Professor Xiang Zhang: "The Quest for the Superlens"
Professor Xiang Zhang will be giving the first CMIP seminar in Schiciano Auditorium (CIEMAS) on October 9, 2008 at 3:00pm. He is a Chancellor’s Professor at UC Berkeley and the Director of NSF Nano-scale Science & Engineering Center (NSEC). He also serves as Director of Department of Defense MURI Center on Metamaterials and Devices. Click here for more information.
Abstract
The Quest for the Superlens
Recent theory predicted a new class of meta structures made of engineered sub wavelength entities - meta “atoms” and “molecules” which enable the unprecedented electromagnetic properties that do not exist in the nature. Especially, the predicted superlens made of metamterials breaks the fundamental diffraction limit, which may have profound impact in wide range of applications such as nano-scale imaging, nanolithography, and ultra-density data storage.
I’ll discuss a few recent experiments that demonstrated these intriguing phenomena. We created the first bulk optical metamaterials that show the negative refractions. We demonstrated the unique superlens and hyperlens using carefully design of plasmonic materials dispersions. I will further discuss a new technology based on superlens for nano-scale lithography that may transform the next generation of nano-manufacturing, along with nano plasmonics for imaging and bio-sensing. The surface plasmon indeed promises an exciting engineering paradigm of “x-ray wavelength at optical frequency”.
[1] J. Valentine, et., al., “3D Optical Metamaterial Exhibiting Negative Refractive Index", Nature, 455, 376-379
[2] J. Yao, et., al., "Optical Negative Refraction in Bulk Metamaterials", Science Vol. 321, 930, 2008
[3] Y. Werayute, et., al., “Flying Plasmonic lens at optical near field for high speed lithography ", Nature Nanotechnology (accepted).
[4] X. Zhang and Z. Liu, "Superlenses to overcome the diffraction limit", Nature Materials, Vol. 7, 435, 2008.
[5] Z. Liu, et., al., "Far-Field Optical Hyperlens Magnifying Sub-Diffraction-Limited Objects", Science, Vol. 315, 1686, 2007.
[6] N. Fang, et., al., "Sub-Diffraction-Limited Optical Imaging with a Silver Superlens", Science, Vol 308, pp534-537, 2005.
