Investigation of Photo-Reversible Glass States: Science & Photonic Applications

本项目的知识价值在于发现硫系玻璃在弱近带隙激光照射下纵向弹性模量显著降低。这一现象开辟了许多前沿研究的新领域。软化的普遍性将在一系列二元和三元玻璃上进行探讨，以牢固地建立光结构转换与玻璃理论的联系，并理解新玻璃态的电子方面。我们将研究我们的发现，电子束可以操纵光软化玻璃的灵活性，从而在纳米尺度上产生新的光子结构。通过低水平光照射和电子束提供的尺寸控制来改变这些共价固体中的键合的能力，为开发低损耗直接写入导波结构、自组织周期结构和高速声光开关提供了技术机会。更广泛的社会和教育影响由于玻璃刚性的物理学基础扩展到稀电子和分子系统中具有异常性质的其他一般相系统，因此提出的工作具有广泛的意义。此外，在广泛应用于光子和电子应用的玻璃材料中发现的新现象，将影响信息存储、存储应用和精密光学工程。电子束的纳米级图案化和自组织特性将为芯片级光子器件的发展奠定基础。教育的影响延伸到培养研究生在一个跨学科的研究计划，重叠的物理，电气工程和化学。pi还指导优秀本科生和代表性不足的学生进行涉及实验、计算和理论工作的研究，并指导当地高中生进行暑期项目。教育部分也将通过协同的课程发展得到加强。校园内和社区内的这种教育和培训活动将继续扩大。

Intellectual MeritThe intellectual merit of this project lies in the discovery that a chalcogenide glass exhibits spectacular reduction in the longitudinal elastic modulus with weak near-band-gap laser illumination. This phenomenon opens new areas of research along many fronts. The generality of the softening will be explored on a range of binary and ternary glasses to firmly establish the connection of photo-structural transformations to present theories of glasses and to understand electronic aspects of the new glassy state. We will investigate our finding that an electron beam can manipulate the agility of photo-softened glass towards creating novel photonic structures on the nano-scale. Combining the ability to modify the bonding in these covalent solids via low level light exposure with dimensional control offered by electron beams, presents technological opportunities to develop low-loss direct-write guided-wave structures, self-organized periodic structures, and high speed acousto-optical switches. Broader Societal & Educational ImpactThe work proposed has broad implications since the physics underlying the rigidity of glasses extends to other systems of generic phases with anomalous properties adjacent to connectivity transitions in dilute electronic and molecular systems. Moreover, the discovery of new phenomena in glassy materials widely used in photonic and electronic applications, will impact information storage, memory applications, and the engineering of precision optics. The nano-scale electron beam patterning and self-organized features will set the stage for the development of chip scale photonic devices. The educational impact extends to training graduate students in an inter-disciplinary research program that overlaps Physics, Electrical Engineering and Chemistry. The PIs also guide outstanding undergraduates and under-represented students in research involving experimental, computational, and theoretical work as well as local high school students in summer projects. The educational component will also be enhanced by synergistic curriculum development. Such education and training activities within campus and in the community will continue to expand.