Surface plasmon photonics: from fundamentals to applications

该提案处于光子学的前沿，致力于研究使用表面等离子体的设备，特别是激光和宇称时间对称结构，高速光电探测器和调制器，以及用于疾病检测和护理点应用的生物传感器。开展本文所描述的工作将产生重大而深远的进步，对等离子体和广泛的光子学社区以及电信、传感器和医疗保健公司都有兴趣。提出的表面等离子体激光器、光电探测器和调制器有望以极低的成本实现高性能，这些特性对电信应用，特别是下一代光网络和短距离光通信具有重要意义。我们在表面等离子体生物传感器方面的工作将导致用于检测心脏肌钙蛋白I（心肌损伤或梗死的蛋白质标志物），人类促甲状腺激素（许多加拿大人缺乏这种激素）和登革热病毒的护理点设备，登革热病毒每年折磨全球约5亿人，包括部署在登革热流行地区的加拿大军事人员。

This proposal is at the frontiers of photonics and devoted to the investigation of devices operating with surface plasmons, particularly lasers and parity time symmetric structures, high-speed photodetectors and modulators, and biosensors for disease detection and point-of-care applications. Conducting the work described herein will result in significant and far-reaching advances, of interest to the plasmonics and broad photonics communities, and to telecom, sensor and healthcare companies. The surface plasmon lasers, photodetectors and modulators proposed hold the promise of high-performance at very low cost, attributes that are of significant interest for telecom applications, particularly next-generation optical networks and short-reach optical communications. Our work on surface plasmon biosensors will lead to point-of-care devices for the detection of cardiac troponin I (a protein marker for myocardial injury or infarction), for human thyroid stimulating hormone (for which many Canadians suffer from a deficiency), and for the Dengue virus which afflicts about 500M people globally each year including Canadian military personnel deployed in Dengue prevalent regions. Over the duration of this program, 5 Ph.D. students will complete their studies and 5 new students will begin. The students will be integrated into a productive, collaborative and multidisciplinary team. The applicant's group is attractive to students from many disciplines - engineering (EE, Phys, Chem, Biomed) and science (Phys, Biochem). The students will receive training on the modelling, design, fabrication in cleanrooms, and experimental characterisation of photonic devices and biosensors. The students will interact directly with our industrial, international and medical collaborators. They will obtain their graduate degrees having acquired theoretical and experimental skills which are immediately useful and valued by industry and academia. New knowledge will be disseminated in top journals, conferences, and in patents, new industrial partnerships will be formed, and potentially a new company created to ensure the transfer of technologies to the private sector. The research outcomes and the highly qualified personnel produced will be of high interest to Canadian high-technology industry, particularly to the electronics and photonics industries, which are of strategic importance to Canada's innovation agenda. The proposed research aligns very well with the Government of Canada's Strategy on RNanotechnology” focus area of the “Advanced Manufacturing” research priority, the “Communications networks and services” focus area of the “Information and Communications Technologies” research priority, and the “Biomedical engineering and medical technologies” focus area of the “Health and Life Sciences” research priority.