‘Bending’ light to engineer improved optical devices and circuits | News | Notre Dame News | University of Notre Dame Skip To Content Skip To Navigation Skip To Search University of Notre Dame Notre Dame News Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Home Contact Search Menu Home › News › ‘Bending’ light to engineer improved optical devices and circuits ‘Bending’ light to engineer improved optical devices and circuits Published: November 11, 2020 Author: Nina Welding Irfan Khan, electrical engineering Ph.D. student. Rainbows are formed when light bends — or refracts — as it enters and exits a water droplet. The amount that the light bends depends on the color of the light, resulting in white light being separated into a beautiful spectrum of colors. The index of refraction, one of the tools that optical engineers use to control light, describes the interaction between light and matter. Recently, materials that have an index of refraction that vanishes have gained significant interest across the scientific and engineering communities. These materials, called epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) materials, show great promise for applications in imaging small objects, detecting minute concentrations of targeted molecules (e.g., explosives, toxic chemicals, pollutants) and enabling a new generation of optical devices and circuits. A team from the University of Notre Dame in collaboration with researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell has shown how the optical properties of ENZ materials can be engineered to improve optical devices. Their work uses many of the same materials that are used in industry for high-power electronics and could one day allow for the integration of this novel optical behavior into optical devices. Optical devices create, manipulate or measure electromagnetic radiation — light, both the visible and invisible. Eyeglasses and camera lenses, microscopes and telescopes, lasers, light-emitting diodes and solar cells are examples of common optical devices that have been developed to help see and sense the world. Each of these devices exploits the index of refraction in a different way. The team shared its results in a recent paper published in Optics Express. “Many molecules have vibrational modes in the mid-infrared spectral region, and these vibrations can be used to detect them,” said Irfan Khan, an electrical engineering doctorate student and the paper's lead author. “We used ENZ materials to couple to a special optical mode, known as the Berreman mode, to engineer specific optical responses in semiconductor materials currently used in industry.” Engineering these novel optical modes using semiconductor materials is a critical step to incorporating ENZ materials into future optical devices and circuits, says Anthony Hoffman, associate professor of electrical engineering and project lead. “The fact that ENZ materials are readily available, simple to fabricate and operate well on a very small scale also makes them ideal for a variety of applications.” Posted In: Research Home Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Related October 05, 2022 Astrophysicists find evidence for the presence of the first stars October 04, 2022 NIH awards $4 million grant to psychologists researching suicide prevention September 29, 2022 Notre Dame, Ukrainian Catholic University launch three new research grants September 27, 2022 Notre Dame, Trinity College Dublin engineers join to advance novel treatment for cystic fibrosis September 22, 2022 Climate-prepared countries are losing ground, latest ND-GAIN index shows For the Media Contact Office of Public Affairs and Communications Notre Dame News 500 Grace Hall Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Pinterest © 2022 University of Notre Dame Search Mobile App News Events Visit Accessibility Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube LinkedIn