CAREER: Enabling New States of Light in Mid-Wave Infrared Photonics for Gas Sensing Applications

职业：在气体传感应用的中波红外光子学中实现新的光态

• 批准号: 2340060
• 负责人: Binbin Weng
• 金额: $ 49.74万
• 依托单位: University of Oklahoma Norman Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-03-01 至 2029-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2340060&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Enabling; New; States; Light

Gas sensors play a vital role in keeping us safe by monitoring environmental hazards, safeguarding human health, and securing infrastructure. With the power of the internet, there's a fast-growing global interest in forming distributive gas sensing networks that could enable us to continuous monitor gas threat broadly. This has led to a rising demand for the next generation of small, lightweight, low-power, and low-cost gas sensing devices with high sensing performance. Despite the remarkable sensing capabilities offered by mid-wave infrared gas sensing methods, substantial challenges persist in reducing device size, power consumption, and production costs, limiting their application in modern sensor network scenarios. This research project thus aims to explore innovative mid-wave infrared photonic engineering methods to advance gas sensing technologies, striving for efficiency, compactness, and cost-effectiveness. Beyond the research focus, the project also fosters a STEM-competent workforce in photonics. Photonics is foundational to many cutting-edge technologies, impacting a significant portion of the economy and enabling future advanced manufacturing processes. To stimulate the future generation’s interest in light and photonics, the PI will create an education outreach program to help rural STEM teachers to develop new photonic teaching modules, and to promote student participation in afterschool education events. The PI will also engage undergraduate students, especially women and underrepresented minorities, in research activities to support their STEM career path.The goal of this project is to establish a comprehensive understanding of quantum-inspired new states of light within the mid-wave infrared range, spanning 3-5 microns. The obtained knowledge will facilitate the control of their non-trivial light-matter interaction properties to enhance the performance of three critical optical components in mid-wave infrared gas sensing systems: the light source, photodetector, and light-gas interaction waveguide. The intellectual merit lies in the marriage of quantum-inspired parity-time-symmetry and topological photonic principles with the mid-wave infrared photonic engineering research. Specifically, this project will pursue three research objectives: 1) enabling parity-time-symmetry control in active resonant gratings to overcome the low extraction efficiency and multimodal broadband emission constraints and facilitate the development of bright and cost-effective mid-wave infrared light emitters; 2) employing a novel low-cost, self-oriented wet chemical synthesis method to prepare high-quality PbSe thin films for boosting the performance of uncooled mid-wave infrared photodetectors; and 3) engineering topological sensing waveguides to overcome the inherent limitations of on-chip gas sensing, such as intrinsic structural disorder and fabrication resolution. Overall, the project's outcomes will broaden the portfolio of mid-wave infrared photonic engineering strategies, elevating their technological impact to revolutionize gas sensing technologies while adhering to size, weight, power, and cost requirements.This project is jointly funded by the Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems division(ECCS), and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

天然气在监测环境危害、保障人类健康和保护基础设施安全方面发挥着至关重要的作用。借助互联网的力量，全球对建立分布式气体传感网络的兴趣日益浓厚，该网络可以使我们能够持续监测气体。尽管中波红外气体传感方法具有卓越的传感能力，但这导致对具有高传感性能的下一代小型、轻量、低功耗和低成本气体传感设备的需求不断增长。缩小设备尺寸仍然存在巨大挑战，功耗和生产成本限制了它们在现代传感器网络场景中的应用，因此该研究项目旨在探索创新的中波红外光子工程方法来推进气体传感技术，力争实现更高的效率、紧凑性和成本效益。作为研究重点，该项目还培养了具有 STEM 能力的光子学劳动力。光子学是许多尖端技术的基础，影响着经济和未来先进制造工艺的很大一部分，以激发下一代对光和技术的兴趣。光子学方面，PI 将创建一个教育推广计划，帮助农村 STEM 教师开发新的光子学教学模块，并促进学生参与课外教育活动。支持他们的 STEM 职业道路。该项目的目标是全面了解中波红外范围（跨越 3-5 微米）的量子启发新光态。所获得的知识将有助于他们控制非光。琐碎的光-物质相互作用特性，以增强中波红外气体传感系统中三个关键光学组件的性能：光源、光电探测器和光-气体相互作用波导，其智力优势在于量子奇偶校验时间的结合。 -对称性和拓扑光子原理与中波红外光子工程研究具体来说，该项目将追求三个研究目标：1）在有源谐振光栅中实现奇偶时间对称控制，以克服提取效率低和效率低的问题。多模态宽带发射限制，促进明亮且具有成本效益的中波红外光发射器的开发；2）采用新型低成本、自取向湿化学合成方法制备高质量的PbSe薄膜，以提高其性能；非制冷中波红外光电探测器；3）设计拓扑传感波导，以克服片上气体传感的固有局限性，例如内在的结构紊乱和制造分辨率。中波红外光子工程策略组合，提升其技术影响力，彻底改变气体传感技术，同时遵守尺寸、重量、功耗和成本要求。该项目由电气、通信和网络系统部门 (ECCS) 联合资助）和刺激竞争研究既定计划（EPSCoR）。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。