Bulletin of the American Physical Society
Joint Spring 2011 Meeting of the New England Sections of the APS and the AAPT
Volume 56, Number 2
Friday–Saturday, April 8–9, 2011; Lowell, Massachusetts
Session H1: Materials III |
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Chair: William Goodhue, UMass Lowell Room: Olney Science Center 0-150 |
Saturday, April 9, 2011 10:00AM - 10:50AM |
H1.00001: Bending the laws of diffraction with hyperbolic metamaterials Invited Speaker: Diffraction strongly affects our everyday life as well as our future progress. It provides the resolution limit for microscopy, photography, and other imaging techniques; it determines the scattering and emission properties of small objects; it affects the propagation of telecom signals in bent fibers. The diffraction can be understood as the ability of the relatively small, wavelength-scale, structures to change the direction of the beam of light propagating in the surrounding medium. The resulting change in the propagation of the beam is determined by the complex interplay between the shape and size of the structures and of the beam, and, to the large degree, by the properties of the material surrounding the obstacles. Here we show that a subclass of metamaterials, nanostructured composites with strong anisotropy of their optical response, known as hyperbolic media, are capable of providing unique modifications to the well-known diffraction laws. In particular, hyperbolic media open the door for negative refraction, sub-wavelength focusing, super-resolution imaging, and introduce new mechanisms for nonlinear interaction of optical beams. In the talk we will discuss theoretical foundations of optics of hyperbolic metamaterials and will also present the results of recent experimental studies of these unique systems. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, April 9, 2011 10:50AM - 11:40AM |
H1.00002: Nanostructure Approach for High-performance Thermoelectrics, Photovoltaics, and Biosensing Invited Speaker: Nanomaterials have many potential applications in energy conversion systems due to their special structural and physical properties. Such applications often require materials manufacturing at large scale and low cost. In the first part of this talk, I will discuss the manufacturing of nanostructured bulk thermoelectric materials at large scale with improved thermoelectric properties. The materials were produced by a low cost ball milling and hot pressing process. The ball milling makes nanopowders in the quantities of up to multiple tons. Such nanopowders were then hot pressed by a direct current induced hot pressing into dense bulk materials. In the second part of this talk, I will demonstrate the concept and realization of nano coax cables that can be used for sub-wavelength light transmission and efficient solar conversion into electricity. In the last part of this talk, I will show a highly sensitive biosensor using aligned carbon nanotubes and gas sensors using nano coaxial cables. [Preview Abstract] |
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