Nanoantenna engineering: from edge-cutting lab science to applied electrical engineering technology.

Modern technology offers the possibility of writing all volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica on the head of a pin. Such a capability of controlling extremely small objects allows people to shrink many objects in our daily life to very small scales and forms the foundation of so-called nanotechnology. The prefix nano represents one-billionth and one nanometer is thus one-billionth of a meter. To get a vivid mental image on how small nano is, we can compare a strand of hair with the house we live in or an ant with a football field. Of course we can also miniaturize antennas (think for example of the antenna in a cell phone) to the nanometer scale, that is, we can form nanoantennas. In the proposed research, we shall focus on two very important aspects in nanoantenna design: 1) the nanoantenna like a cell phone antenna, to connect two distant nanoscopic worlds; 2) the nanoantenna like a parabolic mirror, to concentrate light to a single spatial point. More importantly, we hope that through the proposed research we are able to devise a set of intuitive and powerful design rules for nanoantennas, so that we can help to bring this edge cutting science out of the lab, convert it into concrete engineering technology, and eventually incorporate the new scientific findings of nanophysics in our daily life.

Keywords:Numerical Modelling, Plasmonics, Nanoantennas, Nanoscale light-matter interaction

Disciplines:Metallurgical engineering