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The work in collaboration with Paris Saclay University and La Sapienza in Rome, has been published in ACS Nano.

We have demonstrated a thermal transducer capable to detect strong light-matter interaction by monitoring heat dissipation in a quantum well sandwiched between an antenna and a thermally expanding material.

The result is interesting because the technique does not rely on far-field analysis (often difficult to achieve) and also opens the way to exploit dissipative dynamics in cavity-embedded quantum systems.

See more: https://pubs.acs.org/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1021/acsnano.2c04452&ref=pdf

Many processes depend superlinearly on light intensity (that is: two photons are more than twice as better as one). This work shows how to efficiently design lossless ultrathin dielectric optical metasurfaces to achieve extremely large light intensities. The concept can benefit nonlinear optical processes such as photothermal catalysis, light-driven desalination or higher-harmonics generation.

Interestingly, we also show that sometimes it is better to give up some input power (i.e., lose some energy) if that translates into more local field intensities.

Thanks to Yage Zhao and Ming Zhang and great collaboration with Nordlander’s group

Fast Topology Optimization for Near-Field Focusing All-Dielectric Metasurfaces Using the Discrete Dipole Approximation

EscapeTheRoom

The article has been published in Joule. Among other things, it shows how flow rates can be modified without affecting heat transfer if the regime is dominated by thermal conductivity. This can help in controlling chemical reactions without affecting the temperature.

Challenges in temperature measurements in gas-phase photothermal catalysis       

In this perspective, in collaboration with the groups of Paolo Fornasiero,  Vladimir Shalaev, Alexandra Boltasseva and Alberto Naldoni we discuss the role of plasmonic metasurfaces in photothermal catalysis. Published in Nanophotonics:

Challenges and prospects of plasmonic metasurfaces for photothermal catalysis

Big congrats to Will for being awarded the GRFP Fellowship from the National Science Foundation!

Our Response to “Distinguishing thermal from non-thermal contributions to plasmonic hydrodefluorination” has been published in Nature Catalysis

We have utilized a plasmonic nano-rectenna to increase by ~100 times the efficiency of optical rectification at 1064nm (~280 THz).

Converting optical signals into DC current can be achieved through rectification but the process is typically inefficient for larger energies. The approach shows promise for high-frequency wireless power transmission and, possibly, future rectifying light-harvesting systems.

The work has been published in Advanced Energy Materials:

“High-Frequency Light Rectification by Nanoscale Plasmonic Conical Antenna in Point-Contact-Insulator-Metal Architecture”

Great collaboration with the Italian Institute of Technology.

Congratulations to Andrea Schirato for winning the ‘Best Student Presentation’ at EOSAM 2021 with his talk:

“Tuning photothermal dynamics in gold nanoparticle-loaded agarose gel for plasmon-enhanced drug release“

Happy to announce a new Special Issue on the use of photonics for energy applications which will be published by IOP. Dr. Johann Toudert (ICFO) and I will be co-editing the volume.

#energy #photonics #nanotechnology

I encourage you to submit your work before the deadline, October 1st 2021.

Please contact me or Johann if you have any questions. More info at the link below.

https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2515-7647/page/Focus-on-Photonics-for-Practical-and-Efficient-Energy-Solutions

Rice University Electrical and Computer Engineering