CAREER: Design and Precision Assembly of Particulate-Based 3D Nanophotonic Devices

许多工业和消费设备依赖于在小长度尺度上控制光，例如，用于制造计算机芯片的机器，手机中的相机和医疗成像设备，仅举几例。小型化这样的设备使它们重量更轻，更节能，并且通常性能更高，因为它们能够将更多的功能组件更紧密地封装在一个更小的封装中。目前的挑战是如何在具有小于150 nm的元素的设备中实现三维（3D）组件，这与病毒大小相同，仅比可见光的波长小一点。消费级3D打印机的分辨率比这差1000倍。该提案旨在开发新的，相对低成本的技术，以设计和组装3D结构的光子器件与元件小至~50 nm。除了与小型化相关的器件性能改进之外，创建具有如此小的元件的结构可以导致具有天然无法发现的奇异光学特性的材料。这些奇特的光学特性可以使诸如透镜之类的设备具有超过玻璃透镜的分辨率，或者像光学斗篷这样的设备，其可以使物体周围的光弯曲。这项研究将被纳入亚利桑那大学的课程，课程模块将通过网站、专业会议、出版物和外联活动与其他教育工作者分享。高中生和本科生也将参与这项研究。对光的最终控制需要控制材料在空间所有三维空间中的相对折射率和渗透率，并具有深亚波长分辨率。在稳态系统中，光的行为完全取决于这些属性的3D分布。例如，对光子超材料的研究已经表明，在这种深亚波长尺度下对异质材料进行图案化可以实现负折射率、接近零的介电常数和超高折射率。一般来说，制造方法的分辨率越高，光学系统就越紧凑，其产生的光学分辨率就越高。然而，实现这种对光的最终控制的一个重要障碍是，目前还没有办法在可见光和近红外波长的3D结构中实现深亚波长异质图案化。拟议项目的目标是设计，制造和测试3D纳米光子组件，这些组件由精确定位的金属和高折射率介电胶体构建块组装而成，具有约50 nm的高分辨率特征尺寸。设计方法将使用耦合多极方法。高速光镊和生化连接将用于制造1000个积木的结构和设备。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Many industrial and consumer devices rely on controlling light at small length scales, for example, the machines used to make computer chips, the cameras in cell phones, and medical imaging devices, just to name a few. Miniaturizing such devices makes them lighter in weight, more energy-efficient, and often higher in performance because of the ability pack more functional components closer together in a smaller package. A current challenge is how to miniaturize three-dimensional (3D) components in devices that have elements smaller than 150 nm, which is about the same size as a virus, and only a bit smaller than the wavelength of visible light. Consumer-grade 3D printers have resolution that is ~1000 times worse than this. This proposal aims to develop new, relatively low-cost techniques to design and assemble 3D structures for photonic devices with elements as small as ~50 nm. In addition to device performance improvement tied to miniaturization, the creation of structures with such small elements can lead to materials with exotic optical properties that are not found naturally. These exotic optical properties can enable devices such as lenses with resolution beyond those of glass lenses, or devices like optical cloaks that bend light around an object. The research will be incorporated into courses at the University of Arizona, and the course modules will be shared with other educators via websites, professional meetings, publications, and outreach events. High schoolers and undergraduate students will also partake in the research.Ultimate control over light requires control of the relative permittivities and permeabilities of materials over all three dimensions of space with deep sub-wavelength resolution. In a steady-state system, the behavior of light depends entirely on the 3D distribution of these properties. For example, studies of photonic metamaterials have shown that the patterning of heterogeneous materials at such deep sub-wavelength scales can enable negative refractive index, permittivity near zero, and ultra-high refractive index. Generally, the higher the resolution of the fabrication approach, the more compact the optical system and the higher its resulting optical resolution. However, a significant barrier to realizing this ultimate control over light is that there are currently no means to achieve deep subwavelength heterogeneous patterning in 3D structures for visible and near-infrared wavelengths. The goal of the proposed project is to design, fabricate, and test 3D nanophotonic components assembled out of precisely-positioned metallic and high-index dielectric colloidal building blocks of various shapes with ~50 nm, high-resolution feature sizes. Design approaches will use the coupled multipole method. High speed optical tweezers and biochemical linkages will be used to fabricate structures and devices out of 1000 building blocks. Devices that have previously only been theoretically proposed will be experimentally tested, including superresolution imaging devices and devices based on transformation optics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.