NSF Materials World Network: Classical and Quantum Optical Metamaterials by Combining Top-down and Bottom-up Fabrication Techniques

这个材料世界网络项目提出了一个美英两国在经典和量子超材料新体制下的国际研究平台，它汇集了我们在先进纳米制造、光学表征和基于物理的分析方面的强大专业知识，设计和实现了前所未有的超材料光学特性。超材料在光学频率上的缩小为一类新的超材料铺平了道路，对电信、光学成像、能量收集、医疗保健和国土安全等领域的广泛应用产生了深远的影响。然而，光学超材料领域的关键突破受到以下因素的阻碍：(1)目前自上而下的制造技术缺乏在几纳米尺度上设计结构的能力；(2)由于自下而上的纳米加工方法，缺乏长距离有序；(3)金属基光学超材料的光损耗；(4)光学超材料在低光子水平下缺乏光学控制。在这个项目中，我们的目标是通过结合自顶向下和自底向上的纳米制造技术来制造光学超材料，并通过将超材料扩展到量子状态来减少损耗，并引入超越经典超材料的新型光学控制方案，来克服这些关键挑战。该项目协同结合了三个合作者，一个在美国，两个在英国，并建立了合作记录，以研究新型光学超材料的制造，表征和基于物理的建模。这个合作项目的核心原理是，它将一个英国团队在大规模纳米制造方面的强大专业知识，另一个强大的英国团队在超材料和非线性光学方面的理论和计算能力，与一个美国团队在各种光学表征技术方面的演示记录相结合。为了确保密切合作，我们计划使用每周一次的基于互联网的视频会议（Skype等），每半年一次的研讨会，将整个团队结合MRS或E-MRS会议以及研究人员之间的频繁访问聚集在一起。

This Materials World Network Program proposes an international research platform between US and UK into new regime of classical and quantum metamaterials, which brings together our strong expertise in advanced nanofabrication, optical characterization, and physics-based analysis to design and realize the unprecedented optical properties of metamaterials. The scale-down of metamaterials to optical frequencies paved the way for a new class of metamaterials with a profound impact on a broad range of applications in telecommunication, optical imaging, energy harvesting, health care, and homeland security. However, the key breakthrough in the field of optical metamaterials is hindered by: (1) the lack of capability of current top-down fabrication techniques to engineer structures at a few nanometers scale; (2) lack of long range ordering due to the bottom-up nanofabrication approaches; (3) optical loss in the metal-based optical metamaterials; and (4) lack of optical control at low photon levels in optical metamaterials. In this project, we aim to overcome these critical challenges by combining top-down and bottom-up nanofabrication techniques for the manufacturing of optical metamaterials, and by extending metamaterials to the quantum regime to reduce the loss and to introduce novel optical control schemes that go beyond classical metamaterials. This program combines synergistically three collaborators, one in the US and two in the UK, with an established records of collaboration to investigate the fabrication, characterization, and physics-based modeling of novel optical metamaterials. The central rationale for this collaborative program is that it integrates a UK group's strong expertise in large scale nanofabrication and another strong UK group's theoretical and computational capabilities in metamaterials and nonlinear optics, with a US group with demonstrated records of various optical characterisation techniques. To ensure close collaborations, we plan to use weekly internet based video-conferencing (Skype, etc.), semiannual workshops that bring the whole team together in conjunction of MRS or E-MRS meetings as well as frequent visits among researchers.