Tunable Si-compatible Nonlinear Materials for Active Metaphotonics

用于主动超光子学的可调谐硅兼容非线性材料

• 批准号: 1709704
• 负责人: Luca Dal Negro
• 金额: $ 34.91万
• 依托单位: Trustees of Boston University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-07-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1709704&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Tunable; Si; compatible; Nonlinear; Materials; Tunable; Si; compatible; Nonlinear; Materials

Nontechnical description: This project advances the understanding of materials with largely tunable optical properties and efficient nonlinear behavior, potentially leading to photonic devices with unique nanoscale functionalities. The research team utilizes experimental and computational approaches to help develop novel nonlinear optical materials and structures that enable controllable metallic behavior, for use in next generation power-efficient nanophotonics devices, as well as in advanced optical communications and sensing technologies on silicon chips. The project supports one graduate student and encourages the involvement of undergraduate students in the research through an outreach effort aimed at introducing fundamental concepts of materials science and optical engineering into academic curricula, alongside practical laboratory demonstrations and research activities through summer programs at Boston University. An important component of the outreach plan is to attract underrepresented minorities to a career in materials science and optical engineering through participation in the project. Finally, the outreach involves the development of a focused teaching module, addressing the structural and optical properties of photonic materials. The module is offered yearly to college students as well as practitioners both in industry and academia at the Boston University Photonics Center, and in partnership with the Nanotechnology Innovation Center at Boston University. Technical description: The primary goal of this project is to develop widely tunable, low-loss and silicon-compatible nonlinear plasmonic materials that can be utilized as engineering building blocks for the next generation of metamaterial devices integrated atop Si chips. This is achieved by controlling doping, composition and microstructural properties of transition oxides and oxynitride ceramics deposited by radio frequency magnetron sputtering followed by thermal annealing. The experimental three-year project addresses critical structure-property relationships that enable resonant control of plasmonic near-fields for the future development of Si-compatible tunable metaphotonics. In particular, the research utilizes high-resolution energy filtered Transmission Electron Microscopy, laboratory-based X-ray diffraction, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, optical spectroscopy and electrical characterization in order to elucidate the yet-unknown materials parameters that lead to reduced optical losses, enhanced optical nonlinearity and tunable metallic dispersion across a wide spectral range spanning the visible to the mid-infrared. In so doing, this study fills gaps in foundational materials understanding, allowing the creation of new nanostructures with unique properties and functionalities. The intellectual merit of the proposed research relies on the development of a novel platform for nonlinear optical metamaterials that can solve the long lasting problems of inefficient nonlinear signal generation, lack of tunability, thermal instability and optical losses that limit metal-based nonlinear metamaterial devices. This project enables a substantial broader impact as it provides a foundation for the next generation of highly-integrated, cost-effective active nanoplasmonic on-chip devices that are crucial components in information processing, highly-integrated nonlinear nanophotonics, optical sensing and spectroscopy.

非技术描述：该项目以很大可调的光学特性和有效的非线性行为来推进对材料的理解，这可能导致具有独特纳米级功能的光子设备。研究团队利用实验和计算方法来帮助开发新型的非线性光学材料和结构，以实现可控的金属行为，用于下一代发电效率的纳米光子学设备，以及在硅芯片上的高级光学通信和感应技术中。该项目支持一名研究生，并通过旨在通过波士顿大学的夏季计划通过夏季计划，鼓励本科生参与研究研究。外展计划的重要组成部分是通过参与该项目来吸引材料科学和光学工程学的职业。最后，宣传涉及开发集中的教学模块，以解决光子材料的结构和光学特性。该模块每年向波士顿大学Photonics Center的大学生以及工业和学术界的从业人员提供，并与波士顿大学的纳米技术创新中心合作。技术描述：该项目的主要目标是开发可调，低损坏和硅兼容的非线性等离子材料，这些材料可用作工程构建块，以用于下一代的超材料设备集成在SI芯片上。这是通过控制过渡氧化物和氧化二硝酸盐陶瓷的掺杂，组成和微观结构特性来实现的，该特性通过射频磁铁溅射沉积，然后进行热退火。实验性的三年项目涉及关键的结构特性关系，使等离子近场的共振控制能够为SI兼容的可调型氧气的未来发展。特别是，该研究利用高分辨率滤波的传输电子显微镜，基于实验室的X射线衍射，X射线吸收光谱，光谱和电气表征，以阐明尚未开设的材料参数，从而导致光学损失降低的光学非线性损失，增强的非线性范围跨越跨度的光谱范围。在这样做时，这项研究填补了基础材料理解的空白，从而允许创建具有独特特性和功能的新纳米结构。拟议的研究的智力优点依赖于开发一个新型非线性光学超材料平台，该平台可以解决无效的非线性信号产生，缺乏可调性，热不稳定性和限制基于金属金属基于金属的非线性非线性跨材料设备的长期持久问题。该项目为下一代高度综合，具有成本效益的活性纳米质机上的芯片设备提供了基础，这是基础，这是信息处理中至关重要的组成部分，高度融合的非线性纳米光子学，光学传感和光谱。