This research program on the use of semiconductor microstructures as optical waveguides involves methods that are computationally intensive. The Engineering Research Equipment Grant will provide a workstation with the computational facility needed to carry out this work. The goal of this project is to determine the characteristics of new, novel integrated electro-optic devices. The PI will propose to investigate a new, developing research area focused on quantum well microstructure optical waveguides (QWOWG). Briefly, QWOWG is defined as an optical waveguide with quantum well (QW) boundaries, confining mobile charge, on the boundary or the vicinity of a guiding structure, modifying the propagation characteristics of the structure. Such modified propagation characteristics will be analyzed in the studies. Moreover, with electron-wave tunneling between QWs, excitation of higher QW subbands, and electromagnetic Floquet modes due to QW periodic patterns, such structures have ample mechanisms for anomalies. It is these anomalies that may prove useful for new devices. Two dimensional (2D) and/or three dimensional (3D) QWs are represented in any of a variety of planar patterns in terms of a frequency and spatially dependent nonlocal complex conductivity, o. QW conductivity calculations, will be carried out in terms of quantum-mechanical linear-response theory, employing a Schroedinger Green's function formulation as appropriate. Determination of the propagation characteristics of QW microstructure waveguides involves extensive computation using a modified form of the spectral domain method (SDM). In the PI's treatment using this technique, a surface current vector field of arbitrary strength serves to represent the QW pattern.
