Optically Assembled Meta-Materials
Abstract
The proposed basic research is to advance optically assembled meta-materials for DoD applications. With their unusual optical responses, optical meta-materials (OMMs) enable electromagnetic cloaking and novel sensing that impact many DoD platforms. Despite the tremendous progress in the field of meta-materials, challenges in making high-volume low-loss OMMs with desired performances have limited their large-scale applications. To tackle these challenges, innovative design and optical assembly ofOMMs with colloidal particles (CPs) as building blocks are proposed, which will lead to OMMs with programmable functions, loss compensation and scalable produc tion. The specific research aims include: (1) programmable meta-fluids for surface coating ofOMMs, (2) programmable three-dimensional (3D) chiral OMMs on arbitrary sites, and (3) loss management in 3D chiral OMMs. To accomplish these research aims, optical tweezers combined with inkjet printing and microfluidics will be applied to assemble CPs into meta-molecules and meta-materials via computer-based digital control. Dielectric CPs or metallic CPs coupled to gain molecules will be further applied to manage the loss in the 3D chiral OMMs. Through the experiments coupled to simulations based on finite-difference time-do main (FDTD) methods, the proposed project is expected to elucidate the roles of inter-particle coupling, particle-molecule coupling and array dimensionality in the collective behaviors of the optically assembled OMMs, and to establish the structure-property relationships. With their programmable functions, low loss and scalable production, the optically assembled OMMs will become integral components for many DoD applications such as cloaking technology, optical communications and novel sensing.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Oct 17, 2018
- Source ID
- W911NF1710561
Entities
People
- Yuebing Zheng
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- United States Army
- University of Texas at Austin