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Mid-Infrared Nanophotonics for Sensing and Nanoscale Manipulation

Abstract: In this talk, I will mainly discuss two areas of mid-infrared photonics research which my group is currently undertaking. The first part will focus on our recent development of mid-infrared nanophotonic chemical and biological sensors employing new materials (e.g., liquid gallium) and/or device structure designs to achieve convenient and efficient delivery of analytes to sensing hot spots (i.e., the device regions with high field confinement and enhancement), which in turn lead to state-of-the-art sensitivity performance for surface-enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) sensing. The second part will focus on a new graphene-based platform for optical trapping and manipulation of nanoscale objects using mid-infrared excitation, which we recently proposed and theoretically investigated. Specifically, we demonstrated that a two-dimensional network of plasmonic “conveyor belts” can be realized by employing graphene plasmonic structures, which can be used to trap, transport and apply versatile manipulations of multiple nanoscale objects simultaneously and independently. All of these functions/operations are controlled electrically, which indicates high system scalability.

Bio: Dr. Peter Qiang Liu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. He obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Princeton University in 2012. Before joining University at Buffalo in January 2017, he conducted postdoctoral research at ETH Zurich (2012-2015) and Sandia National Laboratories (2015-2016). His current research focuses on developing mid-infrared and terahertz photonic devices for a range of applications. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award in 2019.

All seminars are held on Wednesdays from 12:00 noon-1:00 p.m. in the Bowen Hall Auditorium Room 222. A light lunch is provided at 11:30 a.m. in the Bowen Hall Atrium immediately prior to the seminar.