1. Plasmonics of composite materials: new avenues of light management at the nanoscale
Viktor A. Podolskiy, 301 Weniger Hall, Department of Physics, Oregon State University, Corvallis OR 97331
Our goal is to develop a fundamental understanding of interaction of light with nanostructured metal-dielectric composites. In these systems, nm-sized inclusions play the role of artificial atoms, and the structure as whole behaves as a hand-made material with unique optical properties, unachievable in conventional media.
1. We have designed nanowire-based composites that can reverse their transparency (change from transparent to reflective state) when compressed by external force. This effect can be used in new generations of high-performance mechanical sensors.
2. We have also demonstrated that the nanowire composites can be used to build a far-field planar superlens, which will have the resolution three times better than any existing lens.
3. We have developed an analytical description of convergence of optical properties of multi-layered plasmonic systems to “effective” metamaterial response.
4. Loss-compensation with material gain has been explored
Our next step is to analyze nonlinear behavior of nanoplasmonic systems