Events

Past Event

Nanophotonics and Plasmonics for Understanding Quantum Materials and Enabling Quantum Technologies

February 1, 2021
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
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Speaker: Laura Kim, IC Postdoctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Location: Zoom
Time: 1.00 – 2.00 pm
Date: Monday, February 1, 2021
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Abstract:

Light-matter interactions enabled by photonic quasiparticles play a crucial role in observing quantum phenomena as well as enabling next-generation nanophotonic devices and quantum technologies. Surface plasmon polaritons are a promising avenue to achieve sub-wavelength control of light-matter interactions. When surface plasmon oscillations are bound to an atomically thin van der Waals material, extreme confinement and tunability of the electromagnetic energy can be achieved. In the first part of the presentation, I will present the first experimental demonstration of a fundamental different mechanism to produce mid-infrared light, originating from an ultrafast coupling of optically excited carriers into hot plasmon excitations in graphene. Such emission processes produce non-Planckian emission behavior that is not dictated by emitters’ temperatures. This work reveals novel infrared light emitting processes, both spontaneous and stimulated, and provides a platform for achieving ultrafast, ultrabright, on-chip mid-infrared light sources. In the second part of the presentation, I will present an example where surface plasmon polaritons can mediate spin-photon interactions and enable a new type of quantum sensing device. A diamond plasmonic metasurface containing nitrogen vacancy (NV) spin ensembles achieves local field concentration over a micron-scale NV layer and allows shot-noise-limited sensing with a standard camera, eliminating the need of single-photon detectors for wide-field imaging. The projected performance makes the studied plasmonic sensing metasurface appealing for the most demanding applications such as imaging through scattering tissue and spatially-resolved chemical NMR detection.

Bio:

Laura Kim is currently an IC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Quantum Photonics Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her B.S. degree in chemical engineering and Ph.D. degree in materials science, both from California Institute of Technology. She is also an EECS Rising Star and a recipient of Gary Malouf Foundation Award and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Her doctoral research focused on understanding photonic-quasiparticle-driven light-matter interactions in low dimensional materials to realize mid-infrared nanophotonics and ultrafast phenomena. Her current research involves developing nanoscale quantum sensing strategies and next-generation quantum technologies.

Host: John Kymissis