OSE6650 - Optical Properties of Nanostructured Materials

This course covers topics dealing with the optical properties of nanostructured materials. In the first part of the course we will discuss effective medium theory, including the Maxwell-Garnett description of the refractive index of inhomogeneous materials. We will cover applications of nanostructured dielectrics, including metasurfaces and metalenses based on propagation phase and geometric phase. The second part of the course deals with the optical properties of nanostructured metallo-dielectric materials. We will introduce the concept of localized surface plasmons (LSPs) on metal nanoparticles, and discuss spectral control of the plasmon resonance frequency by tuning shape, size, and dielectric environment. This is followed by applications of LSPs, including surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and index-based biosensing. The third part of the course covers electromagnetic surface waves known as surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), and discusses the use of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) for biodetection. Finally, we briefly discuss the concept of metamaterials: composite materials that have been nanostructured to obtain a specific dielectric response. We will discuss how this can give rise to negative refraction, and we will discuss an early experimental realization of this concept.

The course concludes with a substantial hands-on simulation component with industrial level electromagnetics design software. Students choose a nanophotonic structure related to one of the topics covered in class, and investigate its optical response numerically. This allows direct visualization of several concepts covered early in the course.

Prerequisites

• OSE6111 Optical Wave Propagation
• OSE5312 Light Matter Interaction

Prerequisites may be waived by the instructor if students are familiar with Maxwell’s equations, wave propagation, skin depth (optical frequency range), complex refractive index, complex dielectric function, complex susceptibility, complex wavevectors, the Drude and Lorentz models, and the concept of electronic band structure.

(left) Theoretical phase profile of a metasurface lens operating at a wavelength of 500nm, (top right) example of a real-world silicon based metasurface lens, and (lower right) electric distribution inside a metasurface optical element simulated by an OSE6650 course participant.