SGER: Investigation of Plasmonic Crystal Based Nanostructures for Biomolecule Detection.

目的：研究等离子体晶体中的超常传输效应，为生物分子的定量、特异、高通量检测开发新的检测平台。智能优点：从传感到近场光学和光电子学，超乎寻常的传输效应已被提出用于各种应用。但是，其潜在的物理机制仍不清楚。在这项提议中，PI将研究这种效应的来源，并专注于设计能够支持传播和局域等离子体的新的等离子体晶体结构。特别是，对于强场增强和大等离子体共振位移，我们将从数值和实验两个方面研究纳米孔的形状效应。这些结构将通过使用不同大小的各种模型生物分子来测试，以确定传感器的度量。表面化学也将针对结构化的黄金表面进行优化。更广泛的影响：这项提议的广泛目标是整合等离子体激元和纳米光子学的概念，以实现新一代生物传感器。国际学生联合会将大力将研究和教育结合起来，将新的研究成果反馈到国际学生联合会目前正在开发的课程中，试图吸引代表人数较少的少数族裔学生，并通过与外联项目合作，帮助年轻学生在科学和技术领域开始职业生涯。特别是，国际学生联合会将继续为波士顿大学现有的外展项目组织实践活动，如向上绑定数学和科学以及针对少数族裔高中生的暑期路径。

Objective: The objective of this SGER proposal is to investigate extraordinary transmission effect in plasmonic crystals to develop fundamentally new detection platforms for quantitative, specific and high throughput detection of biomolecules. Intellectual Merit: Extraordinary transmission effect has been suggested for various applications ranging from sensing, to near-field optics and optoelectronics. But, its underlying physical mechanism is still not clear. In this proposal the PI will investigate the origin of the effect and focus on engineering new plasmonic crystal structures that can support both propagating and localized plasmons. In particular, the shape effect of the nano-apertures will be investigated both numerically and experimentally for strong field enhancement and large plasmon resonance shift. The structures will be tested by using various model biomolecules with different sizes to determine the metric of sensors. Surface chemistry will also be optimized for structured gold surfaces. Broader Impacts: The broad goal of this proposal is to integrate plasmonics and nanophotonics concepts for realization of new generation of biosensors. The PI will put strong effort to integrate research and education by feeding new research results back into the courses that PI is currently developing, trying to attract underrepresented minority students, and by working with outreach programs to help young students start a career in science and technology,. In particular, the PI will continue to organize hand-on activities for existing outreach programs of Boston University such as Upward Bound Math and Science and Summer Pathways that are targeting minority high school students.