The objective of this SGER proposal is to investigate extraordinary transmission effect in plasmonic crystals to develop fundamentally new detection platforms for quantitative, specific and high throughput detection of biomolecules.
Intellectual Merit: Extraordinary transmission effect has been suggested for various applications ranging from sensing, to near-field optics and optoelectronics. But, its underlying physical mechanism is still not clear. In this proposal the PI will investigate the origin of the effect and focus on engineering new plasmonic crystal structures that can support both propagating and localized plasmons. In particular, the shape effect of the nano-apertures will be investigated both numerically and experimentally for strong field enhancement and large plasmon resonance shift. The structures will be tested by using various model biomolecules with different sizes to determine the metric of sensors. Surface chemistry will also be optimized for structured gold surfaces.
Broader Impacts: The broad goal of this proposal is to integrate plasmonics and nanophotonics concepts for realization of new generation of biosensors. The PI will put strong effort to integrate research and education by feeding new research results back into the courses that PI is currently developing, trying to attract underrepresented minority students, and by working with outreach programs to help young students start a career in science and technology,. In particular, the PI will continue to organize hand-on activities for existing outreach programs of Boston University such as Upward Bound Math and Science and Summer Pathways that are targeting minority high school students.
