CAREER: Controlling Single Photon Interactions with K-Surface Engineered Nanomaterials

非技术性描述：在我们的环境中，距离很近的原子和分子不断地相互作用，相互吸引和排斥。这种相互作用最终导致了无数的现象，比如壁虎脚上的粘性垫，以及光合作用。该项目解决了将这种微观相互作用的范围增加到更大长度的突出挑战，从而也影响了用于光学信息处理的光子器件的未来发展。该研究开发了一种纳米结构材料平台，可以塑造光能的流动，使嵌入的原子和分子能够长距离相互作用。该项目还通过研究快速电子和光子对（小光束）与结构化介质的相互作用，推动了材料设计的前沿。该项目提出了一项教育创新：以发现为中心的学习和教学，以加强目前流行的以知识为中心的方法。其目标是通过在线课程影响行业研究人员和本科生关于强相互作用光子系统的设备应用。该项目还通过全州和全国性的会议解决了让高中科学教师参与将实验室的发现过程纳入教学法的挑战。技术说明：现代光子学的主要挑战之一是设计量子发射器之间的相互作用，以构建激光器之外的非经典光源，增强分子间能量转移的量子相干性，并在光和物质之间实现全新的集体量子态。这些偶极-偶极相互作用产生于真空涨落，导致近场中的量子发射体彼此相互作用。然而，这种相互作用随着距离的增加而急剧增加，这从根本上限制了许多现象，如货车范德华力，福斯特共振能量转移，集体超辐射和兰姆位移到近场。该项目旨在通过开发独特的材料平台，克服单光子水平量子发射器之间近场相互作用的长期挑战。该方法使用了一种结构化的超材料与工程的能量-动量色散工程（k-表面工程），以增强偶极-偶极相互作用。这项研究活动涉及控制非辐射库仑近场的范式转变，标志着从电路QED，光子晶体，微腔或光学晶格方法，只工程师辐射相互作用的出发。研究活动还通过开发新工具-动量空间电子能量损失光谱和纠缠双光子光谱来推动材料探测的前沿。该项目的教育部分提出了一项名为“以发现为中心的学习和教学”的教育创新，通过面向高中科学教师、本科生和行业研究人员的在线课程和会议，广泛传播研究成果。

Nontechnical description: Very closely spaced atoms and molecules in our environment are constantly interacting, attracting and repelling each other. Such interactions ultimately enable a myriad of phenomena, such as the sticky pads on gecko feet, as well as photosynthesis. This project addresses the outstanding challenge to increase the range of such microscopic interactions to much larger lengths, thus also impacting future development of photonic devices for optical information processing. The research develops a nanostructured material platform which molds the flow of light energy, so that embedded atoms and molecules are able to strongly interact with each other over long distances. The project also pushes frontiers of materials design by studying interactions of fast electrons and pairs of photons - small bundles of light - with the structured medium. The project puts forth an innovation in education: Discovery-Centered Learning and Teaching to augment the currently prevalent Knowledge-Centered approach. The goal is to impact industry researchers and undergraduate students about device applications of strongly interacting photonic systems through online courses. The project also addresses the challenge of engaging high school science teachers to incorporate the laboratory's discovery process in teaching pedagogy through state-wide and national conferences.Technical description: One of the major challenges of modern photonics is to engineer interactions between quantum emitters for building non-classical light sources beyond the laser, enhancing quantum coherence for inter-molecular energy transfer and achieving fundamentally new collective quantum states between light and matter. These dipole-dipole interactions arise from vacuum fluctuations causing quantum emitters in the near-field to interact with each other. However, such interactions scale dramatically with distance which fundamentally limits many phenomena such as Van der Waals forces, Forster resonance energy transfer, collective super-radiance and Lamb shifts to the near-field. This project aims to overcome the long-standing challenge of near-field interactions between quantum emitters at the single photon level through the development of a unique materials platform. The approach uses a structured metamaterial with engineered energy-momentum dispersion engineering (k-surface engineering) to enhance dipole-dipole interactions. This research activity involves a paradigm shift of controlling the non-radiative Coulombic near-fields and marks a departure from circuit QED, photonic crystals, micro-cavities or optical lattice approaches which only engineer radiative interactions. The research activity additionally pushes the frontiers of materials probing through the development of new tools - momentum space electron energy loss spectroscopy and entangled bi-photon spectroscopy. The educational component of this project puts forth an innovation in education called Discovery-Centered Learning and Teaching, to widely disseminate the research findings through online courses and conferences targeting high school science teachers, undergraduate students and industry researchers.