Nov. 10, 2015
Nano-photonic phenomena in van der Waals atomic layered materials
Space Science Room 106
Space Science and Technology Bldg - Rice University
Houston, Texas 77005
United States
Description
FCMP Lecture
Date: Tuesday, November 10
Time: 3:10 pm
Place: SST 106
Speaker: Prof. Dimitri Basov, Department of Physics, UCSD
Title: Nano-photonic phenomena in van der Waals atomic layered materials
Abstract:
Layered van der Waals (vdW) crystals reveal diverse classes of light-matter modes (polaritons) including: surface plasmon polaritons in graphene, hyperbolic phonon polaritons in boron nitride, exciton polaritons in MoS2, Cooper pair plasmon polaritons in high-Tc cuprates, topological plasmon polaritons and many others. Polaritons in vdW materials are of considerable technological interest. For example, polaritonic modes enable sub diffractional focusing and imaging in infrared frequencies. Applications apart, infrared nano-imaging of propagating polaritons facilitates experimental access to new physics of vdW materials not attainable with conventional spectroscopic methods. I will discuss two recent experiments in our group that utilize unique virtues of polaritons. Nano-imaging of plasmon polaritons in moire superlattices formed in graphene on boron nitride has allowed us to establish the important features of the electronic structure of this interesting from of graphene. Pump-probe hyper-spectral images of non-equilibrium plasmon polaritons in graphene revealed novel aspects of carrier relaxation in heterostructures based on high purity graphene.
BIOGRAPHY:
Dr. Basov is a Professor of Physics at University of California San Diego. Currently, his research group is in transition to Columbia. He is an expert in infrared and optical spectroscopy of quantum materials. Recently, his team has advanced infrared methods to ultra-fast time scales and ultra-short length scales. He has made contributions to the field of correlated electron materials by exploring the electronic phase separation associated with the insulator-to-metal transition in prototypical correlated electron materials. His recent work on infrared nano-imaging has led to the discovery of propagating surface plasmons and phonon polaritons in two dimensional atomic crystals; a novel class of quantum materials. Dr. Basov has won numerous awards, including an Isakson Prize from the American Physical Society, the Humboldt Prize, and the Ludwig Genzel Prize. He is the Moore Investigator in Quantum Materials (2014).
Prof. Basov will move to Columbia, starting summer of 2016
Date and Time
Tue, Nov. 10, 2015
3:10 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.
(GMT-0500) US/Central