RUI: Edge States and Vortices in Photonic Graphene-Like Structures

RUI：光子石墨烯类结构中的边缘态和涡旋

• 批准号: 1404510
• 负责人: Zhigang Chen
• 金额: $ 24.15万
• 依托单位: San Francisco State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-15 至 2017-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1404510&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RUI; Edge; States; Vortices; Photonic

Ordinary optical materials (like eyeglasses) are manufactured to be highly uniform in their optical properties--irregularities are taken to be a sign of inferior quality. By precisely controlling the irregularites, however, and making them conform to a particular pattern, one can create intriguing and potentially useful effects that go beyond what is normal in uniform systems. This project will explore some such effects which may mimic the behavior of graphene--a material that has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years because of its potential application in future microelectronics manufacturing. This analog of graphene is easier to work with than real graphene, allowing more rapid progress in exploring the true limits of this fascinating material. The experimental techniques that will be used in this research are straightforward enough for active participation of undergraduate and masters-level graduate students, yet the research activities will expose students to a broad range of phenomena in a cutting-edge field of interdisciplinary science. In fact, throughout the project, a major emphasis will be placed on mentoring students, particularly those from the ethnically diverse San Francisco Bay Area population. Carbon-based graphene has been highly touted and tested as an extraordinary material for many applications, apart from elucidating fundamental physics phenomena. Recently, there is a surge of interest in creating "artificial" graphene systems not only for electrons, but also for atoms, photons, and other quasiparticles such as polaritons. This is simply because that artificial graphene can provide a tunable system to explore physical phenomena difficult or impossible to achieve in natural graphene. In this project, a simple optical induction technique will be used to create 2D honey-comb (graphene-like) lattices as well as other nonconventional lattice structures. More importantly, these photonic structures will be employed as a workbench for investigation some fundamental issues including surface states, vortices and equivalent spin effects and magnetic effects of light in graphene-like lattices. Although performed in a simple optical setting of reconfigurable photonic structures, much of the proposed work will have direct impacts on other areas of sciences, ranging from condensed matter physics to atomic physics such as Bose-Einstein condensates trapped in periodic potentials. For instance, the electronic edge states were known for decades, but such fundamental phenomena have recently attracted growing interest in optics that has led to the successful demonstration of photonic topological insulators. Indeed, there is much potential to use optical systems as photonic simulators for studying complex classical and quantum phenomena.

普通的光学材料（例如眼镜）在其光学特性上是高度均匀的 - 不规则性被认为是质量较低的标志。 但是，通过精确控制不规则的人并使其符合特定模式，人们可以产生有趣且潜在的有用效果，超出了统一系统中正常状态。该项目将探索一些可能模仿石墨烯的行为的效果，这种材料在近年来引起了极大的兴趣，因为它在未来的微电子制造中的潜在应用。 与真实石墨烯相比，这种石墨烯的类似物更容易使用，从而使探索这种迷人材料的真实局限性更快。 这项研究中将使用的实验技术足够简单，足以积极参与本科和硕士级的研究生，但是研究活动将使学生在跨学科科学的尖端领域中暴露于广泛的现象。实际上，在整个项目中，将重点放在指导学生，尤其是来自旧金山湾地区种族多样化的学生。 除了阐明基本物理现象外，基于碳的石墨烯已被高度吹捧和测试是许多应用的非凡材料。最近，人们不仅为电子，还为原子，光子和其他准粒子（例如极地）创建“人造”石墨烯系统的兴趣激增。这仅仅是因为人造石墨烯可以提供一个可调的系统，以探索在天然石墨烯中难以或无法实现的物理现象。在这个项目中，将使用一种简单的光学感应技术来创建2D蜂窝（石墨烯状）晶格以及其他规定的晶格结构。更重要的是，这些光子结构将被用作研究一些基本问题，包括表面状态，涡流和等效的旋转效应以及光在类似石墨烯的晶格中的磁效应。尽管在可重构光子结构的简单光学设置中进行，但大部分提议的工作将直接影响科学的其他领域，从凝结物理物理学到原子物理学，例如被困在周期性电位中的Bose-Einstein冷凝物。例如，电子边缘状态已知数十年，但是这种基本现象最近引起了人们对光学兴趣的日益兴趣，这导致了光子拓扑绝缘子的成功证明。确实，将光学系统用作光子模拟器有很大的潜力来研究复杂的经典和量子现象。