Title:  Active Nanophotonic Devices Facilitated by Engineered Dipole Modes

Committee:

Dr. Wenshan Cai, ECE, Chair , Advisor

Dr. Andrew Peterson, ECE

Dr. Benjamin Klein, ECE

Dr. Ali Adibi, ECE

Dr. Zhoumin Zhang, ME

Abstract: The recent development of nanofabrication techniques, it has provided the flexibility to further control the optical properties by using the subwavelength structures. In particular, the exotic and extraordinary electromagnetic phenomena were realized by arranging the nanostructures artificially that is not easy to achieve or not even available by using the bulk materials. These man-made materials, metamaterials, have been shown to manipulate the light phase, intensity, and even polarization states, by spatially arranging the nanostructures. Here, I will start by introducing important aspects of the light-matter interactions that are used in my work to actively control optical devices. Several electromagnetic multipole expansions will be described including the classical electromagnetic multipole decomposition method. By analyzing the light-matter interactions based on the multipole decomposition method, I will focus on the electric and magnetic dipolar moments to design active nanophotonic devices: 1) Utilizing the magnetic dipole mode in silicon to control nonlinear optical phenomena; 2) Enhanced photochemical switching by using the electric dipole modes in novel metals; 3) Forming a nonorthogonal electric and magnetic dipole modes for enantiomer selective detector.