Quantum Physics Commons^™

Quantum Tuning Of Plasmons In Ultrathin Metal Films, Ao Teng

Doctoral Dissertations

The surface plasmon is a coherent charge density oscillation localized at a metal surface. It can couple with light and the resulting plasmon-polariton hybrid mode is confined to volumes that are much smaller than the classical diffraction limit of light. Nano-plasmonics is a rapidly evolving field where light manipulation at the nanoscale may lead to novel applications. However, as the size of plasmonic devices approaches the quantum-size regime, the macroscopic picture of plasmon may no longer be valid. To elucidate the influence of the discretization of the single particle spectrum on the collective plasmon response, we performed a systematic study …

The Study Of Nanophotonic Switching Mechanisms In Photonic And Metallic Heterostructures, Joel Cox

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis, nanophotonic switching mechanisms and light-matter interactions are explored in photonic and metallic heterostructures and nanocomposites. These heterostructures are made using various combinations of photonic crystals (PCs), quantum dots (QDs), and graphene or metal nanoparticles (MNPs).

PC heterostructures are formed by combining different PCs so that photons in a specific energy range can propagate in certain regions along one direction and cannot propagate in others. This band structure engineering is used to form photonic quantum wells (PQWs) that have discrete energy states along one dimension. By simulating the photon transmission along the direction of confinement, resonant photon tunnelling …

Transport And Optical Properties Of Quantized Low-Dimensional Systems, Xiaoguang Li

Doctoral Dissertations

In this thesis, we present a systematic investigation of the static and dynamic response properties of low-dimensional systems, using a variety of theoretical techniques ranging from time dependent density functional theory to the recursive Green's function method.

As typical low-dimensional systems, metal nanostructures can strongly interact with an electric field to support surface plasmons, making their optical properties extremely attractive in both fundamental and applied aspects. We have investigated the energy broadening of surface plasmons in metal structures of reduced dimensionality, where Landau damping is the dominant dissipation channel and presents an intrinsic limitation to plasmonics technology. We show that …