Equipment for Research in Novel Phenomena in Photonic Graphene
Abstract
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, under authority of 10 U.S.C. ¤ 2362 and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OASD(R&E)), allocated $28 million to assist Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions (HBCU/MI) with equipment and instrumentation enhancements to improve their research and education capabilities in scientific disciplines important to the defense mission. The program aims to enhance the capacity of HBCU/MI to participate broadly in defense research programs and activities and to increase the number of graduates, including underrepresented minorities, in fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This proposal requests equipment funds to purchase a tunable laser and ancillary instruments that will enhance the progress of a current research project funded by the Army Research Office (W911NF-15-1-0413, ARO GOR: Dr. Pani V. Varanasi; AFOSR CO-GOR: Dr. Arje Nachman), which did not have an equipment budget. The objective of the original proposal is to develop innovative techniques to optically create 2D graphene-like photonic lattices and to explore fundamental issues of wave propagation in these photonic structures. Acquisition of requested equipment will benefit the current project and also enhance the nonlinear optics and photonics research and education programs at San Francisco State University. The equipment funds requested will be used to purchase a new tunable laser source, SolsTiS 3500-BRF-XF+VPPO, which will allow the PI to optically induce and probe a photonic structure including the graphene lattice at different wavelengths. In addition, a small part of funds will be used to purchase two CCD cameras, a broadband spatial light modulator (SLM), and two polarization converters, all desirable for beam shaping and detection to carry on the project. The equipment will enhance significantly the experimental capacity in PIÕs optics research lab. With the new tunable laser, most of the proposed experiments can be performed in plasmonic nanosuspensions as well as conventional photorefractive crystals (which have very limited propagation length). Thus, the new equipment will augment existing research and education capabilities and provide new capabilities for basic research in photonic graphene lattices, an area of significant interest to DoD.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 12, 2017
- Source ID
- W911NF1610503
Entities
People
- Zhigang Chen
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Office of the Secretary of Defense
- San Francisco State University