Photonic circuits now provide high-density ultra-fast interconnections and functionality for both local and global communications. At the processor level, optoelectronics is alleviating the bottleneck of conventional pin-outs. In addition, new classical and quantum properties of light are still being uncovered, many of which have yet to see practical applications. Our research group is tasked with investigating applications of these properties – in particular, the interactions between light and engineered nonlinear optical materials. In addition to the transmission and manipulation of information, applications being explored include the identification and characterization of materials at the atomic and molecular scale. Recognizing that model calculations are insufficient, experimental work constitutes are a large portion of our research.