Research Interests
A long-term interest has been developing and utilizing techniques that allow forming and transferring patterns at the nanoscale to study and understand electronic and optical behavior that pertains uniquely to nanometer length scales. Strategic integration of heterogeneous materials necessitates control and engineering of interfaces and of bandgaps. These techniques have allowed the observation of electronic conduction in the ballistic regime, and interesting interplays of superconducting and semiconducting transport. More recently, I have focused on structures that confine and modulate light at length scales on the order of a wavelength. Such structures (also called 'cavities' or optical resonators) can provide constraints and capabilities for the optical behavior of the material (semiconductors) beyond its 'natural' optical behavior, so that we can filter and guide light with exceptional precision, alter emission lifetimes, and ultimately, create new, mixed states of light-and-matter. Going beyond semiconductors, "nanophotonic" structures in metals also provide opportunities for novel optical behavior. Finally, in order to find new ways to combine and control heterogeneous materials at the nanoscale, I have begun to explore biotemplating techniques. The structures amenable to biotemplating and their resulting properties will be quite different from those precisely fabricated from precision "top-down" techniques, and one goal is to understand the best integration of the two-different approaches, and what new systems may be formed.
Membership Type
Member
Election Year
2008
Primary Section
Section 31: Engineering Sciences
Secondary Section
Section 33: Applied Physical Sciences