In recent years, two avenues of nanophotonics, namely plasmonics and metamaterials, have seen an explosion of novel ideas and designs that could provide breakthrough devices and exotic functionalities. However, transforming these concepts into practical devices requires a significant amount of effort. The constituent materials in these structures play a crucial role in realizing efficient devices. Similar to the way silicon shaped the nanoelectronics field, efforts toward finding the best set of materials for plasmonic and metamaterial devices could revolutionize the field of nanophotonics. As a potential solution, alternative plasmonic materials have recently gained significant attention. Metals, despite being essential components of plasmonic and metamaterial structures, pose many technological challenges toward the realization of practical devices - primarily due to their high optical loss, integration and fabrication limitations. Hence, searching for an alternative to metals is vital to the success of future nanophotonic devices.

In this webinar, recent developments in the pursuit of better plasmonic materials will be outlined, and several classes of materials including transparent conducting oxides and plasmonic ceramics as potential alternatives to metals will be discussed as material platforms that provide low intrinsic loss, tunability and compatibility with standard semiconudctor fabrication processes.

What You Will Learn/Seminar Objectives

• Overview of most recent results in alternate plasmonic materials, specifically transparent conducting oxides and transition metal nitrides.
• Design of nanophotonic structures with significant device characteristics such as low intrinsic loss and tunability.
• Introduction to novel non-metallic materials such as plasmonic ceramics for high-temperature nanophotonic applications.

Who Should Attend

• Graduate students, postdocs and researchers interested in the field of plasmonics and metamaterials.
• Nanophotonic scientists working on the development of novel materials for plasmonic applications.

Level

• The level of the webinar is intermediate. The basic concepts will be explained. However, a basic knowledge of material science and electromagnetism is assumed.