Toolbox for building photonic/plasmonic crystals in a glass matrix containing metallic nanoparticles

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This project will investigate a new approach to generate photonic (plasmonic) crystals, based on nanocomposite materials consisting of a dielectric (usually glass) and embedded metallic nanoparticles. The optical properties of this base material can be varied within a wide range of parameters by using different components (metal/matrix), and by varying size, concentration and shape of the nanoparticles. A two-step procedure will be applied to produce photonic crystals from such materials with well-defined defects: in a first step, a method developed very recently will be utilized to transfer local lateral structures from a structured electrode (e.g. a 2D Si photonic crystal) to the base material by help of an electric field; in the contact regions, the dielectric becomes transparent again by dissolving the nanoparticles in the matrix, while in non-contact regions nanoparticle clumps remain. As long as the length scale of the electrodes is much larger than the particle size, the optical properties in these regions are very close to that of the base material. Treatment with ultrashort laser pulses allows further local modification of the optical properties, e.g. creation of special defect structures by introducing local dichroism. The high flexibility of the propesed materials system in preparing different structures with large variety of optical properties can only be effectively explored if the predictive power of simulations of the photonic strucutres is combined wit the proposed experiments.