NSF Award Abstract - #0210438| NSF Award Abstract - #0210438 |
AWSFL008-DS3 |
| NSF Org | ECS |
| Latest Amendment Date | August 14, 2002 |
| Award Number | 0210438 |
| Award Instrument | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager |
Filbert J. Bartoli ECS DIV OF ELECTRICAL AND COMMUNICATIONS SYS ENG DIRECTORATE FOR ENGINEERING |
| Start Date | August 15, 2002 |
| Expires | July 31, 2004 (Estimated) |
| Expected Total Amount | $85000 (Estimated) |
| Investigator |
Igor Smolyaninov smoly@eng.umd.edu (Principal Investigator current) Klaus Edinger (Co-Principal Investigator current) John Melngailis (Co-Principal Investigator current) Christopher C. Davis (Co-Principal Investigator current) |
| Sponsor |
U of MD College Park 3112 Lee Building College Park, MD 207425141 301/405-6269 |
| NSF Program | 1517 ELECT, PHOTONICS, & DEVICE TEC |
| Field Application | 0206000 Telecommunications |
| Program Reference Code | 0000,1676,OTHR, |
This proposal was received in response to Nanoscale Science and Engineering initiative, NSF 01-157, category NER. Strong evidence of a single-photon tunneling effect, a direct analog of single-electron tunneling, has been obtained recently in our measurements of light tunneling through individual subwavelength pinholes in a thick gold film covered with a layer of polydiacetylene. The transmission of some pinholes reached saturation because of the optical nonlinearity of polydiacetylene at a very low light intensity of a few thousands photons per second. This result has been explained theoretically in terms of "photon blockade", similar to the Coulomb blockade phenomenon observed in single-electron tunneling experiments. The single-photon tunneling effect may find many applications in the emerging fields of quantum communication and information processing. The experiments reported so far have been performed for random pinholes that are naturally present in thin metal films. There is no detailed knowledge on the shape and size of the pinholes necessary to produce this effect under controlled conditions, which severely limits advancement of the theoretical description of the effect and its possible applications. We propose to expand these experiments to study single-photon tunneling effect in well-controlled geometries, by making use of ion-beam milling fabrication techniques. Based on this research we are going to explore a number of novel device ideas in the areas of optical communications and quantum optics.
