Novel optoelectronic functionalities for photonic devices

新的材料和结构，特别是那些采用现代纳米技术的材料和结构，以及各种物理效应的原始使用，以及巧妙的结构/材料器件设计，是光子器件在许多应用中变得更高效、更廉价和更理想的关键方面。这一建议旨在为实现这一具有挑战性的目标作出贡献。本研究的目的是研究基于物理效应在材料结构中的新应用的光学和光电子功能的理论和数值模型。材料的物理效应，如三阶光学非线性、半导体中的受激辐射、金属和半导体中光波与电子等离子体的相互作用以及周期结构中的色散现象将是研究的重点。纳米技术结构将被认为是实现这些新功能的一种手段。例如基于kerr的超快数字开关、等离子体共振光损耗补偿、可重构非线性周期结构自适应滤波或电信号光存储。长期目标是开发强大而稳健的模拟/设计工具，用于在通信，信号处理，计算，传感等领域的各种应用的设备中实现新颖的光子功能。我们最初的理论和数值方法，例如麦克斯韦方程组的新形式解和线性扩展函数及其特征值的强大使用，将成为我们研究工作背后的驱动方法，以实现这一目标。实现本提案的目标可以对光子器件的一般领域产生重大影响，从而有助于实现光子学的本质，使其更加普遍地渗透到我们日常生活的各个领域。

New materials and structures, especially those implemented with modern nanotechnologies, along with an original use of various physical effects and along with clever structural/material device designs are the crucial aspects that have to be attacked successfully for photonic devices to become even more efficient, inexpensive, and more desirable in many applications. This proposal aims at contributing to such a challenging goal. The objective of this research is to investigate theoretically and model numerically optical and optoelectronic functionalities based on novel applications of physical effects in material structuralities. Material physical effects such as third-order optical nonlinearities, stimulated emission in semiconductors, interaction of optical waves with electron plasma in metals and semiconductors, and dispersive phenomena in periodic structures will be the main focus of the studies. Nanotechnology structuralities will be considered as a means to implement such novel functionalities. Examples are Kerr-based ultrafast digital switching, plasmon-resonance optical-loss compensating, reconfigurable nonlinear periodic-structure adaptive filtering, or electrical-signal optical storage. The long term objective is to develop powerful and robust simulation/design tools for novel photonic functionalitites implemented in devices for various applications in the fields of communications, signal processing, computing, sensing, and others. Our original theoretical and numerical approaches, such as a new form of a solution to Maxwell's equations and a robust use of linear prolate functions and their eigenvalues, will be the driving methodologies behind our research work towards this objective. Achieving objectives of this proposal can deliver a significant impact on the general area of photonic devices, thus contributing to enabling the materialization of photonics' nature of being ever more pervasive into all fields of our everyday life.