Ultrafast nanophotonics

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The emerging field of ultrafast nano-optics is a relatively young field of research aimed at probing, manipulating and controlling ultrafast optical excitations on nanometer length scales. The ability to control light on nanometric length and femtosecond time scales opens up exciting opportunities in a variety of fields. This research program intends to conceive ultrafast nano-optics platforms targeted specifically at applications in novel sources, imaging and sensing. The overarching research vision is to further the understanding of light interaction with nanoplasmonic structures particularly using ultrafast pulses; Translate such understanding into tangible outcomes in the form of sensing, imaging and novel lasers platforms and leverage these platforms to seed application-oriented research such as early diagnosis of disease and rapid synthesis of drugs. Within the scope of this grant, four inter-related research themes are proposed: 1) nanoplasmonic structures development; 2) novel sources; 3) imaging with nanoscale resolution and 4) parallel optical biosensors. These are conceptually linked as follows: The nanoplasmonic structures development (Theme1) furthers the understanding of light interaction with nanoplasmonic structures and is an essential building block for the other three themes. Theme2 focuses on the development of new sources that will be used in themes 3 and 4. While in the short term, we will optimize nanoplasmonic structures for each theme independently, we believe that by developing novel sources we could further optimize the resolution in imaging and the sensitivity in sensing. This research program is broad in its scope, and speculative in keeping with the purpose of Discovery Grants.