About the tutorial
Plasmon and phonon polaritons (P³) are electromagnetic surface waves that emerge when photons couple with electron or phonon excitations, respectively. Although the nature of the excitations and materials used are different for both systems, the physics and demonstrations are very similar. P³ have been shown to concentrate light orders of magnitude below the Abbe diffraction limit, demonstrating their use for surface-enhanced sensing, nanophotonic circuits, super-resolution imaging, and nonlinear optics. Recent achievements are exploring new physics in the field of P³ including, chirality, surface lattice resonators, hyperbolicity, and permittivity/permeability near zero in the optical regime. Exploration of these phenomena has been enabled through the combination of materials with dielectric and metallic response at nanometer scales, complemented with nanofabrication and theory. Therefore, understanding the P³ field demands highly interdisciplinary knowledge including theory, material science, fabrication, and optics. The lectures will provide a basic introduction to P³ systems, their realizations, and applications, with a discussion of open questions and challenges.
Graduate students, post-docs, and other scientists who are interested in learning about the latest physics based on plasmon and phonon polariton physics should attend this tutorial. The lectures will provide a pedagogical introduction to novel physics using both metallic and metallic-like polaritonic materials to support hyperbolicity, chirality, and permittivity/permeability near zero, including theory and experiments. Applications of these systems will be presented and discussed.
Topics covered:
- Basics of P³: Plasmon and phonon polaritons will be covered in the first lecture with typical equations stemming from Maxwell’s equations that form the base for complex P³.
- Chirality in P³: Nanofabrication of P³ nanostructures and metasurfaces can be used to control light-matter interaction to explore chirality effects in plasmonic, phononic, and bio-molecular systems. For example, one rapidly advancing direction is the field of chiral DNA origami-based plasmonic assemblies.
- Hyperbolic P³: Hyperbolicity occurs when the permittivity is positive in one (two) direction, and negative in the other two (one). This anisotropy can produce super-resolution imaging, enhanced density of states, and waveguiding.
- Permittivity/Permeability Near Zero: Within permittivity near zero media the wavelength is effectively stretched leading to large phase velocities and static-like electrical field distributions. Permittivity near zero has a similar effect on the magnetic field. These effects can be used to achieve increased emission, perfect absorption, directional scattering, and enhanced nonlinear effects.
Organizer
- Joseph Tischler, University of Oklahoma
Presenters
- Joseph Tischler, University of Oklahoma
- Alexander Govorov, Ohio University
- Chase Ellis, Naval Research Laboratory
- Nader Engheta, University of Pennsylvania