RUI: Edge States and Vortices in Photonic Graphene-Like Structures

RUI：光子石墨烯类结构中的边缘态和涡旋

• 批准号: 1404510
• 负责人: Zhigang Chen
• 金额: $ 24.15万
• 依托单位: San Francisco State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-15 至 2017-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1404510&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RUI; Edge; States; Vortices; Photonic

Ordinary optical materials (like eyeglasses) are manufactured to be highly uniform in their optical properties--irregularities are taken to be a sign of inferior quality. By precisely controlling the irregularites, however, and making them conform to a particular pattern, one can create intriguing and potentially useful effects that go beyond what is normal in uniform systems. This project will explore some such effects which may mimic the behavior of graphene--a material that has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years because of its potential application in future microelectronics manufacturing. This analog of graphene is easier to work with than real graphene, allowing more rapid progress in exploring the true limits of this fascinating material. The experimental techniques that will be used in this research are straightforward enough for active participation of undergraduate and masters-level graduate students, yet the research activities will expose students to a broad range of phenomena in a cutting-edge field of interdisciplinary science. In fact, throughout the project, a major emphasis will be placed on mentoring students, particularly those from the ethnically diverse San Francisco Bay Area population. Carbon-based graphene has been highly touted and tested as an extraordinary material for many applications, apart from elucidating fundamental physics phenomena. Recently, there is a surge of interest in creating "artificial" graphene systems not only for electrons, but also for atoms, photons, and other quasiparticles such as polaritons. This is simply because that artificial graphene can provide a tunable system to explore physical phenomena difficult or impossible to achieve in natural graphene. In this project, a simple optical induction technique will be used to create 2D honey-comb (graphene-like) lattices as well as other nonconventional lattice structures. More importantly, these photonic structures will be employed as a workbench for investigation some fundamental issues including surface states, vortices and equivalent spin effects and magnetic effects of light in graphene-like lattices. Although performed in a simple optical setting of reconfigurable photonic structures, much of the proposed work will have direct impacts on other areas of sciences, ranging from condensed matter physics to atomic physics such as Bose-Einstein condensates trapped in periodic potentials. For instance, the electronic edge states were known for decades, but such fundamental phenomena have recently attracted growing interest in optics that has led to the successful demonstration of photonic topological insulators. Indeed, there is much potential to use optical systems as photonic simulators for studying complex classical and quantum phenomena.

普通光学材料(如眼镜)的光学性能高度均匀--不规则性被认为是质量低劣的标志。然而，通过精确地控制不规则物体，并使它们符合特定的模式，人们可以创造出有趣和潜在有用的效果，这些效果超出了制服系统的正常范围。该项目将探索一些可能模仿石墨烯行为的此类效应--石墨烯是一种近年来引起人们极大兴趣的材料，因为它在未来的微电子制造中具有潜在的应用价值。这种模拟的石墨烯比真正的石墨烯更容易使用，从而在探索这种迷人材料的真正极限方面取得了更快的进展。这项研究将使用的实验技术足够直截了当，足以让本科生和硕士研究生积极参与，但研究活动将使学生接触到跨学科科学前沿领域的广泛现象。事实上，在整个项目中，主要的重点将放在指导学生上，特别是那些来自旧金山湾区种族多元化人口的学生。除了阐明基本物理现象外，碳基石墨烯还被高度吹捧和测试为一种非凡的材料，在许多方面都有应用。最近，人们对创造不仅用于电子，也用于原子、光子和其他准粒子(如极化子)的“人造”石墨烯系统的兴趣激增。这很简单，因为人造石墨烯可以提供一个可调的系统，来探索在天然石墨烯中难以或不可能实现的物理现象。在这个项目中，将使用一种简单的光感应技术来创建2D蜂窝(类石墨烯)晶格以及其他非传统晶格结构。更重要的是，这些光子结构将被用作研究一些基本问题的工作台，包括石墨烯晶格中的表面态、涡旋和光的等效自旋效应和磁效应。虽然在可重构光子结构的简单光学环境中进行，但许多拟议的工作将对其他科学领域产生直接影响，从凝聚态物理到原子物理，如捕获在周期势中的玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚体。例如，电子边缘状态早在几十年前就已知，但这种基本现象最近引起了人们对光学的日益浓厚的兴趣，导致了光子拓扑绝缘体的成功演示。事实上，利用光学系统作为光子模拟器来研究复杂的经典和量子现象是很有潜力的。