{"id":1031,"date":"2016-11-03T15:53:41","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T15:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/?p=1031"},"modified":"2016-11-03T15:53:41","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T15:53:41","slug":"associate-professor-of-physics-brett-barwick-published-in-nature-communications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/2016\/11\/03\/associate-professor-of-physics-brett-barwick-published-in-nature-communications\/","title":{"rendered":"Associate Professor of Physics Brett Barwick Published in \u2018Nature Communications\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research by Trinity College Associate Professor of Physics Brett Barwick<\/a> contributed to a breakthrough in the field of imaging nanoscale optical fields that was published in the journal Nature Communications<\/em><\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\"Trinity_3017Web700\"<\/a>The project was led by Fabrizio Carbone, a researcher at the Swiss research institute and university Ecole Polytechnique F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Lausanne (EPFL), and exemplified international collaboration. Scientists made contributions from institutions around the world, including the University of Glasgow, EPFL\u2019s Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy, Boston University, the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, and the Instituci\u00f3 Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats. The project was funded by the European Research Council (ERC), the Swiss National Science Foundation (NCCR-MUST), Trinity College, the Connecticut Space Grant Consortium, and El Ministerio de Econom\u00eda y Competitividad (Spain).<\/p>\n

Barwick and the team of researchers developed a new technique that can track light and electrons through a nanostructured \u2013 very tiny, very thin \u2013 surface. The silicon nitride membrane array used in the project was only 50 nanometers thick (one nanometer is equal to one billionth of a meter) and was covered with an even thinner layer of silver. When light couples with electrons, they move together as a single wave guided by the shape of the surface itself. These waves of light and electrons are called \u201csurface plasmons\u201d and could potentially be useful in the future of telecommunications and computing, where data can be moved across processors using light instead of electricity. Before this breakthrough, there was no way of tracking the guided light, or plasmons, as they move across the surface buried under the thin silver layer. Now, there is a way of seeing and tracking these buried plasmons, which move at speeds close to speed of light.<\/p>\n

The scientists working on this project created a tiny antenna array that would allow the plasmons (light and electrons) to travel across the buried surface. They then punched microscopic nano-holes into the array, which would act as the antennas, or hotspots for the plasmons. Using the ultrafast technique they developed, the researchers were not only able to see the propagation of the guided light, but they were also able to film it \u2013 even when it is bound to a buried interface.<\/p>\n

This breakthrough and subsequent research paper pave the way for designing and controlling confined fields of plasmons in multi-layered structures where interfaces might be buried underneath one another. This is important for creating future devices that combine light and electronics, commonly referred to as the field of optoelectronics.<\/p>\n

Lead researcher Carbone explained the project using an analogy. \u201cTrying to see plasmons in these interfaces between layers is a bit like trying to film people in a house from the outside,\u201d Carbone said. \u201cA regular camera won’t show you anything; but if you use microwave or a similar energy-tracking imaging, you can see right through the walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barwick travels yearly to work with Carbone and his group members in Lausanne, Switzerland, to complete collaborative experiments. This particular project started during Barwick\u2019s sabbatical there in spring 2014. Barwick said, \u201cFuture optoelectronic devices based on these very tiny and sensitive nanostructures will likely need to have protective layers coated on them.\u00a0 The technique that we have developed allows us to see through those layers and capture the circuit\u2019s dynamics, which would otherwise be invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barwick joined the Trinity physics faculty in 2010 and his research interests include experimental studies of fundamental quantum mechanics using ultrashort packets of electrons and probing interactions between photons and electrons on the nanoscale. He teaches both upper level and introductory level courses in the Physics Department and has published numerous scientific articles, some with Trinity students as co-authors, in publications such as Review of Scientific Instruments<\/em>, Nature Communications<\/em>, and Optics Express<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Written by Molly Thoms \u201917 and Eleanor Worsley \u201917<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research by Trinity College Associate Professor of Physics Brett Barwick contributed to a breakthrough in the field of imaging nanoscale optical fields that was published in the journal Nature Communications earlier this month. The project was led by Fabrizio Carbone, a researcher at the Swiss research institute and university Ecole Polytechnique F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Lausanne (EPFL), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1424,"featured_media":1034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1035,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions\/1035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}