Excellence in Research: Quantum Nanophotonics with Periodic Carbon Nanotube Arrays

In this effort, intrinsic mechanisms of spectroscopic detection, molecular sensing, and control will be explored for planar closely packed periodic carbon nanotube arrays using rigorous methods of theoretical solid-state physics, quantum electrodynamics and optics, combined with computer modeling and simulations.

Carbon nanotubes — graphene sheets rolled-up into cylinders of one to a few nanometers in diameter and up to one centimeter in length — offer extraordinary stability, flexibility, and precise tunability of their properties on demand by varying their diameters and chiralities. Carbon nanotube array systems feature an additional collective degree of freedom associated with the spatially periodic nanotube alignment to allow for the electromagnetic band structure formation.

Nanotube array systems are currently in the process of rapid experimental development, seeking for theoretical support to develop the fundamental understanding of their collective physical properties and unveil their potential for future generation optoplasmonic nanomaterials engineering. This project will provide theoretical understanding of capabilities and practical guidance for the experimental development of these ultrathin multifunctional metasurfaces — closely packed periodically aligned carbon nanotube arrays — a new flexible advanced photonic metamaterial platform with the near-field characteristics adjustable on demand by means of the nanotube diameter, chirality and periodicity variation. The project directly addresses the national priority Materials Genome Initiative.