Quantum Plasmonic Metamaterials
Speaker: Zhaowei Liu University of California San Diego (UCSD)
Abstract: Plasmonic and metamaterials have introduced tremendous research interest within last decade and has become an increasingly important field in nanophotonics. We have been exploring how to utilize metamaterials for imaging at sub-10nm scales, enhancing the spontaneous light emission for ultrafast optical wireless communications, as well as tailoring the scattering cross-section of an object. Recently, we experimentally confirmed that the quantum size effect has to be considered when the feature size of the metallic structure in metamaterials approaches a few nanometers scale. As a consequence, the quantum plasmonic metamaterials emerges with extremely high nonlinear effect and tunabilities. In this talk, I will present some of our recent results in the field and also discuss the new opportunities when the metamaterials go into the realm of quantum world.
Biosketch: Zhaowei Liu is an Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UCSD. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MEMS/Nanotechnology) from UCLA in 2006, and was subsequently a postdoctoral researcher in NSF Nanoscale Science & Engineering Center (NSEC) and Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley. In 2008 he joined the faculty at UCSD. His previous work was selected as top 100 science stories of 2007 by Discovery Magazine, and top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008 by Time Magazine. He is a recipient of the 2010 Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, the UCSD 2010 Hellman Faculty Fellowship Award, the 2013 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, and the 2013 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award. He is also the invited participant for the Frontiers of Science 2010 by National Academy of Science and the Frontiers of Engineering 2014 by National Academy of Engineering.