Shaya Fainman

Nanophotonics Technology

Speaker: Shaya Fainman, University of California San Diego (UCSD)

Abstract: Nanophotonics technology has the potential to revolutionize numerous future applications that rely on the ability to integrate it on a chip to augment and/or interact with other signals (e.g., electrical, chemical, biomedical, etc.).  For example, future computing and communication systems will need integration of nanophotonic structures, devices and circuits with electronics and thus require miniaturization of photonic materials, devices and subsystems. Another example involves integration of microfluidics with nanophotonics for healthcare applications. We have advanced the nanophotonics technology by establishing design, fabrication and testing tools ranging from nanoscale engineered dielectric metamaterials, nanodevices, and circuits for various systems applications.  Our most recent work emphasizes the construction of optical subsystems directly on-chip, with the same lithographic tools as the surrounding electronics. This has been made possible by the advances in lithographic tools, which can now create features significantly smaller than the optical wavelength and is predicted to reach as fine as 11 nm by 2020. Arranged in a regular pattern, subwavelength features act as a metamaterial whose optical properties are controlled by the density and geometry of the pattern and its constituents. As specific examples of our most recent work towards these goals, we will present nanoscale engineered second order nonlinearities in silicon and various composite metal-dielectric-semiconductor gain geometries used to create new types of nanolasers for chip-scale integration of optical information systems.

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Biography: Y. Fainman is a Cymer Professor of Advanced Optical Technologies and Distinguished Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) where he is currently Chair of the ECE Department. He is directing research of the Ultrafast and Nanoscale Optics group at UCSD and made significant contributions to near field optical phenomena, inhomogeneous and meta-materials, nanophotonics and plasmonics, and non-conventional imaging.  The research applications target information technologies and biomedical sensing.  His current research interests are in near field optical science and technology.  He contributed over 250 manuscripts in peer review journals and over 450 conference presentations and conference proceedings. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Fellow of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, and a recipient of the Miriam and Aharon Gutvirt Prize, Lady Davis Fellowship, Brown Award, Gabor Award and Emmett N. Leith Medal.