics Letters, 50(16), 4866–4869 (2025). DOI: 10.1364/OL.561669. Read publication.
- Tikhon V. Reztsov, Aleksey V. Chernykh, Tetiana Orlova, and Nikolay V. Petrov. “A Dynamic Analysis of Toron Formation in Chiral Nematic Liquid Crystals Using a Polarization Holographic Microscope.” Polymers, 17(13), 1849 (2025). DOI: 10.3390/polym17131849. Read publication.
- N. Kasapenko, T. Orlova, and N. Kondratyuk. “Microsecond-scale observation of phase transition and diffusion in 5CB liquid crystal at the molecular level.” The Journal of Chemical Physics, 162(15), 154901 (2025). DOI: 10.1063/5.0267377. Read publication.
- Tatevik Sarukhanyan, Mushegh Rafayelyan, Andrey Malinchenko, Ashot Gevorgyan, Anushavan Makaryan, Roma Alaverdyan, and Rafik Hakobyan, “Light polarization control properties of long-pitch translationally invariant cholesterics with homeotropic boundary conditions”, Journal of Molecular Liquids, p 129218. Read publication
- Tigran Baghdasaryan, Neshteh Kourian, Mushegh Rafayelyan, and Tatevik Sarukhanyan, “Low-Loss Multimode Waveguide Bends with Direct Laser Writing in Polymer”, Micromachines, 16(12), p 1361. Read publication
- Edvard Grigoryan, Aram Sargsyan, Tatevik Sarukhanyan, and Mushegh Rafayelyan, “Single-Path Spatial Polarization Modulation for Vector Transmission Matrix Measurement and Polarization Control in Scattering Media”, Photonics, 12(11), p 1145. Read publication
- Edvard Grigoryan, Hayk H. Harutyunyan, Hrayr Hakobyan, Sergey A. Shvetsov, Tetiana Orlova, Mushegh Rafayelyan, and Vahram L. Grigoryan, “On-Demand Photopatterned Twisted Nematics for Generation of Polychromatic Vector Fields”, Crystals, 15(10), p 877. Read publication
- Sergey A. Shvetsov, Darina D. Darmoroz, Alexey Vasil’ev, Tetiana Orlova, Igor S. Lobanov, and Mushegh Rafayelyan, “Light-Induced Isotropic Pen for Generation of Topological Solitons and Hopfion-Toron Transition in Frustrated Chiral Nematic Films”, Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 199, p 116905. Read publication
- Nikita A. Krotkov, Dmitrii A. Sbytov, Anna A. Chakhoyan, Polina I. Kornienko, Anna A. Starikova, Maxim G. Stepanov, Anastasiia O. Piven, Timur A. Aliev, Tetiana Orlova, Mushegh S. Rafayelyan, and Ekaterina V. Skorb, “Nanostructured material design via a retrieval-augmented generation (rag) approach: Bridging laboratory practice and scientific literature”, Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 65(20), p 11064-11078. Read publication
- Nicolas Bruni, Charles Loussert, Mushegh Rafayelyan, Tetiana Orlova, Delphine Coursault, and Etienne Brasselet, “Rewritable Binary Recording of the Photon Spin State in Chiral Liquid Crystals”, Physical Review Letters, 134(22), p 223804.Read publication
- A. H. Gevorgyan, A. A. Malinchenko, N. A. Vanyushkin, S. S. Golik, A. V. Davydenko, T. M. Sarukhanyan, and K. B. Oganesyan. “Magneto-optics of dichroic chiral photonic crystals: resonant diffraction transmission and higher-order reflections at grazing angles.” arXiv, 2510.20120 (2025), preprint. DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2510.20120. Read publication.
2024 and earlier articles
2024
- Sergey Shvetsov, Tetiana Orlova, Aleksandr Hayrapetyan, Alexey Vasil’ev, and Mushegh Rafayelyan, “Light-controllable liquid crystal platform for microparticle oscillations and transport”, Soft Matter, 20(35), p 6920-6928. Read publication
2022
- Mushegh Rafayelyan, Henrik Melkonyan, Arman Tigranyan, and Etienne Brasselet, “Optical cloaking of macroscopic objects by geometric-phase vortex processing”, Journal of Optics, 24(9), p 094005. Read publication
- Gianni Jacucci, Louis Delloye, Davide Pierangeli, Mushegh Rafayelyan, Claudio Conti, and Sylvain Gigan, “Tuneable spin-glass optical simulator based on multiple light scattering”, Physical Review A, 105(3), p. 033502. Read publication
2021
- Davide Pierangeli, Mushegh Rafayelyan, Claudio Conti, and Sylvain Gigan, «Scalable spin-glass optical simulator», Physical Review Applied, v15, 3, p. 034087. Read publication
- Tatevik M Sarukhanyan, Hermine Gharagulyan, Mushegh S Rafayelyan, Sergey S Golik, Ashot H Gevorgyan, and Roman B Alaverdyan, «Multimode Robust Lasing in a Dye-Doped Polymer Layer Embedded in a Wedge-Shaped Cholesteric», Molecules, v.26, 19, p 6089. Read publication
- Ashot H Gevorgyan, Sergey S Golik, Nikolay A Vanyushkin, Ilya M Efimov, Mushegh S Rafayelyan, Hermine Gharagulyan, Tatevik M Sarukhanyan, Meruzhan Z Hautyunyan, and Gvidon K Matinyan, «Magnetically Induced Transparency in Media with Helical Dichroic Structure»,Materials, v.14, 9, p. 2172. Read publication
2020
- Mushegh Rafayelyan, Jonathan Dong, Yongqi Tan, Florent Krzakala, and Sylvain Gigan, «Large-scale optical reservoir computing for spatiotemporal chaotic systems prediction», Physical Review X, v10, 4, p. 041037. Read publication
- Jonathan Dong, Ruben Ohana, Mushegh Rafayelyan, and Florent Krzakala, «Reservoir Computing meets Recurrent Kernels and Structured Transforms», Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, v.33. Read publication
2019
- Jonathan Dong, Mushegh Rafayelyan, Florent Krzakala, and Sylvain Gigan, «Optical reservoir computing using multiple light scattering for chaotic systems prediction», IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 26, no. 1, p. 1-12. Read publication
- M. S. Rafayelyan, H. Gharagulyan, T. M. Sarukhanyan, A. H. Gevorgyan, R. S. Hakobyan, and R. B. Alaverdyan, «Light energy accumulation by cholesteric liquid crystal layer at oblique incidence», Liquid Crystals, 46, no. 7, p. 1079-1090. Read publication
up to 2018
- Mushegh Rafayelyan, Gonzague Agez, and Etienne Brasselet. «Ultrabroadband gradient-pitch Bragg-Berry mirrors», Physical Review A 96, no. 4, p. 043862 (2017). Read publication
- Mushegh Rafayelyan and Etienne Brasselet. «Bragg-Berry mirrors: reflective broadband q-plates», Optics letters, 41, no 17 p. 3972-3975(2016). Read publication
- Mushegh Rafayelyan, Georgiy Tkachenko, and Etienne Brasselet. «Reflective spin-orbit geometric phase from chiral anisotropic optical media», Physical review letters, 116, no. 25, p. 253902 (2016). Read publication
Conference Contributions
2026
- A. V. Chernykh, T. V. Reztsov, A. S. Ezerskii, T. Han, V. R. Gresko, E. G. Tsiplakova, J. Li, M. M. Sergeev, B. Wang, T. Orlova, L. Li, S. Makarov, H. Tian, and N. V. Petrov. “Digital holographic microscopy in laser processing and quantitative analysis of polarization-phase anisotropy of liquid crystals and sol-gel films.” 2026 International Conference Laser Optics (ICLO), p. 503 (2026), conference proceedings. DOI: 10.1109/ICLO69056.2026.11624613. Read publication.
- Darina D. Darmoroz, Sergey A. Shvetsov, Mushegh Rafayelyan, and Tatiana Orlova. “Low-power optical generation and polymer stabilization of topological structures in liquid-crystalline materials.” 2026 International Conference Laser Optics (ICLO), p. 505 (2026), conference proceedings. DOI: 10.1109/ICLO69056.2026.11624506. Read publication.
- Edvard Grigoryan, Hayk H. Harutyunyan, Hrayr Hakobyan, Sergey A. Shvetsov, Tetiana Orlova, Mushegh Rafayelyan, and Vahram L. Grigoryan. “Reconfigurable Vector-Field Generation of Polychromatic Light from Photopatterned Twisted Nematics.” 2026 International Conference Laser Optics (ICLO), p. 138 (2026), conference proceedings. DOI: 10.1109/ICLO69056.2026.11625114. Read publication.
2025
- Aram Sargsyan, Arman Tigranyan, Hayk Mikayelyan, and Mushegh Rafayelyan. “Adaptive transmission matrix control for noise-robust optical information processing.” Optics and Photonics for Information Processing XIX, Proc. SPIE 13604, 136040B (2025), conference proceedings. DOI: 10.1117/12.3076655. Read publication.
- N. Marinin and M. Rafayelyan. “Optical reservoir computing with controlled complexity.” PHOTONICA 2025: X International School and Conference on Photonics, Book of Abstracts, p. 149, Belgrade, Serbia, 25–29 August 2025, conference abstract. Read abstract.
Old proceedings (2024 and earlier)
Selected conference abstracts, presentations, and invited talks.
2024
- Nicolas Bruni, Charles Loussert, Mushegh Rafayelyan, Tetiana Orlova, Delphine Coursault, and Etienne Brasselet. “Rewritable nonvolatile polar optical memory driven by the photon spin in chiral liquid crystals.” Liquid Crystals Optics and Photonic Devices, SPIE, PC130160I (2024), conference contribution. DOI: 10.1117/12.3022443. Read contribution.
- Darina Darmoroz, Sergey Shvetsov, Tetiana Orlova, and Mushegh Rafayelyan. “Optical generation and evolution of localized chiral structures in dye-doped dual-frequency cholesteric films.” International College on Modern Applications of Optics and Photonics (MAOP2024), Book of Abstracts, p. 32 (2024), conference abstract. Read abstract.
2023
- A. A. Hayrapetyan, V. D. Yeranosyan, H. R. Janesian, and M. S. Rafayelyan. “Forecasting of light-matter interaction in liquid crystals with physics-informed neural networks based on the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation.” International Conference Laser Physics 2023, Book of Abstracts, p. 61 (2023), conference abstract. Read abstract.
- T. Sarukhanyan, H. Melkonyan, and M. Rafayelyan. “Toward all-optical intelligent machines: liquid crystal-enhanced optical computing.” International Conference Laser Physics 2023, Book of Abstracts, p. 26 (2023), invited conference abstract. Read abstract.
- M. Rafayelyan, T. Sarukhanyan, and H. Melkonyan. “Multiple light scattering and nonlinear light-matter interaction: a path to scalable optical neural networks.” 11th International Symposium on Optics and its Applications (OPTICS11), Book of Abstracts, p. 52 (2023), invited conference abstract. Read abstract.
- Sergey Shvetsov, Vahram Grigoryan, Valeri Abrahamyan, Nune Hakobyan, Hakob Margaryan, and Mushegh Rafayelyan. “Bragg-Berry cavities: orbital angular momentum manipulation of broadband light beams.” 11th International Symposium on Optics and its Applications (OPTICS11), Book of Abstracts, p. 110 (2023), conference abstract. Read abstract.
- Vahagn Muradyan, Tatevik Sarukhanyan, and Mushegh Rafayelyan. “Prediction of complex turbulent dynamics in liquid crystals with optical reservoir computing.” 11th International Symposium on Optics and its Applications (OPTICS11), Book of Abstracts, p. 103 (2023), conference abstract. Read abstract.
- Aram Sargsyan, Arman Tigranyan, and Mushegh Rafayelyan. “Online Re-engineering of Effective Transmission Matrix.” 11th International Symposium on Optics and its Applications (OPTICS11), Book of Abstracts, p. 82 (2023), conference abstract. Read abstract.
2022
- Tatevik Sarukhanyan, H. Melkonyan, M. Rafayelyan,«Nonlinear liquid crystals as a resource towards scalable and ultraefficient optical neural networks», the 9th International Symposium “Optics & its applications 2022” (OPTICS-2022)․
- Arman Tigranyan, A. Sargsyan, M. Rafayelyan, «Programmable optical linear operations based on multiple light scattering through disordered medium», the 9th International Symposium “Optics & its applications 2022” (OPTICS-2022)․
2021
- T.M. Sarukhanyan, H. Gharagulyan, M.S. Rafayelyan, S.S. Golik, A.H. Gevorgyan, R.B.Alaverdyan, «The role of the geometric phase in cholesteric with a defect layer toward multimodal robust lasing», International Conference Laser Physics 2021, Book of Abstracts, Ashtarak, Armenia, p. 46.
- A. Tigranyan, N. Badalyan, A. Sargsyan, M. Rafayelyan, «Optical scalable matrix-vector multiplication», International Conference Laser Physics 2021, Book of Abstracts, Ashtarak, Armenia, p. 41.
- M. Rafayelyan, D. Pierangeli, C. Conti, and S. Gigan, «Large-Scale Optical Simulator for Spin Glasses», International Conference Laser Physics 2021, Book of Abstracts, Ashtarak, Armenia, p.30.
- Mushegh Rafayelyan, Invited talk at Laser Physics 2021, Institute for Physical research, Ashtarak, Armenia, “Large-Scale Optical Simulator for Spin Glasses”, 09/2021
- Mushegh Rafayelyan, Invited talk at Frontiers in Optics & Photonics summer school, Yerevan, Armenia, “Optical Large-scale matrix multiplications”, 09/2021
- Mushegh Rafayelyan, Invited seminar at A. Alikhanyan National Laboratory, Yerevan, Armenia, “Large scale optical simulations”, 09/2021
- Mushegh Rafayelyan, Invited seminar at Russian-Armenian University, Yerevan, Armenia, “Large-scale neural networks in optics”, 09/21