CAREER: Coulomb-induced Dynamics in the Nonlinear Optical Spectra of Low-dimensional Systems: Beyond Mean Field Theory

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Proposal Number: ECS-9703453 Principal Investigator: Ilias Perakis Title: CAREER: Coulomb-induced Dynamics in the Nonlinear Optical Spectra of Low-Dimensional Systems: Beyond Mean Field Theory The fundamental principles of how many-body Coulomb interactions influence sub-picosecond nonlinear optical dynamics in semiconductors and metals will be investigated using a theoretical/computational approach: the coupled cluster approach. The extension of formal field theoretic techniques to the ultrafast regime has never been done in a complete or systematic manner. Many-body charge interactions are of importance in describing charge generation and recombination on ultrafast time scales. Experiments also indicate that Coulomb interactions among optically excited carriers could provide the mechanism that would allow optical switching devices to operate in the THz regime. Strong experimental collaborations will also be pursued. Switching is presently one of the most serious limiting factors in optical/optoelectronic communications, computing and other applications. The educational plan involves development of a new multidisciplinary computational science major at Vanderbilt, with the strong endorsement from the department chair and university. Multidisciplinary computational science is growing in importance and is currently underrepresented in most university curricula. A new class for freshman based on problem formulating approaches is also being developed, as is a general science course, which has basic electronic and computational aspects of the Internet as its theme.