About This Webinar
The initial, landmark integrated photonic devices relied on silicon and III-V materials, and recent advancements in material fabrication and deposition methods have enabled a plethora of new technologies based on materials with higher optical nonlinearities, including 2D materials and organic polymers. However, nonlinear optical (NLO) organic small molecules have not experienced similar growth, due to a perceived environmental instability and to challenges related to intra- and intermolecular interactions. Because NLO small molecules have NLO coefficients that are orders of magnitude larger than conventional optical materials, developing strategies to fabricate optical devices could enable significant performance improvements.
In recent work, Andrea Armani and colleagues combined conventional top-down fabrication methods with bottom-up techniques to develop on-chip devices that incorporated NLO small molecules. These hybrid systems provide access to optical behavior and performance not attainable with conventional-material systems. Armani discusses examples of NLO small-molecule integrated resonators, including Raman lasers and all-optical switchable devices.
***This presentation premiered during the 2021
Photonics Spectra Conference Optics track. For information on upcoming Photonics Media events,
see our event calendar here.
About the presenter
Andrea Armani, Ph.D., received a B.A. in physics from the University of Chicago and a doctorate in applied physics, with a minor in biology, from the California Institute of Technology. She is currently the Ray Irani Chair of Engineering and Materials Science and a professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Southern California. Armani is the director of USC's two nanofabrication cleanrooms: the W. M. Keck Photonics Cleanroom and the John D. O'Brien Nanofabrication Laboratory. She is on the editorial board of
ACS Photonics and
APL Photonics and is a feature editor of
Optics Letters. She is also a member of Sigma Xi and NAI, a senior member of IEEE and AIChE, and a fellow of OSA and SPIE. Armani has received several awards, including the ONR Young Investigator Award, the PECASE, and the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, and she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Her dedication to mentoring the next generation of scientists and engineers has been recognized with the USC Mellon Mentoring Award for Undergraduate Mentoring, and the Hanna Reisler Award for Mentoring.