Nanophotonics Seminar - Day 2
"Nature-Inspired Photonic Surfaces for Next-Generation Imaging and Diagnostics"
Lisa Poulikakos
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UC San Diego
Abstract:
Imaging science is a critical enabler of revolutionary scientific advances across disciplines. However, current imaging technologies face prohibitive trade-offs in resolution, penetration depth and experimental complexity. Here, we introduce new classes of micro- and nanostructured photonic surfaces which scale down and enhance light-matter interactions, to overcome existing challenges in imaging science in a miniaturized, on-chip format.
First, we draw inspiration from structural color in nature to develop anisotropic, colorimetric photonic surfaces, which exhibit a polarization-sensitive optical response. We leverage this system to selectively visualize disease-relevant fiber density and orientation in biological tissue. Starting with the example of breast cancer diagnostics, we then expand our view to the rich palette of fiber-affecting diseases where these photonic surfaces hold potential to achieve rapid, precise and low-cost tissue diagnostics with facile clinical implementation.
Next, we introduce "acoustoplasmonic metasurfaces" to enable tunable acoustic wavefront shaping with polarized light. The proposed acoustoplasmonic metasurfaces merge the physics of light and sound in previously unexplored ways, opening new avenues to harness wave-matter interactions. Future applications of acoustoplasmonic metasurfaces include on-chip imaging with simultaneously high spatial resolution and penetration depth, which can enable societally relevant applications ranging from biomedicine to industrial materials, to environmental science.
More about the Speaker:
Lisa Poulikakos is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC San Diego. She received her PhD at ETH Zürich, where she introduced an original theoretical and experimental technique to enable the rational design of chiral nanophotonic systems. Her postdoctoral research at Stanford University focused on developing functional nanophotonic surfaces for all-optical and label-free cancer tissue diagnostics. Her lab at UC San Diego develops chiral and anisotropic nanophotonic materials for next-generation imaging. She is a recipient of the ETH Medal, awarded to outstanding doctoral theses, the L'Oréal USA For Women in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Swiss National Science Foundation Early Postdoc Mobility Fellowship, the RCSA Scialog Fellowship for Advancing Bioimaging, the UCSD MRSEC New Investigator Award, the Beckman Young Investigator Award, the AFOSR Young Investigator Program Award and the Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering.
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"Nanoscale 3D plasmon holography and tomography"
Albert Polman
Professor and Group Leader, AMOLF
Abstract:
Over the past two decades, plasmon nano-optics has inspired the design of high-efficiency photovoltaics, light-driven catalytic reactors, and optical metamaterials with tailored light scattering properties. Yet, true 3D nanoscale reconstruction of plasmonic near fields that lie at the basis of these applications has remained elusive. I will present our recent work on cathodoluminescence (CL) microscopy using 1-30 keV electrons in a scanning electron microscope to reconstruct 3D plasmonic near fields. By collecting coherent radiation from plasmon excitation and analyzing interference patterns, we retrieve plasmon phase and amplitude in 3D. Our measurements also enable the reconstruction of nanoscale plasmonic charge distributions in sharp nanotips for catalytic applications. Finally, we introduce plasmon metrology for the reconstruction of 3D geometries with potential applications in the analysis of electronic integrated circuits.
More about the Speaker:
Albert Polman is research group leader at AMOLF, an institute of the national science counsel NWO in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is professor of Photonic Materials for Photovoltaics at the University of Amsterdam and chairs the board of the national research, innovation and industrial development program SolarNL. Polman's research group focuses on nanophotovoltaics, the study of light management at the nanoscale to realize ultra-high efficiency solar cells. The group also designs optical metasurfaces for analog optical processing and develops cathodoluminescence spectroscopy as a super-resolution imaging technique for nanophotonics. Polman has won several awards for his work and is member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and the Netherlands Academy of Engineering. He is co-founder of Delmic BV that brings an instrument for cathodoluminescence spectroscopy on the market that was developed in his group