QMHP: Tunable Plasmon Nanooptics with Carbon Nanotubes

研究目标和方法本研究的目的是探索如何利用单个纳米管的低能量集体等离子激元激发来定制周期性排列，密集排列，平行碳纳米管阵列的光学特性。将使用PI早些时候为单个纳米管开发的严格量子电动力学方法。该方法从单管带结构计算开始，并允许人们超越其他人以前使用的理想导电圆柱体和有效介质限制近似。具有体周期介电特性的混合表面态使密集的、周期性排列的碳纳米管阵列进入高要求的微波到可见光的宽带光谱范围，这可以通过调节管间间距、管直径和手性以及改变介电主体材料来调节。清楚地了解周期性排列碳纳米管阵列中低能量集体电子激发的性质，以及单个组成的纳米管如何相互通信以及它对阵列的集体性质的影响，是实现各种实际应用的自然前提，从增强的电磁吸收，环境电磁场的转换和整流到纳米生物传感器和先进等离子体超材料的发展。更广泛的影响这项研究将为未来能源相关应用的先进电磁超材料工程带来新的光电器件概念。NCCU是美国第一所由州政府支持的非裔美国人公立文理学院，该学院的少数族裔学生越来越多地接触到这项令人兴奋的尖端纳米技术研究，这将导致少数族裔越来越多地参与科学学科的研究生学习和科学事业。

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND APPROACHESThe objective of this research is to explore how one can use low-energy collective plasmon excitations of individual nanotubes to tailor the optical properties of periodically aligned, densely packed, parallel arrays of carbon nanotubes. The rigorous quantum electrodynamics approach, developed earlier by the PI for individual nanotubes, will be used. The approach starts with single-tube band-structure calculations and allows one to go beyond the ideally-conducting-cylinder and effective-medium restrictive approximations employed previously by others.INTELLECTUAL MERITMixing surface states with bulk-periodic dielectric properties brings dense, periodically aligned carbon nanotube arrays into the highly demanded broad-band spectral range of microwave to visible, which can be tuned by adjusting inter-tube separation, tube diameter and chirality, and by varying dielectric host material. Clear understanding of the properties of low-energy collective electronic excitations in periodically aligned carbon nanotube arrays and how individual constituent nanotubes communicate with one another and what it does to the collective properties of the array, is a natural prerequisite for the realization of a variety of practical applications ranging from the enhanced electromagnetic absorption, conversion and rectification of ambient electromagnetic fields to nano-biosensorics and advanced plasmonic metamaterials development.BROADER IMPACTThis research will result in novel optoelectronic device concepts for advanced electromagnetic meta-materials engineering for use in future energy related applications. Increased exposure of under-represented minority students from NCCU, nation's first state-supported public liberal arts college for African Americans, to this exciting cutting-edge nanotechnology research will lead to increased minority participation in graduate studies in scientific disciplines and in scientific careers in general.