Project title: Nanoplasmonics and metamaterials at the classical/quantum boundary

Supervisors: Professor Ortwin Hess, Professor Stefan Maier

Project description:

The goal of the project is to model a plasmonic device with active gain media material to compensate losses, using the example of a dimer structure. To date an active dimer (two infinite nano-wires) system has been successfully modelled with the FDTD (finite difference, time domain) code “Meta” [1]. The initial aim of the project will be to simulate a four level system for simple dimer geometries to compare with existing data. An active Fano resonance system will be modelled. Material and geometric asymmetries in the active dimer system will be explored. The quantum four level system is currently modeled with the Maxwell Bloch equations which do not capture any transport phenomena. In the latter stages of the project the model will be extended to allow for simple diffusion-like transport by adding spatial derivatives to the numerical integration scheme.

[1] Gain and plasmon dynamics in active negative-index metamaterials Sebastian Wuestner, Andreas Pusch, Kosmas L. Tsakmakidis, Joachim M. Hamm, Ortwin Hess Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A:2011369 3525-3550;DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2011.0140.Published 1 August 2011