Active Plasmonics: Electronic and All-optical Control of Photonic Signals on Sub-wavelength Scales
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen's University Belfast
Department Name: Sch of Mathematics and Physics
Abstract
The term 'plasmonics' refers to the science and technology dealing with manipulation of electromagnetic signals by coherent coupling of photons to free electron oscillations at the interface between a conductor and a dielectric. This field of research has emerged as an extremely promising technology with several main fields of application: information technologies, energy, high-density data storage, life sciences and security. The opportunity to guide light in the form of surface plasmon waves on metallic films is attractive for the development of integrated photonic chips where the information can be processed all-optically without the need of electronic-to-optical and optical-to-electronic conversion, as well as for integrating photonics with silicon electronics on a fully compatible platform. Performance of optoelectronic devices, such as light emitting diodes and photodetectors, can also be improved by integrating them with plasmonic nanostructures. Recent research in plasmonics has led to significant progress in development of various passive plasmonic components, such as waveguides, plasmonic crystals, plasmonic metamaterials, with tailored photonic properties. Plasmonic studies have, however, almost exclusively concentrated on pure metallic nanostructures and passive devices with properties fixed by the nanostructure parameters. At the same time, real-life applications require active control to achieve signal switching and modulation, amplification to compensate losses along with the direct generation and detection of plasmons. All these can be realised if plasmonic nanostructures are hybridised with functional (molecular or ferroelectric) materials. Here we propose to develop and study hybrid plasmonic nanostructures consisting of nanostructured metals combined with dielectrics to enable active functionalities in plasmonic circuitry. This project will unlock the plasmonics' potential for improvement of real-world photonic and optoelectronic devices and provide insight into physical phenomena which are important for various areas of optical physics and photonic technologies.
Organisations
- Queen's University Belfast (Lead Research Organisation)
- Intel Corporation (Collaboration)
- Australian Research Council (Collaboration)
- Argonne National Laboratory (Collaboration)
- University College Cork (Collaboration)
- National Physical Laboratory (Project Partner)
- Intel Ireland Ltd (Project Partner)
Publications
Kabashin A
(2009)
Plasmonic nanorod metamaterials for biosensing
in Nature Materials
O'Connor D
(2009)
Plasmonic waveguide as an efficient transducer for high-density data storage
in Applied Physics Letters
Marini A
(2009)
Amplification of surface plasmon polaritons in the presence of nonlinearity and spectral signatures of threshold crossover.
in Optics letters
Lei D
(2009)
Geometry Dependence of Surface Plasmon Polariton Lifetimes in Nanohole Arrays
in ACS Nano
Stashkevich A
(2009)
Spin-wave modes in Ni nanorod arrays studied by Brillouin light scattering
in Physical Review B
Koh A
(2010)
Sub-10 nm patterning of gold nanostructures on silicon-nitride membranes for plasmon mapping with electron energy-loss spectroscopy
in Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B, Nanotechnology and Microelectronics: Materials, Processing, Measurement, and Phenomena
Lei D
(2010)
Broadband nano-focusing of light using kissing nanowires
in New Journal of Physics
Bolger PM
(2010)
Amplified spontaneous emission of surface plasmon polaritons and limitations on the increase of their propagation length.
in Optics letters
Luk'yanchuk B
(2010)
The Fano resonance in plasmonic nanostructures and metamaterials.
in Nature materials
Bouillard JS
(2010)
Hyperspectral imaging with scanning near-field optical microscopy: applications in plasmonics.
in Optics express
Tame M
(2010)
Scalable method for demonstrating the Deutsch-Jozsa and Bernstein-Vazirani algorithms using cluster states
in Physical Review A
Krasavin AV
(2010)
Numerical analysis of long-range surface plasmon polariton modes in nanoscale plasmonic waveguides.
in Optics letters
Aubry A
(2010)
Broadband plasmonic device concentrating the energy at the nanoscale: The crescent-shaped cylinder
in Physical Review B
Gambari J
(2010)
Thresholdless coherent light scattering from subband polaritons in a strongly coupled microcavity
in Physical Review B
Doherty M
(2010)
Wavelength Dependence of Raman Enhancement from Gold Nanorod Arrays: Quantitative Experiment and Modeling of a Hot Spot Dominated System
in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C
Liu H
(2010)
Enhanced surface plasmon resonance on a smooth silver film with a seed growth layer.
in ACS nano
McPhillips J
(2010)
High-performance biosensing using arrays of plasmonic nanotubes.
in ACS nano
Giannini V
(2010)
Controlling light localization and light-matter interactions with nanoplasmonics.
in Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Aubry A
(2010)
Interaction between plasmonic nanoparticles revisited with transformation optics.
in Physical review letters
Krasavin A
(2010)
All-optical active components for dielectric-loaded plasmonic waveguides
in Optics Communications
Krasavin A
(2010)
Electro-optic switching element for dielectric-loaded surface plasmon polariton waveguides
in Applied Physics Letters
Ballester D
(2010)
Quantum theory of surface-plasmon polariton scattering
in Physical Review A
Sonnefraud Y
(2010)
Experimental realization of subradiant, superradiant, and fano resonances in ring/disk plasmonic nanocavities.
in ACS nano
Aubry A
(2010)
Conformal transformation applied to plasmonics beyond the quasistatic limit
in Physical Review B
Beresna M
(2010)
Poling-assisted fabrication of plasmonic nanocomposite devices in glass.
in Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.)
Bouillard J
(2010)
Optical transmission of periodic annular apertures in metal film on high-refractive index substrate: The role of the nanopillar shape
in Applied Physics Letters
Aubry A
(2010)
Plasmonic light-harvesting devices over the whole visible spectrum.
in Nano letters
O'Connor D
(2010)
Data storage: The third plasmonic revolution.
in Nature nanotechnology
Krasavin AV
(2010)
Silicon-based plasmonic waveguides.
in Optics express
Lei D
(2010)
Single-particle plasmon resonance spectroscopy of phase transition in vanadium dioxide
in Optics Letters
Wurtz GA
(2011)
Designed ultrafast optical nonlinearity in a plasmonic nanorod metamaterial enhanced by nonlocality.
in Nature nanotechnology
McClatchey C
(2011)
Fabrication and optical properties of gold nanowire arrays
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Murphy A
(2011)
The controlled fabrication and geometry tunable optics of gold nanotube arrays.
in Nanotechnology
Koh AL
(2011)
High-resolution mapping of electron-beam-excited plasmon modes in lithographically defined gold nanostructures.
in Nano letters
Lei DY
(2011)
Plasmonic interaction between overlapping nanowires.
in ACS nano
Giannini V
(2011)
Plasmonic nanoantennas: fundamentals and their use in controlling the radiative properties of nanoemitters.
in Chemical reviews
Krasavin AV
(2011)
Guiding light at the nanoscale: numerical optimization of ultrasubwavelength metallic wire plasmonic waveguides.
in Optics letters
Centeno A
(2011)
Light absorption and field enhancement in two-dimensional arrays of closely spaced silver nanoparticles
in Journal of the Optical Society of America B
Giannini V
(2011)
Fano Resonances in Nanoscale Plasmonic Systems: A Parameter-Free Modeling Approach
in Nano Letters
Einsle JF
(2011)
Hybrid FIB milling strategy for the fabrication of plasmonic nanostructures on semiconductor substrates.
in Nanoscale research letters
Aubry A
(2011)
Plasmonic hybridization between nanowires and a metallic surface: a transformation optics approach.
in ACS nano
Randhawa S
(2011)
Experimental demonstration of dielectric-loaded plasmonic waveguide disk resonators at telecom wavelengths
in Applied Physics Letters
Benetou M
(2011)
Four-level polarization discriminator based on a surface plasmon polaritonic crystal
in Applied Physics Letters
Kéna-Cohen S
(2011)
Plasmonic sinks for the selective removal of long-lived states.
in ACS nano
Krasavin AV
(2011)
Optically-programmable nonlinear photonic component for dielectric-loaded plasmonic circuitry.
in Optics express
McCarron R
(2011)
Light extraction beyond total internal reflection using one-dimensional plasmonic crystals
in Applied Physics Letters
Yoon H
(2011)
Surface plasmon coupled emission using conjugated light-emitting polymer films [Invited]
in Optical Materials Express
Skopalová E
(2011)
Numerical simulation of attosecond nanoplasmonic streaking
in New Journal of Physics
Kéna-Cohen S
(2011)
Random lasing in low molecular weight organic thin films
in Applied Physics Letters
McPhillips J
(2011)
Plasmonic Sensing Using Nanodome Arrays Fabricated by Soft Nanoimprint Lithography
in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C
Related Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Award Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP/H000917/1 | 31/08/2009 | 30/09/2010 | £5,176,637 | ||
| EP/H000917/2 | Transfer | EP/H000917/1 | 30/09/2010 | 30/08/2015 | £4,462,875 |
| Title | In Nanophotonics Lab: Hyperspectral SNOM (a short film by Fanny Hoetzeneder) |
| Description | A short movie filmed in our lab. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2012 |
| Impact | General Public engagement |
| URL | http://vimeo.com/59812566 |
| Title | Nano Nail (by Imogen Clarke) |
| Description | Nano Nail is an artistic installation with nanoscale features in human body. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | Public Engagement, student recruitment, tells general public about nano |
| URL | http://imogen-clarke.4ormat.com/nano-nail#0 |
| Title | Nano Sublimation (by Nedyalka Panova) |
| Description | NANO Sublimation is an installation depicting in conceptual way plasmonic metamaterial. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Impact | Was exhibited in art galleries in London. Currently permanently exhibited at Physics Department at King's College. General public engagement, student recruitment. |
| URL | http://www.nedyalkapanova.com/ |
| Description | The term 'plasmonics' refers to the science and technology dealing with manipulation of electromagnetic signals by coherent coupling of photons to free electron oscillations at the interface between a conductor and a dielectric. This field of research has emerged as an extremely promising technology with several main fields of application: information technologies, energy, high-density data storage, life sciences and security. The opportunity to guide light in the form of surface plasmon waves on metallic films is attractive for the development of integrated photonic chips where the information can be processed all-optically without the need of electronic-to-optical and optical-to-electronic conversion, as well as for integrating photonics with silicon electronics on a fully compatible platform. Performance of optoelectronic devices, such as light emitting diodes and photodetectors, can also be improved by integrating them with plasmonic nanostructures. Recent research in plasmonics has led to significant progress in development of various passive plasmonic components, such as waveguides, plasmonic crystals, plasmonic metamaterials, with tailored photonic properties. We have developed plasmonic applications beyond traditional passive devices to achieve plasmonic circuitry components with active functionalities: sources, detectors, modulators and switches, allowing efficient generation and manipulation of optical signals at the nanoscale. Plasmonic nanolasers, including ultrafast nanolasers were developed. Ultrafast (sup 1 ps) switches based on plasmonic materials demonstrated integratable with plasmonic, Si-photonics and other types of phtonic circuitries. Active control to achieve signal switching and modulation, amplification to compensate losses along with the direct generation and detection of plasmons were achieved. All these were realised in plasmonic nanostructures hybridised with functional (molecular or ferroelectric) materials. |
| Exploitation Route | We are exploring ways to licence our patents and created a start-up company. |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Electronics Other |
| URL | http://www.activeplasmonics.org |
| Description | 4 patents have been applied for. Start-up company "Causeway Photonics" created. Nanophotonics Foresight report was instrumental for defining H2020 Photonics workprogramme. Outreach to general public through collaborations with artists. |
| Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Other |
| Impact Types | Cultural Economic Policy & public services |
| Description | Contribution to Europen Nanophotonics Foresight Report |
| Geographic Reach | Asia |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| URL | http://www.nanophotonicseurope.org/ |
| Description | Nanophotonics: A Forward Look |
| Geographic Reach | Asia |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| URL | http://www.nanophotonicseurope.org/ |
| Description | FET CCA |
| Amount | € 640,000 (EUR) |
| Organisation | European Commission |
| Department | Horizon 2020 |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | European Union (EU) |
| Start | 01/2017 |
| End | 12/2018 |
| Description | Argonne |
| Organisation | Argonne National Laboratory |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Investigation on nonlinear and ultrafast response of plasmonic nanostructures |
| Collaborator Contribution | User access to the ultrafast spectroscopy facilities |
| Impact | Publications, conference papers, exchange visits, internal ANL collaborative grants |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Description | CUDOS |
| Organisation | Australian Research Council |
| Department | Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) |
| Country | Australia |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Collaboration on theory of plasmonic devices |
| Collaborator Contribution | Collaboration on theory of plasmonic devices |
| Impact | Publications, conference papers, joint grant applications |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | INTEL |
| Organisation | Intel Corporation |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Reserach in plasmonic on-chip interconnects |
| Collaborator Contribution | part-funding of a PhD student, Advisory Board |
| Impact | Publications, conference papers |
| Start Year | 2009 |
| Description | Tyndall |
| Organisation | University College Cork |
| Department | Tyndall National Institute |
| Country | Ireland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Design and characterisation of plasmonic-enhanced VCSEL lasers for high-density data storage applications |
| Collaborator Contribution | Fabrication of plasmonic-enhanced VCSEL lasers for high-density data storage applications |
| Impact | Publications, conference papers |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Company Name | Causeway Sensors |
| Description | Causeway Sensors develops nanotechnology designed to provide kinetic analysis during biotherapeutic production to improve candidate selection for drug discovery. |
| Year Established | 2013 |
| Impact | Customers include biology laboratories in academia, Institute laboratories and diverse industry. |
| Website | http://www.causewaysensors.com |
| Description | London Science Festival 2011 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Our image "Plasmonic ring-resonator" was a joint (with the other image) best-seller. Public could buy prints of the exhibited image with proceed for charity. Generated lots of interest in general public in science and photonics in particular. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| URL | http://londonsciencefestival.com/ |