NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Metamaterials IN THIS NEWSLETTER: SBIRs and Other Successful Supplemental Funding HFSS Modeling Workshop CUNY 2020 Challenge Grant Program US Army Enhancement Grants UNCC Receives Enhancement Grants from Raytheon and AFRL Other UNCC News ABOUT THE CENTER FOR METAMATERIALS The CfM is an NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center. The consortium to date consists of four universities, seven companies and governmental agencies. The CfM performs industry relevant research, provides a broad range of resources, facilities, and equipment to member companies. Working with member companies the CfM identifies and performs research projects which have potential commercial applications. The CfM also provides access to student resources for the purposes of developing new research. Member companies interact with our highly qualified undergraduate and graduate students who often advance to become employees. If you are interested in metamaterials research please contact Polina Golovatch [email protected]. HFSS MODELING WORKSHOP AT CUNY Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Metamaterials (CfM) hosted the annual HFSS Modeling Workshop on June 13th. Leading professionals from various industries attended the course where they used HFSS software to model advanced optical and microwave materials. It is well known that building advanced optical and microwave materials is very expensive. Kate Duncan, Antenna Technology & Analysis Branch U.S. Army, agrees and comments: “simulating such materials can be cost effective because stakeholders can see the performance of these materials before they are built.” Users were taught in a classroom setting and had access to workstations preloaded with HFSS modeling software. Engineers from Ansys (HFSS’ software developer), CfM researchers and staff worked interactively with workshop attendees and answered questions related to the software. A training manual was provided to all workshop attendees containing examples of metamaterial structures. This training workshop was focused on beginners and intermediatelevel users. If you are interested in attending our upcoming workshops please contact Polina Golovatch ([email protected]) for details.
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NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Metamaterials
IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
§ SBIRs and Other Successful Supplemental Funding § HFSS Modeling Workshop § CUNY 2020 Challenge Grant Program § US Army Enhancement Grants § UNCC Receives Enhancement Grants from Raytheon and AFRL § Other UNCC News
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR METAMATERIALS The CfM is an NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center. The consortium to date consists of four universities, seven companies and governmental agencies. The CfM performs industry relevant research, provides a broad range of resources, facilities, and equipment to member companies. Working with member companies the CfM identifies and performs research projects which have potential commercial applications. The CfM also provides access to student resources for the purposes of developing new research. Member companies interact with our highly qualified undergraduate and graduate students who often advance to become employees. If you are interested in metamaterials research please contact Polina Golovatch [email protected]. HFSS MODELING WORKSHOP AT CUNY Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Metamaterials (CfM) hosted the annual HFSS Modeling Workshop on June 13th. Leading professionals from various industries attended the course where they used HFSS software to model advanced optical and microwave materials. It is well known that building advanced optical and microwave materials is very expensive. Kate Duncan, Antenna Technology & Analysis Branch U.S. Army, agrees and comments: “simulating such materials can be cost effective because stakeholders can see the performance of these materials before they are built.” Users were taught in a classroom setting and had access to workstations pre-‐loaded with HFSS modeling software. Engineers from Ansys (HFSS’ software developer), CfM researchers and staff worked interactively with workshop attendees and answered questions related to the software. A training manual was provided to all workshop attendees containing examples of metamaterial structures. This training workshop was focused on beginners and intermediate-‐level users. If you are interested in attending our upcoming workshops please contact Polina Golovatch ([email protected]) for details.
NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Metamaterials
SBIRs AWARDED TO CfM MEMBER COMPANIES CfM member companies and CfM staff have been working together to realize large supplemental funding opportunities. Phoebus (a small company member) teamed up with large companies, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, in four SBIR proposals to Army and Navy. SBIR awards were received for the following projects: Narrowband Perfect Absorber Using Metamaterials This project involves fundamental research on metamaterial perfect absorbers and their use in pixilated microbolometer imaging systems. This project will be applied to the large military and commercial markets for thermal imaging. The project team includes Phoebus Optoelectronics, the National Science Foundation’s Center for Metamaterials at the City University of New York, and Lockheed Martin. Metasurface Enhanced Solar Blind Ultraviolet Photodetector This project will develop plasmonic films that perform the dual functions of optical filtering and electrical conduction for solar blind ultraviolet radiation (UV) detectors. The benefits of a single layer structure that performs both optical filtering and electrical conduction are that it allows for lower cost, more robust, lighter weight solar blind UV detectors that can be designed to address numerous UV sensing markets and applications, including the detection of missile plumes, the large commercial markets of water and food purification systems, and flame sensors. The project team includes Phoebus Optoelectronics, the National Science Foundation’s Center for Metamaterials at the City University of New York, and Raytheon. Non-‐Mechanically Moving Solar Directing System for Photovoltaic Modules This project will develop a two-‐layer anti-‐reflective coating (ARC) that will have omni-‐directional properties. This approach offers cost and weight advantages over not only current mechanical solar directing systems, but also other similar graded ARCs based on silicon oxide. The project team includes Phoebus Optoelectronics, the National Science Foundation’s Center for Metamaterials at the City University of New York, and Lockheed Martin. Electro-‐Optically Guided Radar Imaging This project will develop a meta-‐surface consisting of a periodic array of metal-‐like patches that will allow real-‐time actively tunable focusing and steering a radiation beam in the millimeter frequency range. The proposed structures will allow for miniaturization to reduce the form factor to a hand-‐held device, and will eliminate detuning effects due to temperature fluctuations in the device. The project team includes Phoebus Optoelectronics, the National Science Foundation’s Center for Metamaterials at the City University of New York, and Lockheed Martin. Please contact Polina Golovatch ([email protected]) for more details on SBIR/STTR proposal programs.
Silicon Nitride
Graded index polymer
NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Metamaterials
CUNY 2020 CHALLENGE GRANT PROGRAM CUNY plans to award eight grants within the university ranging from $5 to $10 million dollars, funds to be distributed in 2014. The CfM will be using this program to create state-‐of-‐the-‐art facilities in close collaboration with CfM member companies. The goal is for this new facility to be viewed by CfM member companies as an integral component of their internal R&D capabilities and infrastructure. Currently the CfM is pursuing this grant opportunity to acquire better facilities and equipment for research, to improve training of graduate students, and to hire senior research personnel that will foster and maintain CfM’s research activities. These funds will be beneficial for the Center and its member companies because they would fund the advance of research projects of mutual interest among members and result in new and marketable technologies. The Center is working with CfM member companies in deciding what modeling, fabrication and testing equipment to acquire that can improve our ability to perform advanced research of direct relevance the CfM member companies. We are also enhancing other materials and device research by hiring senior research personnel specialized in antenna, sensors, solar cells, composites, and nanoparticles.
We would like to invite you to work with us on the planning of this new facility. To read more about the program, follow this link: http://www.cuny.edu/about/administration/offices/fpcm/2020challenge.html US ARMY AWARDS CfM WITH TWO ENHANCEMENT GRANTS US Army CERDEC Space and Terrestrial Communications Directorate awarded CUNY researchers with two enhancement grants. The funds will support two projects within the Center for Metamaterials. These projects will improve our knowledge of metamaterials structures for antennas.
Gain Enhancement to Vivaldi Antenna Using Metamaterials This project involves fundamental research on periodic metamaterial structures that will be incorporated into Vivaldi antenna’s aperture to mitigate reductions in gain. The Army has a requirement to develop a conformal directive antenna that meets a very stringent height requirement, which necessitates trade-‐offs in gain and bandwidth.
Conformal Artificial Magnetic Conductor Backed Antenna Structures This project will develop split ring resonator (SRR) metamaterials structures to be used as artificial magnetic conductors. By taking advantage of the strong resonance induced by these structures, the permittivity and permeability shall be independently adjusted, enabling reduction of the size and weight of communications antennas for Army platforms. The development of novel composite materials for use in antenna systems, which can be integrated within the platform’s structure, will enable the mitigation of communication system issues while reducing visual signature and relieving platform crowing.
UNCC RECEIVES ENHANCEMENT GRANTS FROM RAYTHEON AND AFRL UNCC was the recipient of enhancement grants from CfM members, AFRL and Raytheon. AFRL funding was divided equally between Dr. Glenn Boreman’s group on high-‐resolution E-‐field mapping for IR metamaterials and Mike Fiddy’s group on the modeling and design of optical metamaterials. Raytheon’s grant will support Dr. Ryan Adam’s research into the use of non-‐Foster elements to expand the bandwidth of conformal antennas and metamaterials.
NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Metamaterials
OTHER UNCC NEWS Vasily Astratov, currently funded by the IAB for Super-‐Resolution Imaging for Metamaterials Inspection, has been an active member of the CLEO Program Subcommittee for Micro-‐ and Nanophotonic Devices. He was also session chair at CLEO (Optomechanics II) and ICTON (Photonic Atoms and Molecules) this year. At ICTON, June 2013 in Spain, he had an invited talk, “Tuning the optical forces on-‐ and off-‐resonance in microspherical photonics”. He recently filed the provisional patent: Methods of Super-‐Resolution Imaging by High-‐Index Microspheres with A. Darafsheh, US patent application 61/656710.
Mike Fiddy was co-‐chair of the recently held Advances in Optoelectronics and Micro/Nano Optics (AOM III) held in Hong Kong. This Optical Society of America (OSA) Topical Meeting was co-‐located with another, the 7th International Conference on Nanophotonics (ICNP VII). He was invited to give a plenary tutorial entitled “Challenges in subwavelength–scale 3D imaging using metamaterials”. He also presented a shorter talk on imaging with practical negative index metamaterials at the recent (June) OSA Topical Meeting on Computational Optical Sensing and Imaging meeting in Arlington VA. Mike Fiddy was also recently appointed Deputy Editor of the new OSA-‐ SIOM journal Photonics Research whose first issue was published online this month (June 2013) and was appointed Chair-‐elect of OSA’s Meetings Council. RECENT CfM GRADUATES We congratulate two recent graduates who had been funded by CfM: MyCia Cox (Ph.D): Design and fabrication of low loss and low index optical metamaterials. Ritchie Dudley (MS): Metamaterials: an overview from theory to practice. PATENT APPLICATIONS Provisional patent applications are being filed on the results from recently funded CfM projects: i) “Low-‐loss low-‐index (0 < n < 1) optical metamaterials” using closely spaced transparent oxide nanoparticles and ii) “Highly efficient plasmonic solar cells” based on the LCR optimization of Au-‐ZnTe nanorod arrays for maximum spectral extinction. The low loss, low index optical metamaterials work is accepted for oral presentation at the SPIE Optics + Photonics Nanoscience conference on Metamaterials: Fundamentals and Applications. “Low-‐index metamaterials comprised of plasmonic dimers of aluminum-‐doped Zinc oxide”, Hossein Alisafaee, P. MyCia Cox, and M.A. Fiddy The significance of this research is that it describes a means to produce low loss low index optical materials as a function of nanoparticle size, spacing and permittivity. Materials with an index 0 < n < 1 will be used for surface coatings, very low dispersion optical waveguides and low observable/cloaking structures. Full-‐wave numerical simulations have been shown to be consistent with the predictions of a much simpler LCR model describing the bulk spectral properties of such metamaterials. The work has demonstrated how AZO nanospheres with radii less than 100nm that are distributed with an average spacing less than their diameter results in an effective medium with a refractive index less than unity. Experimental results proved consistent with these predictions.
NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Metamaterials
ZnTe is an interesting II-‐VI semiconductor material and ZnTe/ZnO configured as a type II heterojunction could be used to achieve an ideal effective bandgap for solar cells. Coupled plasmonic nanoparticles of Au and nanorods of ZnTe were modeled and fabricated. Full-‐wave simulations and LCR modeling were performed to obtain an optimum design of Au-‐ZnTe nanorod dimensions and spacings for maximum light absorption. An example of the spectral extinction of Au-‐ZnTe nanorods for solar harvesting, as a function of rod spacing is shown here. Rod dimensions determine the center frequency and bandwidth. Note on the right, the distribution of power dissipation in these rods.
CfM PUBLICATIONS 1. Y. Li, O. V. Svitelskiy, A. V. Maslov, D. Carnegie, E. Rafailov, V. N. Astratov. Giant resonant light
forces in microspherical photonics. Light: Science & Applications 2, e64 (2013). 2. A.V. Maslov, V.N. Astratov, M.I. Bakunov. Resonant propulsion of a microparticle by a surface
wave. Phys.Rev A87, 053848 (2013). 3. W. Yang, M. A. Fiddy. On the negative index perfect lens with loss. J. Basic and Applied Physics 2(2)
(2013). 4. Y-‐Chen Chuang, R. Dudley, M. A. Fiddy. A new approach to a practical subwavelength resolving
microscope. Applied Physics A DOI 10.1007/s00339-‐013-‐7741-‐0 (2013). 5. Y. Zhang, M. A. Fiddy. Covered image of superlens. PIERS 136:225-‐238 (2013). 6. J. S. D. Roberts, H. Alisafaee, M. A. Fiddy. Selective field localization in random structured media.
Applied Optics 52:742 (2013). 7. R. Tsu, M. A. Fiddy. Generalization of the effects of high Q for metamaterials. Photonics Research
1(2) (2013). 8. M. A. Fiddy, U. Shahid. Legacies of the Gerchberg-‐Saxton algorithm. Ultramicroscopy 133 (2013). 9. A. Enemuo, M. Nolan, Y. U. Jung, A. B. Golovin, D. T. Crouse. Extraordinary light circulation and
concentration of s-‐ and p-‐ polarized phase resonances. J Appl Phys 113, 014907 (2013). 10. I. M. Mandel, A. B. Golovin, D. T. Crouse. Analytical description of the dispersion relation for phase
resonances in compound transmission gratings. Phys Rev A 87, 053833 (2013). 11. I. Mandel, E. Lansey, J. Gollub, D. Crouse. An effective cavity resonance model for enhanced optical
transmission through arrays of subwavelength apertures in metal films. JOSA B (Under review). 12. I. Mandel, A. Golovin, D. Crouse. Fano phase resonances in multilayer metal-‐dielectric compound
