Boston Chapter of the IEEE Photonics Society

Abstract:  In recent years, the two fields of metamaterials and plasmonic optics have each seen exciting developments.  Owing to some of the fascinating features that are common in both areas, the two fields are merging into a single topic that may be called "metaplasmonics".  In the microwave and optical domains, materials with unconventional constitutive parameter values, such as negative or near-zero, exhibit interesting properties in their interaction with electromagnetic waves.  Negative-permittivity plasmonic media, such as noble metals in the infrared and optical frequencies, and epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) materials, such as plasmonic materials near their plasma frequencies, can be exploited as the building blocks for synthesis of metamaterials.  We have been exploring fundamental concepts and various potential applications of metamaterials and plasmonic materials, for which these unconventional parameter values can play important roles.  We have studied various metaplasmonic-based structures, devices, and nanocircuits.  Among these, I will discuss (a) ENZ-based supercoupling effects in waveguides that result in tunneling, bending, and squeezing electromagnetic energy through ultranarrow subwavelength channels and bends connecting two waveguides; (b) Far-field subdiffraction optical microscopy (FSOM) that allows pre-magnification of subwavelength objects before the far-field imaging occurs.  By properly stacking thin curved layers of plasmonic materials and conventional dielectrics, one can prove that the optical signal can propagate through such curved layers with little diffraction, and thus can provide a tool for sub-diffraction optical microscopy; (c) Concept of meta-nanocircuits or "circuits with light at the nanoscales", in which the arrangement of a tapestry of plasmonic and nonplasmonic nanostructures can provide optical circuits in which the optical electric fields can be tailored in subwavelength regions.  Indeed, "lumped" nanocircuit elements can be envisioned at the optical wavelengths.  Various ideas and potential applications in the area of optical nanoantennas for nanobeam shaping, nanospectrum analysis for molecular spectroscopy, reduction of scattering from nanoparticles, and nanotagging and nanobarcodes based on these optical nanocricuits are being studied.  In this talk, I will give an overview of these studies, present physical remarks behind the findings, and forecast future ideas and potential applications in these areas.

Biography:  Nader Engheta is the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering, and Professor of Bioengineering, at the University of Pennsylvania.  He received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tehran, and his M.S and Ph.D. degrees in EE from Caltech.  Selected as one of the Scientific American Magazine 50 Leaders in Science and Technology in 2006 for developing the concept of optical lumped nanocircuits, he is a Guggenheim Fellow, an IEEE Third Millennium Medalist, IEEE Fellow, Optical Society of America Fellow, and the recipient of the Fulbright Naples Chair Award, NSF Presidential Young Investigator award, the UPS Foundation Distinguished Educator term Chair, and several teaching awards including the Christian F. and Mary R. Lindback Foundation Award.   His current research activities span a broad range of areas including nanooptics and nanophotonics, metamaterials and plasmonics, bio-inspired sensing and imaging, miniaturized antennas and nanoantennas, physics and reverse-engineering of polarization vision in nature, mathematics of fractional operators, and physics of fields and waves phenomena.  He has given numerous keynote, invited, and plenary talks on these topics.  He has co-edited the book entitled "Metamaterials:  Physics and Engineering Explorations" by Wiley-IEEE Press, 2006.