| NSF Org: |
ECCS Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | June 1, 2015 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | June 1, 2015 |
| Award Number: | 1509551 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Paul Lane
plane@nsf.gov (703)292-2453 ECCS Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems ENG Directorate for Engineering |
| Start Date: | July 1, 2015 |
| End Date: | June 30, 2018 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $299,281.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $299,281.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
160 CONVENT AVE NEW YORK NY US 10031-9101 (212)650-5418 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
160 Convent Ave New York NY US 10031-9101 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | EPMD-ElectrnPhoton&MagnDevices |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.041 |
ABSTRACT
Title: Ultrafast switching architectures based on half-light half-matter quasiparticles (microcavity polaritons) in two-dimensional crystalline semiconductors
The field of photonics has had tremendous impact on our lives through applications in telecommunication, display technology, medicine, sensing, entertainment, alternative energy systems and in semi-futuristic technologies such as quantum informatics. The next generation photonic systems and subsystems used in these applications will need to operate at ultrafast rates (Tbps) and should be capable of performing all-optical data routing and processing even at few photon levels. In this context, effort has mostly been directed towards realizing purely photonic switching architectures to replace their electronic counterparts resulting in larger power requirement and bigger footprint. This issue is addressed here by exploiting hybrid systems that take the best of electronics and photonics. Specifically, the switching architectures will rely on half-light half-matter quasiparticles called microcavity polaritons realized in two-dimensional crystalline semiconductors. They are expected to be an ideal platform to realize low energy, ultrafast, wide bandwidth, switches and gates for signal processing at classical and quantum levels, and image processing. The study will also contribute to fundamental understanding of light-matter interaction at the nanoscale. This work will provide unique inter-disciplinary scientific education in an emerging field encompassing optics, materials science and condensed matter physics to graduate, undergraduate and high school students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds and under-represented communities.
Technical:
Exploiting the benefit of both photons and matter, this research program will investigate light-matter quasiparticles (microcavity polaritons) as a platform for ultrafast low energy switching and signal processing. Specifically, microcavity polaritons formed by the strong coupling between the two-dimensional excitons of transition metal dichalcogenides and cavity photons will be utilized. By combining the novel physical properties of the two-dimensional materials such as valley and spin degrees of freedom, microcavity polariton switches that perform both intensity and polarization switching at room temperature will be developed. In addition, these switches will be integrated to demonstrate logic gate operations. Fourier space spectroscopy and pump-probe techniques will be used to characterize the nonlinear polariton emission and the switching dynamics. The development of room temperature polaritonic switching and logic elements represents a significant departure and advancement from traditional photon based or electron based signal processing systems.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The project aimed to develop half-light half-matter quasiparticle (polariton) based optoelectronic devices that provide functionalities such as switching, electro-optic modulation and light emission. The project also trained graduate, undergraduate and high school students.
Intellectual Merit: During the three year period we demonstrated (i) approaches to enhance light emission from two-dimensional semiconductors of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) using artifical photonic media, photonic hypercrystals, (ii) optical control of valley degree of freedom in polaritons formed in TMDS, (iii) electrical modulation of light-matter coupling in TMDs in an optical cavity and the (iv) use of chiral photonic structures to route valley excitons. Worth noting is that all of these demonstrations were carried out at room temperature making TMD based polariton system as a practical and attractive platform to realize polaritonics – optoelectronic functionalities based on half-light half-matter quasiparticles.
Broader Impact: The realization of room temperature polaritonic devices based on TMDs is an important step towards low energy consuming ultrafast optoelectronic circuitry which could be used in both classical and quantum signal processing. The project also helped train one graduate student, two undergraduate students and two high school students. The graduate student trained on this project worked on the polaritonic devices. The undergraduate students assisted in fabrication of TMD based photonic structures and the high school students carried out summer research on enhancing optical absorption from monolayer semiconductors by interfacing them with photonic structures.
Last Modified: 09/29/2018
Modified by: Vinod Menon
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