Broadband, Quasi-Crystalline, and Low-Symmetry Plasmonics

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Technical: This project, supported by the Electronic and Photonic Materials Program and the Condensed Matter Physics Program, is on experimental and theoretical investigation of quasi-crystalline and multiscale plasmonic crystals. Built on the previous research by the PIs on plasmonic materials, especially on nanoparticles as well as nanostructured metal films and surfaces created using soft nanolithography techniques, the current project moves in new directions and emphasizes broadband, aperiodic, and low-symmetry metal lattices, whose properties are mostly unknown in the plasmonics field because the structures cannot easily be fabricated, and especially not over large areas ( 1 cm2). Such structures and their measured and calculated dispersion properties are important because they can provide new insight into enhanced optical transmission and other light-surface plasmon coupling mechanisms. Scientific issues such as enhanced transmission, coupled long/short range plasmon interactions, s-polarized optical responses, and coupled Rayleigh anomaly/surface plasmon polariton modes will be studied.Non-technical: The project addresses basic research issues in a topical area of science with high technological relevance. Nanophotonics is an emerging research area that will have impacts on optical communication, information storage, and chemical sensors. The project will train a high tech work force in experimental and theoretical nanophotonics research. One example is a course on Nanopatterning: Top-down Meets Bottom-up. Some aspects of the optical property modeling are being adapted to General Chemistry courses that the PIs also teach. Moreover, the simple nanopatterning techniques developed by the PIs are disseminated worldwide through the web and are being tested with international partners, including professors and students in several Africa counties.