Hot-Electrons Generation in New Plasmonic Materials for Integrated On-Chip Devices
Abstract
The proposed research project aims at studying electronic/plasmonic concepts to address challenges of the emerging hybrid electronic/photonic circuitry associated with the limited bandwidth, power consumption of electronic circuitry and size mismatch between photonics and nanoelectronics. Plasmonics can uniquely combine the advantages of the nanometer-scale (but relatively slow) electronics and ultra-fast (but ?m-scale) photonics by utilizing coupled oscillations known as surface plasmons (SPs) that enable manipulation of light at the nanoscale and can be seamlessly interfaced with electronics. However, silver and gold, which are the conventional plasmonic metals, are not robust/durable enough and cannot be integrated with CMOS devices. We will address these issues by exploring hot-electrons generation in new plasmonic materials for direct conversion of electrical signals into SPs and SPs into electrical signals. We will build upon our prior demonstrations of plasmonic components utilizing durable, low-cost, tailorable, CMOS-compatible materials namely transition metal nitrides and transparent conducting oxides. Our objectives are to gain insight into hot-electron generation in new plasmonic materials, to realize structures for efficient conversion of electrical signals into SPs and hot-electron generation in new plasmonic materials as well as to demonstrate integration of the developed devices with traditional plasmonic components. With this approach, we will address the major issues hampering the development of plasmonic circuitry, such as challenging integration, size mismatch and high cost, by developing first electrically-driven CMOS-compatible plasmonic interconnects and hot-electrons detectors. The proposed plasmonics/electronic circuitry could lead to higher performance on-chip devices, smaller (nanoscale) foot-print, easy integration with CMOS devices and next generation of quantum circuitry.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- May 02, 2017
- Source ID
- FA95501710243
Entities
People
- Alexandra Boltasseva
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- United States Air Force
- University of Virginia