What do metamaterials allow us to do that we couldn’t before? Those are properties engineers can use to make new devices. But by specifying the geometry of nanoscale gold, we can change the color of gold from yellow to green or red, and it can support many other types of optical properties that we don’t associate with bulk gold. Even when you go down to the nanoscale, gold is still gold. We usually think of gold as a bulk material that is reflective, yellowish and shiny. It’s kind of neat to see an example in the case of a metal like gold. So the concept of “meta” comes from our ability to engineer artificial materials, consisting of a composite of nanoscale structures, which can respond to light in entirely new ways. A lens made of a metamaterial will respond to light in ways that are no longer solely based on the properties of the material itself, but largely on the design and layout of these optical antennas. When you think of a conventional lens, you think of glass – the material, right? The glass in your camera or your eyeglasses bends light in very predictable ways based on the intrinsic material response of glass. What is the derivation of the term “meta” in the name metamaterials? We use those same patterning technologies to make these nanoscale antennas. Fortunately, the development of the modern electronic integrated circuit platform over the last half-century has produced mature technological processes that can help us define nanoscale features. These tiny antennas are many orders of magnitude smaller than a TV antenna. By configuring the geometry of these antennas individually and in collections, we can engineer systems that can interact with and manipulate light in entirely new ways. We are working to create nanoscale antennas that would be able to respond to visible light with wavelengths of 400 to 700 nanometers, or infrared light, where wavelengths are on the order of a micron. Those antennas were designed for radio waves that were centimeters to meters in length. If your picture wasn’t very good, you would get up and physically reconfigure the antenna geometry to change its performance. Back in the day before cable and satellite, TVs had metal antennas. We talked to Fan about his visions in metamaterial engineering and about his interdisciplinary collaborations with fellow Stanford professors Allison Okamura and Sean Follmer in projects such as integrating new types of electromagnetic systems with robots.Īt its most basic level, we are bringing the idea of an antenna down to the nanoscale. Fan is just the fourth Stanford electrical engineer to win the fellowship since 1988, and the financial support that comes with it will enable him to carry on work that is so innovative that it can otherwise prove difficult to fund through traditional means. He recently won the prestigious 2016 Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, which funds the most promising early-career professors in fields ranging from physics and chemistry to engineering. Jonathan Fan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and director of the ExFab at the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility, is leading the way. The Catalyst for Collaborative SolutionsĪ field of materials science known as metamaterials has recently captured the imagination of engineers hoping to create nanoscale optical devices.Technology Transfer/Technology Licensing.Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school).Stanford Data Science & Computation Complex.Stanford Engineering Reunion Weekend 2022.Dean’s Graduate Student Advisory Council.Summer Opportunities in Engineering Research and Leadership (Summer First). Graduate school frequently asked questions.
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