Dr. Zubin Jacob, an Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Purdue University, recently received the NSF CAREER* award for his proposal entitled, Controlling Single Photon Interactions with K-Surface Engineered Nanomaterials. The total amount of support awarded is $461,877 over the next 5 years.

Nontechnical description: Very closely spaced atoms and molecules in our environment are constantly interacting, attracting and repelling each other. Such interactions ultimately enable a myriad of phenomena, such as the sticky pads on gecko feet, as well as photosynthesis. This project addresses the outstanding challenge to increase the range of such microscopic interactions to much larger lengths, thus also impacting future development of photonic devices for optical information processing. The research develops a nanostructured material platform which molds the flow of light energy, so that embedded atoms and molecules are able to strongly interact with each other over long distances. The project also pushes frontiers of materials design by studying interactions of fast electrons and pairs of photons - small bundles of light - with the structured medium. The project puts forth an innovation in education: Discovery-Centered Learning and Teaching to augment the currently prevalent Knowledge-Centered approach. The goal is to impact industry researchers and undergraduate students about device applications of strongly interacting photonic systems through online courses. The project also addresses the challenge of engaging high school science teachers to incorporate the laboratory's discovery process in teaching pedagogy through state-wide and national conferences.

Technical description: One of the major challenges of modern photonics is to engineer interactions between quantum emitters for building non-classical light sources beyond the laser, enhancing quantum coherence for inter-molecular energy transfer and achieving fundamentally new collective quantum states between light and matter. These dipole-dipole interactions arise from vacuum fluctuations causing quantum emitters in the near-field to interact with each other. However, such interactions scale dramatically with distance which fundamentally limits many phenomena such as Van der Waals forces, Forster resonance energy transfer, collective super-radiance and Lamb shifts to the near-field. This project aims to overcome the long-standing challenge of near-field interactions between quantum emitters at the single photon level through the development of a unique materials platform. The approach uses a structured material with engineered energy-momentum dispersion engineering (k-surface engineering) to enhance dipole-dipole interactions. This research activity involves a paradigm shift of controlling the non-radiative Coulombic near-fields (Super-Coulombic Dipole-Dipole Interactions) and marks a departure from circuit QED, photonic crystals, micro-cavities or optical lattice approaches which only engineer radiative interactions. The research activity additionally pushes the frontiers of materials probing through the development of new tools - momentum space electron energy loss spectroscopy and entangled bi-photon spectroscopy. The educational component of this project puts forth an innovation in education called Discovery-Centered Learning and Teaching, to widely disseminate the research findings through online courses and conferences targeting high school science teachers, undergraduate students and industry researchers.

*The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. Such activities should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. For more information, please see: http://www.nsf.gov/career