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4 Photonics Projects Get Defense Funding

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The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded funding totaling $28.3 million for four photonics graduate research projects under its Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI).

Brief summaries of the projects follow. For further information on each project, follow the hyperlinks provided.

• $7.5 million for study of photochemical and photophysical processes involving plasmonic nanoparticles. Potential applications include water remediation, sterilization, distillation and electric power generation.

One project group will examine the charge and energy transfer between plasmons and molecules, while another will use spectroscopy to measure the processes in real time. Team members come from the universities of Columbia, Princeton, Rice, Minnesota and Oldenburg, Germany.

• $7.5 million for exploration of plasma-based photonic crystals and metamaterials that operate in the terahertz range. Potential applications include communications, imaging and remote sensing.

Team members come from the universities of Pennsylvania State, Stanford, Tufts, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); University of Texas at Austin; and Washington.

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• $6.75 million for research into quantum computers. One goal of the new project is to communicate information between electrical quantum states and light using high-frequency mechanical motion as the intermediary. Specifically, the team will exploit the piezoelectric effect in optomechanical devices so as to transfer information between optical, vibrational and electrical quantum states.

The team includes members from the University of Chicago, Cornell, McGill and Yale universities, and the California Institute of Technology.

• $6.5 million to examine configurable metasurfaces that manipulate light for advances in lenses, communications, imaging and quantum information.

Team members come from the universities of Harvard, Columbia, Lund, Purdue, Stanford, Pennsylvania and Southampton.

The photonics projects are among 24 basic research initiatives at 64 academic institutions receiving a total of $167 million over the next five years from DOD. Initially, 361 white papers were received, 88 of which were selected for more detailed proposals.

DOD said past MURI projects have led to advances in laser frequency combs for precision in navigation and targeting, atomic and molecular self-assembly, and spintronics.

Published: June 2014
Glossary
nano
An SI prefix meaning one billionth (10-9). Nano can also be used to indicate the study of atoms, molecules and other structures and particles on the nanometer scale. Nano-optics (also referred to as nanophotonics), for example, is the study of how light and light-matter interactions behave on the nanometer scale. See nanophotonics.
photonic crystals
Photonic crystals are artificial structures or materials designed to manipulate and control the flow of light in a manner analogous to how semiconductors control the flow of electrons. Photonic crystals are often engineered to have periodic variations in their refractive index, leading to bandgaps that prevent certain wavelengths of light from propagating through the material. These bandgaps are similar in principle to electronic bandgaps in semiconductors. Here are some key points about...
piezoelectric effect
The interaction between electrical and mechanical stress-strain factors in a material. When piezoelectric crystal is compressed, an electrostatic voltage is generated across it, or when an electric field is applied, the crystal may expand or contract in particular directions.
plasma
A gas made up of electrons and ions.
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