Ultrafast nanophotonics

超快纳米光学是一个相对年轻的研究领域，旨在探测、操纵和控制纳米尺度上的超快光激发。在纳米长度和飞秒时间尺度上控制光的能力在许多领域开辟了令人兴奋的机会。该研究计划旨在构想超快纳米光学平台，专门针对新光源，成像和传感应用。总体研究愿景是进一步了解光与纳米等离子体结构的相互作用，特别是使用超快脉冲；将这种理解转化为传感、成像和新型激光平台形式的切实成果，并利用这些平台为面向应用的研究提供种子，如疾病的早期诊断和药物的快速合成。在此资助范围内，提出了四个相互关联的研究主题：1)纳米等离子体结构的发展；2)来源新颖；3)纳米级分辨率成像和4)平行光学生物传感器。纳米等离子体结构的发展（主题1）进一步加深了对光与纳米等离子体结构相互作用的理解，是其他三个主题的重要组成部分。主题2侧重于开发将在主题3和主题4中使用的新资源。虽然在短期内，我们将独立优化每个主题的纳米等离子体结构，但我们相信通过开发新的源，我们可以进一步优化成像分辨率和传感灵敏度。这个研究项目的范围很广，并且与探索基金的目的保持一致。

The emerging field of ultrafast nano-optics is a relatively young field of research aimed at probing, manipulating and controlling ultrafast optical excitations on nanometer length scales. The ability to control light on nanometric length and femtosecond time scales opens up exciting opportunities in a variety of fields. This research program intends to conceive ultrafast nano-optics platforms targeted specifically at applications in novel sources, imaging and sensing. The overarching research vision is to further the understanding of light interaction with nanoplasmonic structures particularly using ultrafast pulses; Translate such understanding into tangible outcomes in the form of sensing, imaging and novel lasers platforms and leverage these platforms to seed application-oriented research such as early diagnosis of disease and rapid synthesis of drugs. Within the scope of this grant, four inter-related research themes are proposed: 1) nanoplasmonic structures development; 2) novel sources; 3) imaging with nanoscale resolution and 4) parallel optical biosensors. These are conceptually linked as follows: The nanoplasmonic structures development (Theme1) furthers the understanding of light interaction with nanoplasmonic structures and is an essential building block for the other three themes. Theme2 focuses on the development of new sources that will be used in themes 3 and 4. While in the short term, we will optimize nanoplasmonic structures for each theme independently, we believe that by developing novel sources we could further optimize the resolution in imaging and the sensitivity in sensing. This research program is broad in its scope, and speculative in keeping with the purpose of Discovery Grants.