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

这个材料世界网络计划提出了一个美国和英国之间的国际研究平台，进入经典和量子超材料的新制度，它汇集了我们在先进纳米纤维，光学表征和基于物理的分析方面的强大专业知识，以设计和实现超材料前所未有的光学特性。将超材料缩小到光学频率为新型超材料铺平了道路，对电信，光学成像，能量收集，医疗保健和国土安全等广泛应用产生了深远影响。然而，光学超材料领域的关键突破受到以下因素的阻碍：（1）当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）自下而上的纳米制造方法缺乏长程有序性;（3）金属基光学超材料的光学损耗;（4）金属基光学超材料的光学特性。以及（4）在光学超材料中在低光子水平下缺乏光学控制。在这个项目中，我们的目标是克服这些关键的挑战，通过结合自上而下和自下而上的纳米纤维技术制造光学超材料，并通过将超材料扩展到量子领域，以减少损失，并引入超越经典超材料的新型光学控制方案。该计划协同结合了三个合作者，一个在美国，两个在英国，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。这个合作计划的核心理由是，它整合了一个英国小组在大规模纳米纤维方面的强大专业知识和另一个强大的英国小组在超材料和非线性光学方面的理论和计算能力，以及一个拥有各种光学表征技术的美国小组。为了确保密切合作，我们计划每周使用基于互联网的视频会议（Skype等），每半年一次的研讨会，将整个团队聚集在MRS或E-MRS会议以及研究人员之间的频繁访问。

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.