2011 Annual Report - Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies - Los ...

Integration Focus Activities
Metamaterials and Plasmonics IFA
Artificially structured metamaterials and plasmonics provide novel
properties that are difficult or impossible to achieve using naturally
occurring materials. The new class of electromagnetic artificial
materials greatly extends our ability to manipulate electromagnetic
radiation (light), and has led to the demonstration of unique
behavior such as negative refraction, cloaking, and superlensing.
The Metamaterials and Plasmonics Integration Focus Activity
builds upon the extensive activities at CINT in this field over the
past few years spanning from terahertz to optical wavelengths.
The goals of these activities are to understand and design metamaterial
and plasmonic structures capable of enhanced interactions
with light, and to accomplish novel functionalities from
tunable and nonlinear hybrid metamaterials through integration of
semiconducting and/or complex oxide materials and structures.
During the past years CINT has demonstrated leadership in this
field through the groundbreaking work in novel metamaterial
structures, active and dynamical metamaterials and plasmonics,
and their applications to sensing and imaging.
During the last year the research in this IFA has largely focused
on the enhanced light-matter interactions when metamaterial or
plasmonc structures are introduced. We found that the phonon
vibrations in the integrated (substrate) materials or the intersubband
transitions in semiconducting quantum wells can be
strongly coupled to the metamaterial resonances, which might result
in loss reduction in metamaterials and the creation of unique
spectral features. Enhanced nonlinear response was predicted in
the early days of metamaterial research, and recently it has become
an important research direction. We found that, in addition
to their wide range thermal and optical tunability of the resonant
response, high-temperature superconducting metamaterials
exhibit strong nonlinear response under intense terahertz irradiation.
Recent highlights also include the prediction of nonresonant
broadband light transmission in a nano plasmonic structure, the
demonstration of broadband metamaterial perfect absorbers and
identification of the mechanism, and the demonstration of alldielectric
low loss metamaterials in the infrared.
Through a vibrant network of users and research groups at both
National Labs, this IFA will continue its work and leadership in
these areas of Metamaterials and Plasmonic research. Additional
expansion into new directions include integrated active metamaterial
devices as diffraction modulator for terahertz imaging,
active or dynamical tuning of chirality in 3-D metamaterials and
electromagnetically induced transparency in superconducting
metamaterials, light polarization control and conversion, using
spoof plasmon for thermal emission control and enhanced emission,
integration of metamaterial and plasmonic resonators with
epitaxial bandgap engineered heterostructures and complex oxides
for enhanced nonlinear responses, including superconducting
Josephson junctions towards quantum metamaterials, and
the coupling of plasmonic structures with optical nanoparticles
such as quantum dots, nanowires, carbon nanotubes and other
semiconductor heterostructures.
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12The Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies | 2011 Annual Report