New Plasmonic Platforms for Nanophotonics: PT-symmetry, Geometry, and Dimensionality

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The control and manipulation of light is a long-standing scientific ambition with profound implications for the development of technology. Nanophotonics offers a promising route to achieve this goal based on exploiting structures with dimensions comparable to the wavelength of light. This project will bring a new perspective to the field by investigating new concepts and systems that have not been previously explored in the context of metallic nanostructures. These are associated with the composition, geometry, and dimensionality of these nanostructures, and include the study of systems displaying a balanced level of gain and loss, ensembles of nanostructures arranged in complex geometries, and elements with atomic thicknesses. In addition to contributing to the fundamental understanding of a plethora of new physical phenomena, this research effort will set the foundations for the development of new mechanisms to manipulate light at the nanoscale, which is the key to realizing the next generation of nanophotonic applications. This work will also have an educational impact through the training of graduate and undergraduate students in the highly multidisciplinary field of nanophotonics. A strong effort will be made to attract students from underrepresented minority groups in New Mexico interested in pursuing careers in STEM disciplines. The strong computational component of the proposed research will serve to expose these students to state-of-the-art computational methods and facilities, thus serving to broaden their future job opportunities in research, academia, and industry. The overarching goal of this proposal is to open new research paths in plasmonics that can lead to the development of new applications in nanophotonics. To achieve that goal, a range of unexplored concepts affecting the composition, geometrical arrangement, and dimensionality of metallic nanostructures will be explored. The motivation is twofold: first, to understand the fundamentals of these new physical phenomena and, second, to exploit that knowledge to develop plasmonic systems with capabilities beyond those of conventional structures that can be used to manipulate light below the diffraction limit. The investigation will be structured in three parallel research paths that will address the following specific goals: (1) investigate parity-time symmetric plasmonic nanostructures to achieve strongly asymmetric responses that can be used to gain new levels of control over the electromagnetic field, (2) understand how the geometry of complex arrangements of plasmonic nanostructures can produce strongly localized, long-lived plasmonic resonances with enhanced near- and far-field responses, and (3) study the unique characteristics of the response of low-dimensional nanostructures and exploit them to create ultracompact plasmonic platforms.