Multi-hierarchical amorphous metamaterials

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Carsten Rockstuhl
• Subject Area: Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics ; Physical Chemistry of Molecules, Liquids and Interfaces, Biophysical Chemistry
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 263524979

Metamaterials made with bottom-up approaches and fabricated while exploiting mechanisms of self-organisation would enable novel applications. They would perfectly complement metamaterials fabricated in the past with top-down technologies. These materials were decisive to prove many basic and groundbreaking properties, but they are only of marginal use for all devices were truly bulk materials are required. In the nascent field of self-assembled metamaterials, however, in most cases isolated meta-atoms were of interest; or at most meta-atoms sufficiently diluted such that any interaction could have been neglected. To observe the dispersive effects necessary to achieve functional devices, this limitation needs to be lifted. Materials are urgently required that consist of densely packed meta-atoms where the coupling among meta-atoms is significantly. Self-organized bottom-up metamaterials were the coupling among meta-atoms is important have never been studied. If eventually a strong coupling regime in the interaction among individual meta-atoms can be achieved, an entire new approach to tame light at the nanoscale will emerge. It will allow novel functionalities, where nonlinear effects can be enhanced by orders of magnitude, where a strong chiral response emerges or where the spectral response can change abruptly across a very narrow frequency space. The partners that came together to suggest this project all have an individual and complementary expertise. The expertise they provide, however, has to be combined to reach the goals formulated and described in the application. In this interdisciplinary project we wish to design, to fabricate, and to characterize in the far- and in the near-field the linear and nonlinear properties of self-assembled bottom-up metamaterials. We will engineer selected applications to prove the promise of an unprecedented control over light-matter interaction at the nanoscale.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Participating Persons: Professor Dr. Thomas Bürgi; Dr. Toralf Scharf