Thinking 'Inside the Box': Confining Light to Ever Smaller Volumes
Abstract
In recent years, the mastery of fabrication at the nanoscale has allowed the formation of 'optical boxes' or cavities, which can confine very high density electromagnetic fields within volumes on the order of a cubic wavelength. Such boxes are formed from microdisk and photonic crystal structures. By appropriately matching photon emitters to optical boxes, extraordinary efficiencies and control of light can arise. This talk will explore some emitter-cavity systems in both dielectric materials, and new, greatly sub-wavelength cavities formed of metal structures. The speaker will describe low-threshold lasing, changes in emitter lifetimes, and new quantum-mechanical states of matter.
About the speaker
After receiving her PhD in Physics from Columbia University, Prof. Evelyn Hu worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1975 to 1984. She was Professor in the Departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 1984-2008. She served as the scientific co-director of the California NanoSystems Institute, a joint initiative at UCSB and the University of California, Los Angeles. She is currently the Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering in Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Prof. Hu’s research focuses on high-resolution fabrication of compound semiconductor electronic and optoelectronic devices, candidate structures for the realization of quantum computation schemes, and on novel device structures formed through the heterogeneous integration of materials. She has also developed biological approaches to the formation of electronic and photonic materials.
Prof. Hu is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, US National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Sinica of Taiwan, and the JASON Project. She has been a recipient of an NSF Distinguished Teaching Fellow award, an AAAS Lifetime Mentor Award, a Fellow of the IEEE, the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and holds an honorary Doctorate of Engineering from the University of Glasgow.
