In physics, a plasmon is a quantum of plasma oscillation. Just as light consists of photons, the plasma oscillation consists of plasmons. The plasmon can be considered as a quasiparticle since it arises from the quantization of plasma oscillations, just like phonons are quantizations of mechanical vibrations. Thus, plasmons are collective oscillations of the free electron gas density. For example, at optical frequencies, plasmons can couple with a photon to create another quasiparticle called a plasmon polariton.
Phaedon Avouris is a Greek chemical physicist and materials scientist. He is an IBM Fellow and was formerly the group leader for Nanometer Scale Science and Technology at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York.
Nanophotonics or nano-optics is the study of the behavior of light on the nanometer scale, and of the interaction of nanometer-scale objects with light. It is a branch of optics, optical engineering, electrical engineering, and nanotechnology. It often involves dielectric structures such as nanoantennas, or metallic components, which can transport and focus light via surface plasmon polaritons.
As the world's energy demand continues to grow, the development of more efficient and sustainable technologies for generating and storing energy is becoming increasingly important. According to Dr. Wade Adams from Rice University, energy will be the most pressing problem facing humanity in the next 50 years and nanotechnology has potential to solve this issue. Nanotechnology, a relatively new field of science and engineering, has shown promise to have a significant impact on the energy industry. Nanotechnology is defined as any technology that contains particles with one dimension under 100 nanometers in length. For scale, a single virus particle is about 100 nanometers wide.
In solar cell research, carrier multiplication is the phenomenon wherein the absorption of a single photon leads to the excitation of multiple electrons from the valence band to conduction band. In the theory of a conventional solar cell, each photon is only able to excite one electron across the band gap of the semiconductor, and any excess energy in that photon is dissipated as heat. In a material with carrier multiplication, high-energy photons excite on average more than one electron across the band gap, and so in principle the solar cell can produce more useful work.
Albert Polman is a Dutch physicist and former director of the AMOLF research laboratory in Amsterdam.
A plasmonic-enhanced solar cell, commonly referred to simply as plasmonic solar cell, is a type of solar cell that converts light into electricity with the assistance of plasmons, but where the photovoltaic effect occurs in another material.
A metamaterial absorber is a type of metamaterial intended to efficiently absorb electromagnetic radiation such as light. Furthermore, metamaterials are an advance in materials science. Hence, those metamaterials that are designed to be absorbers offer benefits over conventional absorbers such as further miniaturization, wider adaptability, and increased effectiveness. Intended applications for the metamaterial absorber include emitters, photodetectors, sensors, spatial light modulators, infrared camouflage, wireless communication, and use in solar photovoltaics and thermophotovoltaics.
A plasmonic metamaterial is a metamaterial that uses surface plasmons to achieve optical properties not seen in nature. Plasmons are produced from the interaction of light with metal-dielectric materials. Under specific conditions, the incident light couples with the surface plasmons to create self-sustaining, propagating electromagnetic waves known as surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). Once launched, the SPPs ripple along the metal-dielectric interface. Compared with the incident light, the SPPs can be much shorter in wavelength.
Plasmonic nanoparticles are particles whose electron density can couple with electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths that are far larger than the particle due to the nature of the dielectric-metal interface between the medium and the particles: unlike in a pure metal where there is a maximum limit on what size wavelength can be effectively coupled based on the material size.
Piezo-phototronic effect is a three-way coupling effect of piezoelectric, semiconductor and photonic properties in non-central symmetric semiconductor materials, using the piezoelectric potential (piezopotential) that is generated by applying a strain to a semiconductor with piezoelectricity to control the carrier generation, transport, separation and/or recombination at metal–semiconductor junction or p–n junction for improving the performance of optoelectronic devices, such as photodetector, solar cell and light-emitting diode. Prof. Zhong Lin Wang at Georgia Institute of Technology proposed the fundamental principle of this effect in 2010.
In nano-optics, a plasmonic lens generally refers to a lens for surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), i.e. a device that redirects SPPs to converge towards a single focal point. Because SPPs can have very small wavelength, they can converge into a very small and very intense spot, much smaller than the free space wavelength and the diffraction limit.
Plasmonics or nanoplasmonics refers to the generation, detection, and manipulation of signals at optical frequencies along metal-dielectric interfaces in the nanometer scale. Inspired by photonics, plasmonics follows the trend of miniaturizing optical devices, and finds applications in sensing, microscopy, optical communications, and bio-photonics.
Nanoholes are a class of nanostructured material consisting of nanoscale voids in a surface of a material. Not to be confused with nanofoam or nanoporous materials which support a network of voids permeating throughout the material, nanohole materials feature a regular hole pattern extending through a single surface. These can be thought of as the inverse of a nanopillar or nanowire structure.
Graphene is a 2D nanosheet with atomic thin thickness in terms of 0.34 nm. Due to the ultrathin thickness, graphene showed many properties that are quite different from their bulk graphite counterparts. The most prominent advantages are known to be their high electron mobility and high mechanical strengths. Thus, it exhibits potential for applications in optics and electronics especially for the development of wearable devices as flexible substrates. More importantly, the optical absorption rate of graphene is 2.3% in the visible and near-infrared region. This broadband absorption characteristic also attracted great attention of the research community to exploit the graphene-based photodetectors/modulators.
Delia J. Milliron is the T. Brockett Hudson Professor in Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Milliron leads a research team that focuses on developing and studying the properties of new electronic nanomaterials. Her team pursues studies on nanocrystals, nanoscale interfaces, and controlled assemblies of nanocrystals. Her team takes a systematic approach towards elucidating effects that arise at the nanoscale with a special focus on structure-property relationships.
Laura Na Liu is a Chinese physicist focused on researching nano-optics of three-dimensional meta materials as it applies to biology and chemistry. After receiving her undergraduate and master's degree in China, she has had many global opportunities for education and research including Germany and the United States of America. Today, she is a professor at University of Stuttgart in Germany. She has received several awards for her contributions in the field of optics.
Anna Fontcuberta i Morral is Spanish physicist and materials scientist. Her research focuses on nanotechnology applied in the production of solar cells. She is a full professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the head of the Laboratory of Semiconductor Materials.
Giulia Tagliabue is an Italian engineer specialized in nanophotonics. She is a professor at EPFL's School of Engineering, where she leads the Laboratory of Nanoscience for Energy Technologies (LNET).
Mark Stockman was a Soviet-born American physicist. He was a professor of physics and astronomy at Georgia State University. Best known for his contributions to plasmonics, Stockman has co-theorized plasmonic lasers, also known as spasers, in 2003.
