CAREER: Plasmon Tomography

该项目涉及开发一种先进的显微镜系统，用于可视化限制在纳米级结构中的光的传播，以帮助设计集成光子学和电子学的下一代微芯片。光子学涉及使用光子传输和操纵信息，与电子学中使用的电荷相反。集成这两种技术的设备具有巨大的潜力。这种集成的一个主要障碍是相对大规模的光子结构，其尺寸通常为几微米的量级。相比之下，最先进的电子元件只有几十纳米大小？几乎小了一千倍表面等离子激元是一种电磁波，当界面被光子激发时，它会沿着沿着金属-电介质界面传播。虽然表面等离子体激元的频率是激发光子的频率，但波长要小得多。在纳米的数量级上。因此，被制造用于引导和操纵表面等离子体激元的结构与最先进的电子学中的特征具有相同的规模。电磁波在金属中传播所固有的高损耗通过将有源增益介质结合到结构中来解决。操纵表面等离子激元的科学是等离子激元学。作为一个相对较新的领域，等离子体激元学缺乏在更成熟的领域（例如电子学）中可用的大量诊断。新的成像和可视化工具将大大促进等离子体器件开发的进展。本计画的主题为电浆子层析术，设计一先进的显微镜来观察奈米结构中的表面电浆子传播。显微镜还可以被配置为使用等离子体来执行具有亚波长、纳米级分辨率的光学显微镜。这将提供与更昂贵的替代品（例如扫描电子显微镜）相当的成像性能。等离子体断层扫描具有广泛的应用，包括生物研究和医学诊断。基于等离子体断层成像的传感器的大规模并行阵列可以被生产，应用于国土安全，国防和环境监测的化学和生物威胁检测。该CAREER计划下的活动涵盖了科学和工程领域的广泛技术和教育问题，并解决了重要的应用。主要研究内容如下：1.表面等离子体显微镜成像：后焦平面与样品关系的综合描述？的图像将通过实验和理论相结合的方法开发。这将允许进一步优化这些显微技术。2.等离子体结构中的表面等离子体传播：将制造包括有源增益介质的新型等离子体结构，并将使用开发的成像技术表征通过它们的等离子体传播。当整合后，这些研究将导致先进的定量方法，用于表征等离子体激元器件和具有巨大并行能力的传感器中的等离子体激元传播。研究计划将与教育发展和推广活动结合起来。研究生和本科生将参与德克萨斯理工大学纳米技术中心与我们国家相关的跨学科研究？技术培训需求。此外，在这个职业项目下，PI将准备和提供一门等离子体学课程，重点是高等本科生和研究生的等离子体成像技术，并将参与当地的招生计划，强调代表性不足的群体，在科学和工程领域工作。

This project concerns the development of an advanced microscopy system for visualizing the propagation of light confined to nanometer-scale structures, to aid in the design of next-generation microchips integrating photonics and electronics. Photonics involves the transmission and manipulation of information using photons, in contrast to electric charges used in electronics. Great potential is seen for devices integrating the two technologies. A major obstacle to this integration is the relatively large scale of photonic structures, which are typically on the order of several micrometers in size. By comparison, state-oft-the-art electronic components are as small as tens of nanometers in size?almost 1,000 times smaller. A promising solution to the problem of disparate scales is found in surface plasmon polaritons, a type of electromagnetic wave that propagates along metal-dielectric interfaces when the interface is excited by a photon. While the frequency of a surface plasmon polariton is that of the exciting photon, the wavelength is much smaller?on the order of nanometers. Thus structures fabricated to guide and manipulate surface plasmon polaritons are of the same scale as features in state-of-the-art electronics. The high losses inherent to electromagnetic wave propagation in metal are addressed by incorporating an active gain medium into the structures. The science of manipulating surface plasmon polaritons is plasmonics. Plasmonic devices may be designed to carry out many information-handling functions now implemented by electronics.As a relatively new field, plasmonics lacks the multitude of diagnostics available in a more mature area, such as electronics. Progress in plasmonic device development will be greatly facilitated by new imaging and visualization tools. The subject of this project is plasmon tomography, in which an advanced microscope is designed to image surface plasmon polariton propagation in nanoscale structures. The microscope may also be configured to use plasmonics to perform optical microscopy with sub-wavelength, nanometer-scale, resolution. This will provide imaging performance comparable with much more expensive alternatives, such as scanning electron microscopy. Plasmon tomography has a diverse range of applications, including biological research and medical diagnostics. Massively parallel arrays of plasmon tomography-based sensors may be produced, with applications to chemical and biological threat detection for homeland security, defense, and environmental monitoring.Activities under this CAREER program span a broad range of technical and educational issues in science and engineering, and address important applications. The major research topics are as follows: 1. Image formation in surface plasmon microscopes: a comprehensive description of the relation between the back focal plane and sample?s images will be developed through combined experimental and theoretical approaches. This will allow further optimization of these microscopic techniques. 2. Surface plasmon propagation in plasmonic structures: novel plasmonics structures including an active gain medium will be fabricated and plasmon propagation through them will be characterized using the developed imaging techniques. When integrated, these studies will result in advanced quantitative methods for characterization of plasmon propagation in plasmonic devices and sensors with huge parallel capabilities. The research plan will be integrated with educational development and outreach activities. Graduate and undergraduate students will be involved in interdisciplinary research at the Texas Tech University Nano Tech Center relevant to our nation?s technical training needs. In addition, under this CAREER project the PI will prepare and offer a course on plasmonics with emphasis in plasmon-based imaging techniques for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and will be involved in local programs for recruiting students, emphasizing under-represented groups, to work in science and engineering.