Nanophotonics and Nanoelectronics

Thrust leaders: Jerry Simmons (SNL), Victor Klimov (LANL)
Alternate Leaders: Mike Lilly (SNL), Jennifer Hollingsworth (LANL)

Thrust description:

The Nanophotonics and Nanoelectronics thrust will address the overall scientific challenge of understanding and controlling fundamental photonic and electronic interactions in nanostructured materials. The thrust area will support user programs, both in nanophotonics and nanoelectronics and in areas that require the integration of capabilities from this thrust with other CINT thrusts.

Scientific directions:

• Development and comprehensive understanding of novel nanostructured materials comprising multiple constituents, finer length scales, and new 3D architectures for a versatile manipulation of electronic and photonic wavefunctions;
• Understanding and control of charge and energy transfer at nanoscale interfaces including coherent control and manipulation of electronic wave functions and spin degrees of freedom, and control of energy flows using excitonic or plasmonic circuits; and
• Targeted areas of application include: defect tolerant architectures for molecular electronics, high efficiency solar energy conversion through novel nanoscale phenomena/architectures, active photonic nanostructures for optical amplification, ultrafast switching, communications, optical and quantum computing, and chem/bio sensing.

Current activities include:

• Nonlinear optical properties of photonic fibers for photonic and optoelectronic devices;
• Transport studies of interacting low dimensional systems including coupled nanostructures and exciton condensation in electron-hole bilayers;
• Synthesis and spectroscopy of nanoscale structures comprising nanocrystal quantum dots;
• Fabrication, purification, and spectroscopic studies of carbon nanotubes;
• Broad-band, near-field spectroscopy of metal nanostructures;
• Ultrafast scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy of nanoscale semiconductors and superconductors;
• High efficiency solid state lighting;
• High-magnetic-field spectroscopy of nanoscale semiconductors; and
• Development of sources and detectors for THz frequencies.

The research will be strongly supported by an effort in nanofabrication with an emphasis on ultra-pure semiconductor growth with atomic precision and on new characterization tools that will allow monitoring of electronic phenomena with atomic-scale spatial resolution.