Invited Paper NS+EN-MoA1
Sculpting the Flow of Light at the Nanoscale
Monday, November 10, 2014, 2:00 pm, Room 304
Understanding the fundamental properties of plasmonic and dielectric materials in resonant subwavelength structures has fueled an explosion of interest in metamaterials and nanophotonic devices. In this seminar, we explore new directions for plasmonics by examining the relationship between plasmons and the electrochemical potential of the electron gas, and we discuss opportunities to observe quantum coherent states in plasmonic structures. Usually plasmons are described in a classical electromagnetic theory context, yet plasmons are fundamentally quantum excitations. Moreover, the carrier density and optical properties of plasmonic materials are typically fixed at the time of fabrication. Field effect tuning of the electrochemical potential in graphene nanoresonators enables the plasmon and phonon dispersion to be measured. Electrochemical and carrier density modulation in metals yields tunable resonances in metal nanostructures and reveals the plasmoelectric effect, a newly-discovered photoelectrochemical potential. By tuning the permittivity and index to near-zero values, expands the length scale over which coherent quantum emitter phenomena (e.g., concurrence, superradiance) can be observed in epsilon-near-zero media. Finally, we demonstrate entanglement or coherent superposition states of single plasmons using two plasmon-quantum interference in chip-based plasmon waveguide directional couplers.
Web resources:
http://www.lmi.caltech.edu/
http://daedalus.caltech.edu/