January 28, 2015.
Dr. Alexandra Boltasseva
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Birck Nanotechnology Center
Purdue University
“Practical Nanophotonics with Plasmonic Ceramics”
12:10 PM, 5326 Stevenson Center
Lunch served to first 50 attendees
Host: Richard Haglund
Abstract: In recent years, two avenues of nanophotonics, namely plasmonics and metamaterials, have seen an explosion of novel ideas and designs that could provide breakthrough devices and exotic functionalities. However, transforming these concepts into practical devices requires a significant amount of effort. The constituent materials in these structures play a crucial role in realizing efficient devices. Similar to the way silicon shaped the nanoelectronics field, efforts toward finding the best set of materials for plasmonic and metamaterial devices could revolutionize the field of nanophotonics. As a potential solution, alternative plasmonic materials have recently gained significant attention. Metals, despite being essential components of plasmonic and metamaterial structures, pose many technological challenges toward the realization of practical devices—primarily due to their high optical loss, integration and fabrication limitations. Hence, searching for an alternative to metals is vital to the success of future nanophotonic devices. In this course, recent developments in the pursuit of better plasmonic materials will be outlined, and several classes of materials including transparent conducting oxides and plasmonic ceramics as potential alternatives to metals will be discussed as material platforms that provide low intrinsic loss, tunability and compatibility with standard semiconductor fabrication processes.
Bio: Alexandra Boltasseva is an Associate Professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, and an adjunct Associate Professor at Technical University of Denmark (DTU). She received her PhD in electrical engineering at DTU in 2004. Boltasseva specializes in nanophotonics, nanofabrication, plasmonics and metamaterials. She received the 2013 IEEE Photonics Society Young Investigator Award, 2013 Materials Research Society (MRS) Outstanding Young Investigator Award, the MIT Technology Review Top Young Innovator (TR35) award that “honors 35 innovators under 35 each year whose work promises to change the world”, the Purdue College of Engineering Early Career Research Award, the Young Researcher Award in Advanced Optical Technologies from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, and the Young Elite-Researcher Award from the Danish Council for Independent Research. She is topical editor for Optics Letters, a member of the Board of directors for MRS, senior member of the OSA, member of the IEEE, SPIE. She has co-authored five invited book chapters and 74 research papers in refereed journals. She has an h-index of 38 (Google Scholar) with a total number of citations above 4400. Alexandra has been featured as an invited speaker at more than 80 international conferences and leading research centers.