Achieving Functional Photonic Metadevices

Abstract: The past decade has witnessed the flourish of metadevices as a novel platform offering unprecedented flexibility in manipulating the intrinsic properties (magnitude, phase, polarization, frequency, etc.) of light on subwavelength scales. In this talk, I will present the progress in our recent experimental and theoretical studies towards functional photonic metadevices, including the following four areas. First, electrooptic metadevices based on phase change materials and directed assembly of nanoparticles. Second, nonlinear meta-mirrors for handedness-dependent harmonic generations and ultrafast polarization switching of light. Third, 3D metadevices based on state-of-art fabrication techniques, including 3D-printed micro-helices for chiral-selective nonlinearities, an asymmetric transmission metadevice leveraging a combination of a genetic algorithm (GA) based optimization method and a membrane projection lithography (MPL) fabrication approach, and inexpensive/large-area THz chiral metamaterials enabled by textile manufacturing. And last, pure dielectric metasurfaces exhibiting high-Q resonances based on bound states in the continuum (BICs). I will be focusing on not only the underlying mechanisms of the distinct metadevices, but also the challenges and opportunities from the perspective of practical applications.   

Bio: Dr. Kang is currently an assistant research professor in the Computational Electromagnetics and Antennas Research Lab (CEARL) in the Department of Electrical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. He received his PhD (2010) from Tsinghua University, China, in material science and engineering. His post-doctoral research experience includes IEMN, Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, France, Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, and LAPO, Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Kang has published over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and is the author/coauthor of 1 book and 2 book chapters. His research interests include nanophotonics, plasmonics, and metadevices operating at RF, THz, and optical frequencies. He is a member of OSA and IEEE.